Seananigans
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Oklahoma is just more Texas dude. Except with better demographics in general, and much better demo than the DFW area.
Retirement... (i.e. what are you going to be after you've grown up)
- Thread starter Haus
- Start date
Oklahoma is just more Texas dude. Except with better demographics in general, and much better demo than the DFW area.
Haus
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Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
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That's a mighty low bar you're setting there sir...
Kinda my point dude since that’s where you are, not sure why you put up your nose at OK. It’s a great place, probably the most insulated state re: social/political bullshit, low cost of living, etc.
Haus
I am Big Balls!
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I think it's more my ingrained upbringing, and the desire to poke fun at Oklahoma which is bred into every Texan....
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Seananigans
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Haus
I am Big Balls!
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TBH, If I detach and let logical pragmatic Haus decide there's a very solid argument for East Oklahoma, or dare I even say it Arkansas. (I have co-workers in Arkansas who have made a few feigned attempts to luring me up there.)
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Seananigans
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Furry
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Like 2/3rds of people are paycheck to paycheck, and all of those people are saving probably near nothing or actively building debt. That’s just crazy to me.
And I am pretty much the same way with most things. My dad was an incredible miser, we wasted nothing ever. I was not allowed to walk past a vending machine without getting on the ground and checking for money. If we saw a penny on the ground we’d run to it, and Parmesan cheese came from the extra packets we got with our pizza.
One Christmas my gift was a 5 gallon bucket.
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Haus
I am Big Balls!
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How about this stat. Median 401k balance for Americans with age brackets...
- Ages 40–49: $154,212
- Ages 50–59: $252,850
- Ages 60+: $210,724
BrutulTM
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When I was a kid we did kind of a rotation for gifts so everybody didn't have to buy a gift for all of the grandkids. There were 3 brothers in the family so I got a gift from one aunt one year and the other the next. You were supposed to spend about $20 per gift. My mom would actually spend $20, one aunt would spend like $50, and the other aunt would spend as little as she thought she could possibly get away with. Besides spending more, the $50 aunt usually got really thoughtful gifts. I still have a couple gifts that I got from her that I use regularly 30 years later. The cheap one did not. The last few years whoever got gifts from her just got a 12-pack of Coke with a $5 bill taped to it. Another year I got a 5-pack of disposable plastic box cutters.
Lambourne
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Probably an important part to talk about in this thread. I think for men especially, the people they work with make up a large part of their social network and that falls away when they retire. How do people intend to build some new connections?
I'm on good terms with family and childhood friends but I can easily go weeks without talking to them. I don't see myself suddenly hanging out with them 10 times more often, not in the least because I am retiring 5-10 years earlier than they are so while I will have more free time, they won't. If you're married and you suddenly spend all day sitting at home with your partner, that changes the relationship dynamic too.
For me, it's a reason I'm thinking one of those golf communities. I don't actually play golf currently but it's a good starting point to meet new people. I'm also learning Spanish which will help with building a new network outside that as well as offer a path for personal growth. Work some odd jobs here and there.
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Koushirou
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My parents moved into a golf community and they love it. Previously, they really just never got out of the house much except to work at the family store, but my mom hated that shit and my dad finally realized he doesn't want to just work forever. Now they have a full social schedule all the time with friends they've met in their community, playing golf just by themselves or with friends or playing in some of the little tournaments or birdie bags, mahjong, dinners at others' houses, etc. Makes me happy to see, as I was worried about what they were going to do all day as they got older and especially since they moved away from my brother and myself.
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Borzak
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My whole adult life was like semi retirement in some ways and in others I was planning for it. I can walk outisde and be on the natiional forest in minutes after I cross my property line. I live minutes away from the largest lake in TX and have always fished a lot. I have a shooting range on the property and a very large shop with a mill, lathe and several welding machines. I like building stuf/tinkering.
I spend a lot of time now that I'm sick sitting in a rocking chair on the porch in the afternoon watching the deer eat. Same thing I would be doing if not sick.
I do play golf, but not since I've been sick. I was a member of a country club that had a course, swimming, excercise room and tennis. Not a big city area so I would play in off times normally by myself or one other if someone else was there. Not that expensiver where I was a member but not that fancy.
I worked at home most of my adult life and people say they would get bored. Beats fighting traffic. I walk outside and sometimes on the national forest to think about work stuff I'm on. Or go fishing for a few hours to get it out of my head or spend time in the shop. I was on the phone once on the porch with the owner of the company I was contracting to. BAM and he said what the hell was that. Just shooting a deer while on the phone.
I spend a lot of time now that I'm sick sitting in a rocking chair on the porch in the afternoon watching the deer eat. Same thing I would be doing if not sick.
I do play golf, but not since I've been sick. I was a member of a country club that had a course, swimming, excercise room and tennis. Not a big city area so I would play in off times normally by myself or one other if someone else was there. Not that expensiver where I was a member but not that fancy.
I worked at home most of my adult life and people say they would get bored. Beats fighting traffic. I walk outside and sometimes on the national forest to think about work stuff I'm on. Or go fishing for a few hours to get it out of my head or spend time in the shop. I was on the phone once on the porch with the owner of the company I was contracting to. BAM and he said what the hell was that. Just shooting a deer while on the phone.
