On retiring, what new things did you start...

[lovetravellingoz]

I guess it was the living on the airfield at Rabaul for three months that got me. 0600 Focker Friendship was the alarm clock. (That was 1 week after getting Married)

Which just goes to prove the old location, location, location adage.

A swish hotel with a nearby nightclub can be hell (Which is why I read TripAdvisor prior to any booking) , just as a tent with a Focker Alarm was

My accommodation varies enormously, but when I camp it is normally due the location, and often there is no alternative but to camp in the locations that I like to camp in.

I normally work out my location, location, location first...and then what accommodation I will use or book afterwards. Sometimes it is a a bareboat yacht I have chartered, sometimes a tent, sometime as B&B and yes sometimes a swish hotel room.

The actual accommodation is often not that important to me unless it is the holiday (ie cruise, yacht, resort....) as in will I be spending time in the room, rather than just sleeping there.

Camping on the shores of Lake Malawi. Malawi, Africa on our self-drive African Odysssy. Tent on the basic side, but very quick to put up/take down...and we were rarely actually in it!

Whereas yes in Koh Samui a Beach Villa with plunge pool was very nice..

And what is there not to like about 14 days on a Bareboat Cat in The Whitsundays..
Which is the other retirement dilemma...Do I buy the Caravan first, or the boat?

 

[Flying mermaid]

So decluttering continues - we are still left with two sets of towels for the upstairs bathroom, plus can make up 3 spare beds - what on earth was I doing with the rest of this stuff!

 

[tgh]

With much time elapsed , there are now a quite few established truth's in my life .

One is..
The best day of your life may seem to be the day you buy a boat ..
The best day of your life, ( by several orders of magnitude ) is the day you sell it…

Sadly his behaviour is experiential and cannot be taught

 

[Denali]

Im trying to de-clutter but the husband keeps bringing guitars into the house! Hes run out of wall space at home.

I took him to the Fender factory.

 

[aussiejohn]

After being compulsorily "retired" at 64, I haven't really started anything new. Just trying to make time for the things I could only spend minimal time on whilst working. My main interest in life is Genealogy. For 18 months of the recent past, I was studying off and on, and in December graduated with a Diploma in Family History. A great achievement for me, and has given me a confidence boost since I left school having failed Leaving Certificate! I've also managed to attend a couple of big genealogy events, namely Rootstech in Salt Lake City (courtesy of my Velocity points), and a Congress in Sydney in March this year. A few weeks ago, I was offered a place in a Certificate of Genealogical Research, a course being run by the Society of Australian Genealogists. By all accounts this is apparently not easy to get into, so feeling quite chuffed. I do and don't miss work if that makes sense. I hated the commuting, and the lazy, negative people in the office who achieved nothing, and would never have a hope of getting another job anywhere else. But I miss my friends and our daily chats etc. I am a loner by nature, but I still enjoy talking to people. I am very unlikely to ever work again, as I have no "profession" as such. Just a pen pusher most of my life. Genealogy offers some possibilities, particularly in training and speaking. I was a trainer in a previous life, and I enjoy teaching. Travel is also one of my passions, but I don't have swathes of FF points, it is hard for me to earn enough, though I have amassed 450K QFF points, so I guess not impossible. I can't take advantage of credit card offers etc, and even getting a new CC is almost impossible. So I am stuck with my devalued Woolies Visa. I ditched my ANZ FF Platinum when they destroyed that last year. Managed to fight Amex and convince them to give me a basic Explorer card. Only one point per dollar, but better than nothing - and no annual fee! But there appears nothing I can replace Woolies with. I am hoping to go to the UK this year. It is the 50th anniversary of my very first trip to the UK when I was just 17 years old. I am keen to celebrate this milestone.

