As we all increase in years, the thoughts of living our senior years in peace and health become more pressing. I love ready about the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Here is a link to a great article about how to set up a good retirement: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/liz-weston-no-regrets-retirement-141157840.html
Here is a comment I loved following that article:
I’m over 5 years into a happy, successful retirement and I think it is largely because we avoided all the things mentioned in the article. We both enjoyed our jobs, but had so many outside interests that we knew we’d be busy just doing those things once we had enough in savings and we didn’t want to risk not being able to enjoy retirement should some sudden health change hit one of us. We saw that happen to several older friends and family and didn’t want to have those regrets later.
We retired early (mid fifties) and have traveled a lot. We could have 15 years or so of travel while healthy in retirement which is more than enough. Even 5 years in, we have visited almost everywhere we really wanted to so no regrets there.
We maintain contact with many work friends, and volunteer a lot/are out of the house every weekday doing things we enjoy and getting many social interactions so our schedule is not that different than before, just less hectic. And, now our weekends are mostly open which is great.
We built a nice sized home decades ago in a place we enjoy – all paid off and no desire to go elsewhere so we won’t have that regret of buying too large later. Next move if any would likely be to some care facility or assisted living toward the end of our lives if needed.
My wife and I planned this for decades and worked the plan so we were on the same page. She worked one year longer than I did because she still had doubts about it, but after seeing how much I enjoyed it and that the money was not an issue, she joined me and hasn’t regretted it a bit.
A no regrets/dream retirement so far. If you are active and have lots of interests and friends outside of your job, once you are comfortable that you can make it financially, I’d highly recommend retirement. To me, everyday feels like summer off of school when I was a kid, but this time I have money and the freedom to do whatever I want. The younger the better so you have the health to still do those things.
The comment is by user Hulgar1 who has over 6200 reactions on Yahoo Finance. He is on to something, and I appreciate him sharing his experience in such a way that inspired me. Thank you, Hulgar1!