It’s been a year since I quit my full-time job last May after I reached financial independence. I now teach part-time at UW-Madison, am writing my second book, see my friends more often, and travel. But, it’s not all roses and kitty cats. Here, I’ll do an honest assessment of the things I love about semi-retirement and the things I kind of hate.
Pros of Semi-Retirement
As you can imagine, there are some distinct advantages to not working. Here’s what I love about not having a full-time job.
Less Stress
If you’re a working parent like I was, you probably feel like your entire life is spent running from one thing to another. I know I did. Most people my age seem to have back-to-back-to-back obligations all the time. Work is stressful, meetings are stressful, there’s always too much to do. I used to get headaches. I’d lose sleep while I was thinking about work-related things. I forgot my kids’ doctors appointments. I didn’t make progress on some of my own personal projects. Sound familiar?
Our society revolves around “being productive”. Our culture tries to convince us that productivity is the only thing that matters and the way to be productive is to do things non-stop. It’s turns out, that’s a giant pile of bullshit. We’re definitely doing too much and it’s causing us extra stress, disease, and many times we’re missing out on the things that would really make us happy.
I know this as a fact now that I removed the thing that was taking up the vast majority of my time on a daily basis: work. Now, I have time to breathe. I have time to visit the coffee shop, play a board game with friends on a Tuesday, rest before I need to take my kids to an activity, and sleep in. I am better rested and feel more calm. And the ultimate way I know my life is better with less stress? My kids told me. The other day they said, “I remember when you used to come home from work all stressed out and yelling at us. That hasn’t happened in a while.” Enough said. That’s a big win.
Setting My Own Schedule
It’s funny, but I don’t always sleep in every day. I’m a morning person, so I still enjoy waking up at 5:30am to go for a run or to the gym. But now, I’m doing it not because I have to get to work afterwards, but because I want to get up and start my day with friends at the gym.
These days, a typical day for me involves a workout, breakfast with my husband, then a half a day of teaching prep, writing, recording an audiobook, or working on projects I care about. Sometimes I work from home, sometimes I go to a coffee shop or to campus. In the afternoon I’ll have coffee with someone, play a game, read, drink some tea. This is my relaxation time and this is the time that I never had when I worked full-time. In the evenings, I’m still driving kids all over the goddamn place, but now I have the energy to do it. Oh, and I get to take a bunch of walks whenever I feel like I need a break. Setting my own schedule has been a life-changer.
Travel
The first thing I did after I quit, was spend a month in Europe. I absolutely love to travel and having a set number of days of paid time off every year was killing me. I was much happier at past jobs with unlimited PTO, but even then you can’t take a month off without raising some eyebrows. Though I still need to abide by my teaching schedule and my kids’ school schedules, there is a lot more time for me to travel now. We went to New Zealand for two weeks over Christmas and San Diego for Spring Break. I’ll be in Peru when this is published, hiking the Inca Trail with my 14-year-old, and will spend a couple of weeks in Portugal in June. And that’s just the first half of this year.
Time with My Spouse
My husband also retired early — two years before I did. Now, we get to hang out every day and do fun things whenever we want to. Want to play a board game this afternoon? We can do that. Want to watch the latest episode of Andor, take a nap, or kayak in the middle of the day? We’ve got someone to do that with. We’re lucky. Not all early retirees get to have someone at home with them, but we do and it’s been great. I’m pretty social (see below in the cons section for the counterpoint on socialization), so it’s really important that I’m not just home alone every day.
Mobility
Since we don’t have jobs, we aren’t tied to a particular location. If we wanted to or needed to, we can likely move a lot more quickly than we could if we needed to find jobs. That makes me feel a lot safer these days. Enough said on this topic.
Pet Projects
I’ve had a lot of project ideas on the backburner for several years. From writing another book to cleaning out my closet, and putting up some wedding pictures. Now, I have the time to work on those projects. I haven’t done the latter two yet (*sigh*), but the next book is underway and I’m really excited about it! It would have been hard for me to carve out the time for it while working full-time.
