Keep us up to date on that so we may live vicariously through you. I like the idea, just not sure my wife would be on board with it. It would be REALLY expensive if I did and she wasn't.
Work Motivation In Your Older Age
- Thread starter Zee09
- Start date
I will chime in, I retired late last year and have painted my entire house one side at a time from the top down. That has not only strengthened my physical fitness abilities but saved me thousands of dollars in unskilled labor.
I say and skilled because it seems here in Southern California every bid that I got on the exterior was given by a Salesman and the folks doing the work could either not speak English or didn't know how to prime and repair wood properly.
One thing I've learned when you work hard your whole life to pay off a mortgage and support the family you learn to expect value for your dollar.
Lately I don't see that in a lot of consumer goods and services and that goes for restaurants too!
So in response to the op yes I retired because I felt I had a lot of years left that I could enjoy my time with the bag of peanuts that I had collected!
Doing things around the house is sometimes hard to get motivated to do them but once you get into the rhythm of doing it, it can be very rewarding.
Just like changing the oil in my car I can do that now in 30 minutes and don't have to take it in to have somebody over tighten my oil pan bolt or my oil filter.
Just my two cents here
I say and skilled because it seems here in Southern California every bid that I got on the exterior was given by a Salesman and the folks doing the work could either not speak English or didn't know how to prime and repair wood properly.
One thing I've learned when you work hard your whole life to pay off a mortgage and support the family you learn to expect value for your dollar.
Lately I don't see that in a lot of consumer goods and services and that goes for restaurants too!
So in response to the op yes I retired because I felt I had a lot of years left that I could enjoy my time with the bag of peanuts that I had collected!
Doing things around the house is sometimes hard to get motivated to do them but once you get into the rhythm of doing it, it can be very rewarding.
Just like changing the oil in my car I can do that now in 30 minutes and don't have to take it in to have somebody over tighten my oil pan bolt or my oil filter.
Just my two cents here
JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
The 4pm-4am "night" shifts are getting more difficult for me as the years tick by. This spring will be 28yrs of it. Too close to the finish line for jumping ship to make sense for me. That's one of the rough parts with being older and in the same field for a long time IMO.
If you're not making it you're spending it. I hate spending it.
Yes I agree working the same job and doing the same thing will definitely give you the heebie-jeebies! Along with boredom and other physical ailments if you're not happy. My 35 plus years and information technology was so fluid it kept me on my toes. Where it eventually got to the point to being sick and tired of learning new stuff.
So my Mantra is,, sound mind sound body!
I want to succumb to these pill pushers at the Medicare Advantage groups and people that say you're too old. At 67 I can still do a 40 MI or longer bicycle ride and physical labor. Not to digress but we as a civilization are getting too weak and lazy, we all need to work the saw and Hatchet for a while and see what strength really is!
So my Mantra is,, sound mind sound body!
I want to succumb to these pill pushers at the Medicare Advantage groups and people that say you're too old. At 67 I can still do a 40 MI or longer bicycle ride and physical labor. Not to digress but we as a civilization are getting too weak and lazy, we all need to work the saw and Hatchet for a while and see what strength really is!
No. Just money. The second I have enough, I'm turning in my 4 week.
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worked since I was 11 years old, had to retire early at 62 due to back surgeries and leg amputation (diabetic infection) still stay positivity motivated and reasonably busy at what I can at home, now getting slow to start and function slower, but stay focused and active at what I am doing is key, education is always a ongoing thing with me . and yes, I still miss working at what I did, Senior Engineer at a large Hospital.
Can you do another role in your current industry? That's been my modus operandi since 2001. I've moved around to different positions (sometimes within the same organization) to either keep things interesting or as a more secure position. I've happened to land in a position that matches my skillset really well & it makes the position more enjoyable, fun even at times.
I'm only 47 & not planning to retire until 62 (really at 59.5 I'll be one bad day away) so there will likely be another move in my future but right now I'm unsure what that move would be going into. I could leave my current employer & return to my previous position for double (or more) my current income but I left that role due to excessive overtime & stress that was heading towards a divorce. Once my son is out of the house it may be viable just to rake in some extra money prior to retirement but I'm not positive I want to work that much in my 50's.
Another option currently on the table is to leave my real time supervisory role & move into upper management. That doesn't really interest me very much as I already earn more than upper management & they deal in politics more than reliability. There's plenty that needs to be addressed with this organization as far as grid reliability & water delivery is concerned but I don't really feel like it's a battle I want to take on for less money.
Last option is one I like more. At 55 I'll have hit certain vesting periods that would earn me 50% medical coverage for life plus a pension that would be small but not insignificant. I might just take a position at a small entity that's close enough to commute to from whatever small town I decide to retire to. Work a few years & just call it quits in that spot.