 

[pagingjoan]

After being compulsorily "retired" at 64, I haven't really started anything new. Just trying to make time for the things I could only spend minimal time on whilst working. My main interest in life is Genealogy. For 18 months of the recent past, I was studying off and on, and in December graduated with a Diploma in Family History. A great achievement for me, and has given me a confidence boost since I left school having failed Leaving Certificate! I've also managed to attend a couple of big genealogy events, namely Rootstech in Salt Lake City (courtesy of my Velocity points), and a Congress in Sydney in March this year. A few weeks ago, I was offered a place in a Certificate of Genealogical Research, a course being run by the Society of Australian Genealogists. By all accounts this is apparently not easy to get into, so feeling quite chuffed. I do and don't miss work if that makes sense. I hated the commuting, and the lazy, negative people in the office who achieved nothing, and would never have a hope of getting another job anywhere else. But I miss my friends and our daily chats etc. I am a loner by nature, but I still enjoy talking to people. I am very unlikely to ever work again, as I have no "profession" as such. Just a pen pusher most of my life. Genealogy offers some possibilities, particularly in training and speaking. I was a trainer in a previous life, and I enjoy teaching. Travel is also one of my passions, but I don't have swathes of FF points, it is hard for me to earn enough, though I have amassed 450K QFF points, so I guess not impossible. I can't take advantage of credit card offers etc, and even getting a new CC is almost impossible. So I am stuck with my devalued Woolies Visa. I ditched my ANZ FF Platinum when they destroyed that last year. Managed to fight Amex and convince them to give me a basic Explorer card. Only one point per dollar, but better than nothing - and no annual fee! But there appears nothing I can replace Woolies with. I am hoping to go to the UK this year. It is the 50th anniversary of my very first trip to the UK when I was just 17 years old. I am keen to celebrate this milestone.

You deserve congratulations on your achievements, especially given the non-voluntary nature of your retirement.

Well done!

And may you continue to enjoy your new - and not so new - interests and directions.

Report back on your adventures.

 

[PLANT]

Just thought these videos might help future retiring caravan purchase:

Note you can click to other videos showing the exterior via end of video, also links in "show more" description.

 

[Blinky]

I’m planning to retire in about two years at 68 or 69, even though I can afford to do so now. I still enjoy my job and my lifestyle. When I do retire I plan to go back to uni and study, probably, art history. No HECS payable due to the way I will structure my income.

 

[Milboo]

I’m planning to retire in about two years at 68 or 69, even though I can afford to do so now. I still enjoy my job and my lifestyle. When I do retire I plan to go back to uni and study, probably, art history. No HECS payable due to the way I will structure my income.

Art History is super interesting. It was my major in my Arts degree (sub major was Classics - so Greek and Roman History which was also very interesting).

 

[Blinky]

Where did you study this?

 

[Milboo]

Where did you study this?

University of Canterbury in Christchurch, NZ.

 

[JohnM]

Did it lead to a job?

 

[cove]

JohnM you just stirred up my memory of my parents who were both heavily into education with maths , science and English.
They really disliked courses like Archaeology, Anthropology, Ancient Greek as it would rarely lead to employment up to the seventies.
I used to think you could converse in Ancient Greek if you were to meet an Ancient when touring the back blocks of Greece.
We seem to be able to travel more by working part time and using an iPad for Skype and handling work questions. It will be baseball on Wednesday down watching the Angels with our youngest son.

 

[Milboo]

Did it lead to a job?

Was never intended to lead to a job. Was the by-product of my main degree and done for pure interest sake and to balance the tedium of my main degree. One day - I dream of a job in my field at the likes of MOMA.

We had several adult students in our course doing it as interest later in life.

 

[JohnM]

Your answer to @Blinky gave me the impression that it was your main field of study - hence the question. As my old early primary school classmate @cove points out, back in the mid-20th century we were always encouraged to seek a career through our education and that mainly leaned to 'practical' stuff. In the case of @cove, that meant becoming the great master of extracting FF points from every conceivable source ; in my case it was merely as a mundane scientist .

 

[Blinky]

To update my position just a couple of months after my last post, i’ve been training for a trip to the Himslayas in two months, and enjoying it immensely. Last weekend I did 15km and 21km hikes over rough and hilly tracks. I can see me keeping this up in retirement and taking on bigger challenges, perhaps even Kilimanjaro.