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Kirun
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The fact that so many people in this thread are seriously talking about taking on "volunteer" gigs or "part-time" work during retirement is absolutely fucking insane to me.
Let's be real here: by the time most people hit retirement age, they've spent over three decades slogging through the grind. That's 30+ years of mind-numbing commutes, office politics, incompetent managers, and coworkers who range from barely functioning to outright repulsive. You've dealt with Carol microwaving fish in the breakroom every goddamn day, Steve who hasn't done a full day's work since 2003 but still somehow gets promoted, and some walking disaster of a supervisor whose entire skillset is emailing meeting invites and mispronouncing your name.
And now, with that shit finally behind you, you're telling me the dream is to... voluntarily walk back into that kind of environment? On your own time? For free? Are you out of your goddamn mind?
Here's a radical idea: don't. Don't spend your hard-earned, limited twilight years reenacting the same corporate nightmare you just barely escaped. Hit the gym to keep your knees from turning to dust, eat some vegetables so you don't stroke out at 70, but beyond that? Do nothing. You've paid your dues. You've spent decades as a wage slave, watching a third of your paycheck disappear into a black hole labeled "taxes" so your government can buy more missiles and potholes.
You're not obligated to "stay productive." You’re not a cog anymore. You earned rest. You earned boredom. You earned the right to wake up on a Tuesday and decide you're doing jack shit.
Retirement isn't some opportunity to prove you're still useful to the machine, it's your final, well-deserved middle finger to it. Use it, IMO.
Let's be real here: by the time most people hit retirement age, they've spent over three decades slogging through the grind. That's 30+ years of mind-numbing commutes, office politics, incompetent managers, and coworkers who range from barely functioning to outright repulsive. You've dealt with Carol microwaving fish in the breakroom every goddamn day, Steve who hasn't done a full day's work since 2003 but still somehow gets promoted, and some walking disaster of a supervisor whose entire skillset is emailing meeting invites and mispronouncing your name.
And now, with that shit finally behind you, you're telling me the dream is to... voluntarily walk back into that kind of environment? On your own time? For free? Are you out of your goddamn mind?
Here's a radical idea: don't. Don't spend your hard-earned, limited twilight years reenacting the same corporate nightmare you just barely escaped. Hit the gym to keep your knees from turning to dust, eat some vegetables so you don't stroke out at 70, but beyond that? Do nothing. You've paid your dues. You've spent decades as a wage slave, watching a third of your paycheck disappear into a black hole labeled "taxes" so your government can buy more missiles and potholes.
You're not obligated to "stay productive." You’re not a cog anymore. You earned rest. You earned boredom. You earned the right to wake up on a Tuesday and decide you're doing jack shit.
Retirement isn't some opportunity to prove you're still useful to the machine, it's your final, well-deserved middle finger to it. Use it, IMO.
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Chapell
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it's 2050, you're launching steam, it's offline.
You're opening MegaEdge, it's asking for your ID to go further.
In the end, you decide to visit the dark web to download your favorite games from 1987.
Unfortunately, you used dangerous search queries and ended up in jail for terrorism for the rest of your life.
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Mahes
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Perhaps you missed the part where I said my job is not stressful. I literally can play games and watch Netflix while monitoring a SCADA system. What you described is the one aspect of my job I will not do.....supervision. The pay is not worth the much higher increase to stress level that comes with it.
Choosing to occasionally work part time after I retire, is not going to change what I do in retirement all that much. I will not be wealthy when I retire, and so could not afford to travel around the world visiting all the places I can see on a computer. I will enjoy yard work(Gardening) and playing video games but I also like having other motivations. That is one reason I like the idea of working part-time. There are employees now where I work who have retired but come back part-time. It will keep me moving and maintains a sense of purpose beyond just relaxing for the rest of my life.
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Kirun
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I genuinely don't understand this cultural obsession some people have with finding their "purpose" through constant work, especially when that work is in service of someone else's bottom line.
Now, don't get me wrong, I totally get finding satisfaction in working on your stuff. Your home, your car, your garden, your craft. That's building something tangible that reflects who you are. But deriving a deep, spiritual sense of "meaning" from answering emails, managing office politics, or hitting imaginary KPIs? That just seems like corporate cosplay with a psychological twist.
And yet, some folks seem genuinely lost without it. They retire and immediately panic. Not necessarily because their body is falling apart, but because they don't know who they are if they're not grinding for someone else. It reads like Stockholm Syndrome.
Look, I get that meaning is subjective. If your dream is to waste away at a country club working on your short game while wearing pastel polos, go nuts. That's your business. But if you're still clocking in, still shuffling paperwork, still chasing some illusion of productivity while your joints are screaming and your spine is trying to secede from your body, that's the hill you’re dying on?
At some point, you've got to stop confusing labor with virtue. Working yourself into the grave for a sense of identity isn't noble. It's delusional. I don't think we were put on this planet to fill out spreadsheets, accept Teams meeting invites, and die tired.
If that makes sense to you and leaves you "fulfilled", great. I'll just never understand or comprehend the logic of it.
moonarchia
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