Time will tell but I'm not bored yet with my current position & might just sick around here to retirement (more than a couple here are already in the 67-70 age bracket so it's not too bad of a place to stick around at).
Zee09
$200 Site Donor 2023
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Good luck in your endeavors.....
I'm just bored and getting old and since 2020 I actually make more money on the stock market yearly by far but I take off about 6 months a year as it's very time consuming and stressful...
Just like most the last day of work will be a couple days before the funeral....you don't last long if you retire and sit...
My personal brokerage account has shifted to more long term blue chips with only a couple actively traded items. My IRA, 401k & 457b are all managed for me now since I'm generally too busy to stay on top of it anymore.
The comment about passing if you sit isn't far from the truth & is the main reason why I have a 70yr old dispatcher still on shift. He says he's comfortable with what he does & doesn't have any hobbies that would keep him going so he just keeps coming into work. I have more hobbies than time to put into them so am awaiting the time when I can retire and engage with them.
I had asked in my pervious post if you could mix things up at work by moving into a new role within the same industry. Is that a possibility for you?
Ive changed roles 3x so far in the last 5 years. You have to change roles to keep pace with inflation and get a raise. It's all the same dumpster fire IMO, at my level. If I can, I'd like to go back to something chill and low risk like selling cars or similar.
Zee09
$200 Site Donor 2023
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Sorry I missed it, I'm self employed and it's a godsend as I have had several years of issues that limit me doing other things with the exception of the stock market.
Thanks
73 retired almost 13 years never have been board. Always find something to work on, summer grass cutting 8 acres or working with my sub compact tractor. My body is used up good for about 2-4 hours of work a day. 60 acres about 52 are woods house sits in the middle. Being the Missouri Ozarks grow rocks and tick with some chiggers for good measure.
At 70 years old I enjoy retirement way too much to even think about working again...
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I have lost my love for my job. It peaked 2015-2019, when I was free to make decisions. Our co went from 700 mil revenue to about 6 bil. With that came poor, highly comped managers, from the outside. They brought micromanagement and waste.
RTO when 5/7 on my team WFH is the deal breaker.
Anyway, to the plus side? My co pays highly and doesn’t lay people off. We have folks with 50/40/30 year seniority left and right. One guy literally uses a Walker to get to his car. There are never enough hours in a day to get my work done, a great thing. Never have to clock watch.
So that’s what I would want in retirement. Interesting tasks where the time flies.
I watch guys my age at the gym cleaning the machines. They do a half oh I forgot they do a lousy job like half of a job. One can’t put a with two dollar signs you know what if I get censored so be it. They do a job half a with two dollar signs job. At beyond 50 years they know better. Once done, they return to standing around doing nothing. I could not do that even for $30/hr part time, the day would never end.
So has to be interesting. Pay is not relevant. I’m thinking about volunteering at youth ice hockey. It’s a commitment as I think it’s 22 weekends in a row unpaid of course.
RTO when 5/7 on my team WFH is the deal breaker.
Anyway, to the plus side? My co pays highly and doesn’t lay people off. We have folks with 50/40/30 year seniority left and right. One guy literally uses a Walker to get to his car. There are never enough hours in a day to get my work done, a great thing. Never have to clock watch.
So that’s what I would want in retirement. Interesting tasks where the time flies.
I watch guys my age at the gym cleaning the machines. They do a half oh I forgot they do a lousy job like half of a job. One can’t put a with two dollar signs you know what if I get censored so be it. They do a job half a with two dollar signs job. At beyond 50 years they know better. Once done, they return to standing around doing nothing. I could not do that even for $30/hr part time, the day would never end.
So has to be interesting. Pay is not relevant. I’m thinking about volunteering at youth ice hockey. It’s a commitment as I think it’s 22 weekends in a row unpaid of course.
To me, a job was always a means to an end. Money. Least input and degradation required for the most output. I chose to have a fair bit of free time at the expense of my mental health when at work, etc. Maybe it was a bad call, I dunno. Won't know until it's done.
Around 20 years ago I was RIF-fed and it took almost 2 years for me to find a replacement job. I enjoyed that time a lot - people asked me how I wasn't going crazy and wasn't I bored, and I honestly wasn't. I started calling it my trial retirement.
I hear ya. My industry seems to pay similar for several different roles with the difference being shift schedules & the amount of overtime.
Whether it’s a plant operator, system operator, pre-scheduler, etc… the hourly rates are all fairly close. This allows people to lateral into new roles to gain more experience as well as seeing if a different role is a better fit.
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