5 Things I’ve Learned After a Year of Retirement

A year into retirement, these are the 5 things I’ve learned:

1. Socializing - Without work, my daily social interactions really declined.  That built-in socialization at work was gone, and I had to build it back.  I made a greater effort to go out to dinner with friends and even started a game night.  I had to be more intentional with socializing.

2. Routines - I still like structure and routines.  It’s how I’m built, and I don’t see a reason to force changes.  From my agentic robot to daily Key Threes, I enjoy structuring what I achieve.  The joy of “ticking the box” is still there, and I think it helps keep me sharp.  I do put more experiential things on my daily Key Three list, so I focus on enjoying experiences.  At the end of the day, I still like structure in my life.

3. Repeatability - Going along with both routines and socialization, I joined a golf league.  Having a repeatable day of golf on the calendar is awesome.  Being that I didn’t know anyone in the league, I had the opportunity to meet new people. I can also have golf as something I can work on improving.  As I’ve mentioned before, my youngest son and I share golf—another activity we can do together. In the end, golf helped me socialize, make new friends, and also get out and exercise.

4. Saver to Spender - Our motto is to spend on experiences rather than stuff.  This has eased the shift from lifelong saver to spender.  Knowing we have a financial plan that we are comfortable with, and the intentional spending on experiences, this shift has been a little bit easier—still a difficult shift to make.

5. Calendar-Free -  We enjoy being able to travel and do things whenever, not having to worry about the weekends, school, or work schedules, but being able to go when the weather is how we like it (going to Florida when it's not the middle of summer, hot and busy). Really just enjoying what we want to do when we want to do it and being able to do it at that time.

Summary - These are some of the key things I learned after a year of retirement.  As you think about moving into retirement, I hope these give you ideas to consider.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.