I’m extremely lucky that I have good aerobic capacity and it doesn’t take me much time (a lot of effort though) to get fit, much to the annoyance of my wife.

One downside of a pursuit of adventure treks is that said wife won’t be accompanying me. She believes she is not capable of reaching the necessary fitness. In reality, I believe she would rather spend time with the grandkids than silly walks in inhospitable places...

 

[lovetravellingoz]

To update my position just a couple of months after my last post, i’ve been training for a trip to the Himslayas in two months, and enjoying it immensely. Last weekend I did 15km and 21km hikes over rough and hilly tracks. I can see me keeping this up in retirement and taking on bigger challenges, perhaps even Kilimanjaro.

I’m extremely lucky that I have good aerobic capacity and it doesn’t take me much time (a lot of effort though) to get fit, much to the annoyance of my wife.

One downside of a pursuit of adventure treks is that said wife won’t be accompanying me. She believes she is not capable of reaching the necessary fitness. In reality, I believe she would rather spend time with the grandkids than silly walks in inhospitable places...

A man after my own heart. You will love it.

I did Nepal twice in my twenties including to 5,700m. Not long back we revisited after 30 years to do Annapurna Base Camp as part of a 14 day trek. We loved it on all three trips.
Luckily my wife enjoys trekking, cycling etc as well.

Tip: Watch that aerobic capacity at the higher altitudes. Acclimatising at the right rate is more important than fitness and very fit people sometimes rush things and get Altitude Sickness as a result. Google the rues to follow and they are simple to follow.

 

[Blinky]

A man after my own heart. You will love it.

I did Nepal twice in my twenties including to 5,700m. Not long back we revisited after 30 years to do Annapurna Base Camp as part of a 14 day trek. We loved it on all three trips.
Luckily my wife enjoys trekking, cycling etc as well.

Tip: Watch that aerobic capacity at the higher altitudes. Acclimatising at the right rate is more important than fitness and very fit people sometimes rush things and get Altitude Sickness as a result. Google the rues to follow and they are simple to follow.

Thanks for the tips. We will have guides on the trek and the itinerary allows for accimitation. I’ll be going to Annapurna Base Camp, but our trek peaks at just over 4,000m, which should be fine.

What really annoys me is that, as an Amex Platinum card holder, I assumed that their travel insurance would cover me. Trekking is excluded from cover!!!!! InsureandGo covers trekking with a $250 excess for over 3,000m. I am thinking of taking out the InsureandGo policy and the free Amex one just out of spite. I probably won’t.

 

[Chalkie]

This thread has been a very good read for me, and I will come back to look in more detail at some of the articles linked.

The end of my current working life comes in 144 days. I will be a few days shy of 51 (young, I know, but financially I don't need to keep working and I've come to hate the hustling, so-called "high performance", aspects of my work - they have become unfulfilling for me, the source of stress and health problems, and it is time to put that behind me). My spouse (56) is retiring in 50 days. We've been the very fortunate beneficiaries of collectively 60+ years in very highly remunerative professions (and we have no children). So we'll be finishing work very well off (very good asset base, no debt etc, very healthy superannuation balances, and enough cash and ongoing passive (on our parts) income to support us until we can start drawing down the super in several year's time).

We have next year pretty well mapped out. January we're off to Japan, then Feb/March we're going to New Zealand on a cruise and some touring there with some US friends who are visiting, then in May we move to Vancouver for three or so years. We're basing ourselves there because we can live there and it will provide a convenient-ish base for exploring North and South America. We then go to London for a couple of years (where again we can live freely).

We think we're as financially organised as we can be at this stage. We have part of our retirement savings in each of Canada, the US and the UK. We have enough Australian credit cards (Amex and a bank issued card each with high limits), and we have UK, US and Canadian banking arrangements and credit cards (I've been fortunate that my business affairs have required me to have banking relationships in the UK and US). We'll be renting out our house while we're away as the plan is to return to Australia and to our home in due course.