Not Wasting Time on Things I Don’t Care About
I did an exercise a couple of years ago where I looked through the last year of my calendar and noted the events that brought me energy and were worth doing more of (seeing friends, running, game nights, networking coffees) and those that were useless and/or took my energy (the weekly status-oriented leadership meeting, obligatory meetings with certain people, driving to work, etc). The first time I did the evaluation, I came up with a tremendous amount of things that I wanted to stop doing.
Recently I came across an article that reminded me of that exercise, so I did it again. Lo and behold, I had almost nothing I wanted to stop doing. Sometimes I feel just as busy as I did when I was working because I’m going from course prep to coffee to a walk with a friend, but the vast majority of the things I’m filling my time with give me energy and are worthwhile. That’s made a huge difference in my life!
Cons of Semi-Retirement
If you hate your job, you may assume there is no downside to not working, but I’ve definitely noticed a couple of things that surprised me about not working full-time.
I’m Still The Same Person
Surprise! I’ve noticed that I’m still the same person post-retirement and I do generally the same things. I thought I would spend a lot more time on my health when I quit and have I done that? Not really! I added yoga to my routine, but in general I still eat the same foods and have the same workout habits. Also, I need to be much more intentional about getting up and walking around throughout the day.
I also still procrastinate on the same things. It turns out, the reason I haven’t cleaned out my closet is not because I didn’t have time, it’s because I didn’t want to. That wasn’t a fun realization — knowing that some of the things I’d like to change about myself are going to be harder than I thought. But it was an important realization and now I get to make a choice as to whether those things I’m procrastinating on are worth doing or should just be dropped from my to do list forever.
There’s More Time to Think About…Things
There’s a lot going on in the world right now. Most of it, in my opinion, is unsavory and upsetting. One of the nice things about working was that it was a distraction. When you’re working, you get distracted from the bad things going on in your life and all around you. I now have to actively limit my time on social media and news sites. I need to try harder to workout every day to complete the stress cycle, otherwise, I get upset about the latest ridiculous thing the corporate-owned media is reporting on today.
A lot of retirees mention that not working uncovers a lot of things that they don’t really like about their lives. There are feelings there that are no longer getting disguised and they are uncomfortable. I have to use some different techniques to explore those feelings and find ways to fix the things I don’t like versus just going to work every day and ignoring them.
Less Social Time
I see many fewer people on a day-to-day basis and I can tell I need more social time. At work, you automatically see people in the hallways, hold meetings, and need to pull people aside for discussions. At home, not so much.
There are a few things I’ve been doing to counteract this socialization deficit. I now go to a gym with my friends so I see them a few days a week. I actively try to schedule walks or coffees with the people I want to see. Even this is hard and takes constant maintenance. Most people I know are still working so scheduling time with them is tough.
I try to go down to campus more when there are department events. I used to skip them due to lack of time or because I didn’t want to drive downtown. Finally, I went to one and realized that these events are fun and bring me a lot of energy, networking, new ideas, and connections. So, now I go down far more often. I still feel that I need more social time, so I’d be up for hearing your ideas on that front.
Less Money, Mo Problems?
I have plenty of money to retire. I have more money now than I did when I quit last May (thanks, last year’s stock market). But, that doesn’t stop me from worrying about money. When you have a full-time job and you’ve got a high paycheck coming in, it’s easy to spend money without thinking about it. (I know this is a very privileged position to be in. I am very grateful that I picked a career in tech because it has been very fruitful from a salary standpoint.)
But now, that monthly paycheck is gone. I’m relying on the money I have and that seems more finite. In theory the stock market always goes up, but when it tanks, I get nervous. Which I shouldn’t — stock downturns are all part of the plan. But I can’t help myself. I do think about money more. It’s really hard to go from the accumulation phase of your life where you are actively saving money to the spending phase where it’s time to spend that savings. My brain is still suck in savings mode. I wonder when or if it will ever switch over?
Less Collaboration & Solving Problems
Finally, the number #1 thing I miss about working is collaborating with others to solve interesting problems. Are problems stressful? YES! But is it fun to be working towards something bigger than yourself with a group of people you like? YES! I definitely miss that. And I miss having co-workers. I miss helping my teams solve their problems. I miss tweaking organizational systems.
But the problem is, I don’t miss working full-time. So, my challenge for myself this year is to figure out how to get some of the socialization and problem-solving / camaraderie back into my life, without giving up all my freedom.