Yesterday's blog chat about retirement led a dinner table chat about having sources of income during retirement. It seems that people who have the roughest time with retirement (boredom and income) are the people who simply stop working at 65. They had the type of job that took them into an office. They earned money for a big company doing a job that they really didn't like and they were happy to walk away from it, but now they don't have something to occupy their time, to keep them happy and to bring in money later.
My dad supplements his retirement money by continuing to edit a popular textbook and by writing an occasional magazine article. An academic friend collects old books. He has a warehouse of those books that he will sell off when he has the time. Another friend is investing in rental properties and Kumon franchises, while they live modestly right now. My tax dude is mostly retired until tax season. We mail him our forms to North Carolina and he processes them for us every year.
I think our generation is going to have to look at retirement differently than previous generations. Work isn't something that is done until 65 and then stopped entirely. Ideally, you are doing something you love and you will be happy to keep doing it until they cart you away in the pine box. But if you aren't, then you should have a Saturday hobby that can be turned into a source of income in the future.
Apt. 11d 
I agree with this in principle and it’s how I’m approaching things in some ways.
But I think a lot of people don’t take health into consideration. My father, who retired with the gold-plated academic pension, was still teaching one course…and then had a massive aneurysm at 65. He’s actually recovered remarkably well but that was a huge lesson in best-laid-plans.
He had already retired and so the formula was set for his pension, which is based on the last 5 years’ salary, but if that had happened a couple of years earlier, or if he hadn’t retired already, going on disability would have changed the formula for his pension.
I know a few people where one person, often the husband, had a stroke or a heart attack or other health problem before retiring and it completely changes your economic status. It also impacts on the money-making hobby a lot.
I should note that his aneurysm came as I was going on mat leave and controlling our costs and it cost _my_ family over $400 in 3 weeks – hospital parking, a few sandwiches while he was in the ICU, and one parking ticket.
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An academic friend collects old books. He has a warehouse of those books that he will sell off when he has the time.
He’s a hoarder with good self-justification skills or the books are actually worth something?
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If the books are categorized and well taken care of, it probably doesn’t count as hoarding.
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He had a part time job in a used book store in college, so I guess he knows what he’s doing. Lots of first editions.
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In my dad’s retirement he’s picked up what is basically a quarter- to half-time volunteer job for a charity. One day I went with him to see a guy about buying some mattresses for a displaced family setting up new housekeeping. This guy had his attached two-car garage full of mattresses that he would pick-up and (I’m assuming) sterilize. They were stored on end and he would flip through them like they were giant index cards. He lived in a duplex and I wonder how the neighbor felt about living 10 feet from that much fuel. Anyway, probably not a good retirement job, what with the need to lift mattresses, but he was getting a second income.
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When I say “pick-up,” I mean buy from hotels switching out bedding and such. He wasn’t driving around and grabbing ones left at the curb.
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I have a little fantasy about retiring to a place near the ocean, and then continuing to teach part-time online. I think that the ability to work without going into an office will enable lots of people to keep working and keep their hands in their professions even when they are older.
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Even though I’m about 12-15 years away from retirement, I’m shifting my work to entirely online (teaching). I’ll get through this dept chair thing and then start getting my institution used to seeing less of me. While I wouldn’t want to teach full-time forever, one or two classes might be good for me (us) for a long time.
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The benefit of the retirement discussion here is that my husband and I looked over our info and realized we can retire at 62. The chances that I will retire at 62 are slim, as I am a bit type-A with no discernible hobbies other than pissing off people online. Hey, come to think of it, that’s what my dad did during his retirement. My husband has his photography business and wants to retire earlier and buy an RV and travel around, taking photographs. In fact, he has a little stock account (mostly Apple) he calls his RV account. Note: our retirement security comes at the price of losing his parents, who both squirreled away tons of money for retirement, living very frugally, then died before they could enjoy it. Siobhan made a point about people living it up before they retire, then complaining they have no money to retire on. I wonder if we are all afraid of dying before we can enjoy retirement.
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My husband has his photography business and wants to retire earlier and buy an RV and travel around, taking photographs.
My condolences. Unfortunately, there is no cure for wanting an RV and science isn’t working on one.
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Listen, at least it’s better than his first plan, which was to retire to Maine. MAINE?! Don’t anyone give me crap about how awesome Maine is because I lived there for 3 years and it was a living hell. I call it the M-word at home.
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“My husband has his photography business and wants to retire earlier and buy an RV and travel around, taking photographs.”
It sounds like you’re pretty safe from the “half the money, twice the husband” problem. That’s good.
“Siobhan made a point about people living it up before they retire, then complaining they have no money to retire on. I wonder if we are all afraid of dying before we can enjoy retirement.”
I had one set of grandparents die relatively youngish (60ish and 70ish), but I’ve had so many ancestors get to around 91 that it would be unwise to expect to check out in my 70s.
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My great aunt Edna just had her 100th birthday. And she smoked.
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Listen, at least it’s better than his first plan, which was to retire to Maine. MAINE?!
Maybe you could compromise by retiring to Vermont buying some snow mobiles.
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My parents have been helping out with their grandchildren during their retirement. When the kids were younger, this was basically a full-time position, as a “nanny” (though unpaid). As the kids got older, they’ve been drivers, a team coach (compensated, available again, but not something they want to do), started a not-for profit (which failed, but another is in the books), did political volunteering.
Their pension has been sufficient to support this level of consumption. But, the compensation level is modest. There’s no significant entertainment expenses in there (since their entertainment seems to be to watch their grandchildren). The do not golf, eat out, go to movies. They do travel (to visit family) but don’t do tourist travel (but, they did a lot of tourist travel as part of work when they were employed). Also their own children are gainfully employed and they haven’t had to help the children (well, except for providing unpaid child care).
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“Listen, at least it’s better than his first plan, which was to retire to Maine. MAINE?!”
Has he at least rented one for a long stretch? Those things are really expensive. I agree that the RV is a MUCH more attractive idea than a life sentence to Maine (lovely as I’m sure it is two months a year).
Also (while I’m figuring out your life for you) how compatible is the photography hobby with the cramped quarters of an RV? From my experience of living with a husband’s hobbies (amateur astronomy, optics and woodworking), they can easily fill up the garage and at least one room of your home. (When I worked in my parents’ tourist trap, we eventually discovered that full-time RV-ers are lousy customers. They just don’t have any place to put anything new.)
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Considering that when we go to Germany, he plans for us to have 3 bags, 1 for me, 1 for him, and 1 for his cameras, yeah, good question about space.
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