Once we arrive in Canada, it will take us a couple of months to sort out new digs, and our first visitors are already booked in for August, and then more in October. We have Christmas with the Canadian family so that rolls us around to 2020. Dec, Jan, Feb and Mar are skiing months. But come northern hemisphere spring 2020 I think will be when some of the retirement existential questions will really need some focus.

Fortunately, we each have a solid list of intellectual, cultural and sporting interests, many of which during our working lives have had to be only occasional or dilettante. For me, languages and linguistics study will assume greater importance. We're both keen amateur musicians, and I am thinking of some formal study in that field. We will certainly pursue our shared interest of singing with much greater commitment. We love exercise so we will be getting more of that, and we're keen skiers and scuba divers. And there's cooking and reading and cinema and concerts and plays etc etc.

I'm not worried about where my time will go or what I will do. I have passions and I will pursue those. I am a little bit worried about how I will adjust to not being "an important person" anymore (P1 status will come to an end in October 2019 - boo hoo). I've had an international career and involvement at board level with international organisations, and that will come to an end with retirement. Initially I don't want to keep doing that stuff, but I wonder whether after a year or so I will miss that - it will be something I will need to keep an eye on.

Thanks to those who've contributed to this thread - there are many important things that folks have raised to keep thinking about.

 

[VPS]

This thread has been a very good read for me, and I will come back to look in more detail at some of the articles linked.

The end of my current working life comes in 144 days. I will be a few days shy of 51 (young, I know, but financially I don't need to keep working and I've come to hate the hustling, so-called "high performance", aspects of my work - they have become unfulfilling for me, the source of stress and health problems, and it is time to put that behind me). My spouse (56) is retiring in 50 days. We've been the very fortunate beneficiaries of collectively 60+ years in very highly remunerative professions (and we have no children). So we'll be finishing work very well off (very good asset base, no debt etc, very healthy superannuation balances, and enough cash and ongoing passive (on our parts) income to support us until we can start drawing down the super in several year's time).

We have next year pretty well mapped out. January we're off to Japan, then Feb/March we're going to New Zealand on a cruise and some touring there with some US friends who are visiting, then in May we move to Vancouver for three or so years. We're basing ourselves there because we can live there and it will provide a convenient-ish base for exploring North and South America. We then go to London for a couple of years (where again we can live freely).

We think we're as financially organised as we can be at this stage. We have part of our retirement savings in each of Canada, the US and the UK. We have enough Australian credit cards (Amex and a bank issued card each with high limits), and we have UK, US and Canadian banking arrangements and credit cards (I've been fortunate that my business affairs have required me to have banking relationships in the UK and US). We'll be renting out our house while we're away as the plan is to return to Australia and to our home in due course.

Once we arrive in Canada, it will take us a couple of months to sort out new digs, and our first visitors are already booked in for August, and then more in October. We have Christmas with the Canadian family so that rolls us around to 2020. Dec, Jan, Feb and Mar are skiing months. But come northern hemisphere spring 2020 I think will be when some of the retirement existential questions will really need some focus.

Fortunately, we each have a solid list of intellectual, cultural and sporting interests, many of which during our working lives have had to be only occasional or dilettante. For me, languages and linguistics study will assume greater importance. We're both keen amateur musicians, and I am thinking of some formal study in that field. We will certainly pursue our shared interest of singing with much greater commitment. We love exercise so we will be getting more of that, and we're keen skiers and scuba divers. And there's cooking and reading and cinema and concerts and plays etc etc.

I'm not worried about where my time will go or what I will do. I have passions and I will pursue those. I am a little bit worried about how I will adjust to not being "an important person" anymore (P1 status will come to an end in October 2019 - boo hoo). I've had an international career and involvement at board level with international organisations, and that will come to an end with retirement. Initially I don't want to keep doing that stuff, but I wonder whether after a year or so I will miss that - it will be something I will need to keep an eye on.

Thanks to those who've contributed to this thread - there are many important things that folks have raised to keep thinking about.

Sounds like you've earned it and got it all sorted. I'm quite envious but wish you all the best.