u/Odd_Bodkin

A good friend of mine has a retired sister who met someone on a trip, fell madly in love, got engaged, put her house on the market, and moved out of state to join her fiance in Colorado. A couple weeks later, she realized that Colorado was not for her, and that the two of them had a lot of baggage that would likely compromise a long-term relationship. And so she moved back. This wouldn't have been horrible, except that she's retired and this consumed a lot of emotional effort and money and damaged her optimism.

There are other tales of people moving into a 55+ community at age 59, finding themselves surrounded by people in their 70's and 80's, and deciding this is not what they wanted. Or moving to another state to follow a child and grandchildren, only to find that a new job made the young family move 2000 miles away again. Or selling their house, buying an RV with a plan to tour the country for a decade, deciding after nine months they didn't like the life or the endless stream of expenses, and selling the RV for a big loss. Or discovering that there were new major living expenses in retirement and that they'd retired prematurely.

The wisdom scars inflicted by the whip of the unexpected are worth sharing. What mistakes have you had to recover from in retirement? What we the recourses you had to take as a result? What advice would you give to help avoid a similar mistake?

Imagine you are still working (I know some of you are, some aren't) and you decide to take a big vacation to someplace you've never been. Say Morocco.

So you get on the plane and savor the fact that you've got a nice long time to be free of work. And you land in the new country with your one bag, and it crosses your mind you've given no thought whatsoever about what to do here once you arrive. It turns out it's a sabbath there and so you're just wandering around with everything closed and unexpectedly quiet. And you kind of like not rushing around to make some destination, but on the other hand you also have no idea of where you should go or what you should try doing. And now it feels a little weird, like maybe you should have given some thought ahead of time about laying at least some tentative plans with your valuable time.

I honestly think some people land in retirement this way, celebrating all the things they don't have to do anymore, but on the other hand having no real idea of what they want to do with their retirement years. Just like vacation, it's good to not pack your days to the gills. But on the other hand, retirement is foreign territory and you won't feel at home if you've not decided at least a few things you want to do or see or venture out for.

Does this resonate with any of you?

(No, not the go-go, slo-go, no-go adage)

I just got my letter from Social Security saying, it’s time, bud, apply to claim your benefits. I’ll be 70 in a few months. For the last 2.5 years, my wife and I have enjoyed our first-phase retirement, which has had some nice variety in a laid back way. I’ve enjoyed my tutoring part-time job (as well as a couple other part-time jobs preceding), and my volunteering involvements with poverty, social services, animal shelters, and the incarcerated. My wife enjoys her domestic routines and hobbies and her own volunteer involvements with children and hunger. We go to National Parks annually, and another trip or two domestically with family or friends, plus some day trips. There’s an event center less than 2 miles away, and no shortage of entertainment where we live.

Financially, we’ve lived off her Social Security, my part-time wages, a small pension, and draw from deep savings, and our tax burden has been very low, despite doing things like Roth conversions. We’ve not drawn on retirement funds, and I have not collected Social Security. But we’re about to do both, and even her Social Security will be affected by taking the spousal benefit.

It feels like the days when I would change jobs and get a substantial bump in pay, and (in those days) there would then be lifestyle creep. And so looking at this milestone, as well as the Big 70 associated with it, I just have a hunch there will be a lifestyle SHIFT at least. I don’t know whether this will mean quitting the part-time job, leaving more free time to do … what?

In a way it’s like retiring all over again and trying to sort out how we want to live out in this new phase. Is this a familiar thing to any of you already-retired folks? Did you have a Phase 2 retirement as a result of some key change in circumstances?

I’m being somewhat reflective in my retirement, but I confess to having ridden a wave of luck that has crashed on the beach. I honestly don’t know what to tell physics students these days about Plans B and C.

Post WWII until about about 1995 was the heyday of physics in America, with a general high opinion of science in general but physics in particular being held by the public, and as a result, by policy. Fifty years is a long time to get acclimated to a feeling of well-being among those that pursued the field. For a variety of reasons, this has faded, and we’re now falling backward into the state of American physics in about the 1930s, which honestly was not horrible but not great either.

Plan B had honestly been in coding and software engineering, which had a huge upsurge just about the time that physics started its popularity decline, to the point where a number of undergrad students were making choices to pursue coding around their junior year instead of chasing grad school for physics. Nowadays, college advisors are starting to warn students that there’s a glut of unemployed engineers, dumped by investment in AI instead. I ended up retiring (after a couple of career changes) from software development where I had greatly enjoyed working with agile teams and rapid iterations of enterprise software. Now I see whole release trains being shelved and general despair among that class of workers.

In between, there had also been a Plan C in the middle space, educational publishing particularly for college education, followed by high school. That was a huge industry transformation from hidebound tradition in books and warehouses and royalties to learning management systems and digital content and license fees. One could make a major impact as a physicist familiar with classrooms building whole new product suites, something I got some first-hand exposure to. But now publishers are finding themselves having moved too slowly and classrooms simply aren’t using publisher products anymore.

So these are interesting times. Competition is high for fewer positions in research physics, and Plans B and C for those who drop from the cut have to bubble up from somewhere, but I can’t tell from where. I’m curious what physics students are using for their Plans B and C now.

I’m just not a sit-around-the-house kind of guy, never have been. I also think it’s a blast to learn something new, especially under the eye of someone who really knows what they’re doing. And so I knew, months before I retired, that I would be looking for a part-time job. Not for the money. The money is almost irrelevant, though I do like using the nominal paycheck to shop for a top-shelf whiskey now and again. But I think most retirees think of things like Walmart greeter or grocery store bagger or Uber driver and that just doesn’t sound fun at all.

What I’ve learned though is that there are a zillion jobs that are fun, different, don’t pay a lot (who cares?), and have some flexibility. Taking a week or two off to go travel is not a problem, and if routine sets in, you can always quit and look for another. Some ideas to inspire thinking, and I’m sure there are lots of others:

Bicycle shop mechanic | Corporate office plant caretaker | Diner pie baker | Flower arranger | Parts runner for car mechanic shops | Performance hall usher | Medical courier | Tax preparer | Tool guy at a hardware store | Community theater set designer/builder | City Segway tour guide | Hotel art installer | Museum exhibit constructor | City aquarium tank feeder | Reading or math tutor | School crossing guard | Car delivery driver for dealers | Golf course ball sweeper | Horse groomer | Veterinary tech | Display model assembler at a toy store | Library assistant | Medical records clerk | Sushi chef | Liquor store sample stand | Event bartender for a caterer | Hotel concierge | Cake decorator | Art museum docent

I’ve been journaling since I retired. Rather than to try to sell it, I’ll just give you today’s entry for me. Tell me what you’d write in a journal entry for today.

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*Four small joys*

Reading Inward Bound, there was a nice, pretty transparent description of Heisenberg’s phenomenal work supposing a nuclear interaction that involved an electron passed from neutron to proton, resulting in the swapping of the identities of p and n — an obvious inspiration for meson exchange. This was also imagined eventually to be related to beta decay, except now a rather obvious inspiration for a W boson. This is in the 1930s.

Patrick went solo today in the music for worship, and it was great to hear him work the guitar beautifully. The first time I’ve sung with full throat since the cold a while back.

On a shopping dip on the way home from the gym, I laid my hands on a loaf of French bread in the bakery section and discovered that it was fresh and warm. So with a home cooked meal of chops, potatoes, and green beans, I had two slices of deliciously fresh bread.

Tequila, honey-orange ginger beer, and tonic water, over the rocks. Zingy! Only missing a bit of simple syrup (which I don’t have).