I have been retired for over a year now. I absolutely love retirement – indeed, I’ve never been happier, and I often say that I’m living a version of my dream life. Nothing is perfect, though, and I thought I’d tell you about the dark side of early retirement. Prepare to take off the rose-colored glasses.
You Will Be Ambushed By An Identity Crisis
When you first retire, you will probably be carried away on a cloud of joy. The freedom will be all-consuming. You’ll marvel at every little change in your life. No alarm clocks. No work clothes. Here you are spooning ice cream into your mouth at 2pm on a Wednesday while in your sweatpants. This is all so cool. But at some point — maybe a few weeks, maybe a month later — feelings of restlessness will creep in.
We are creatures who need meaning and purpose. You’ve just lost yours. I’m talking partially about the part work played in your identity, but I’m talking even more about the fact that you’ve been working for years to achieve a financial goal and now it’s done. Over. Kaput.
Let’s talk about each in more detail.
Job and Identity
Even if you say you’re not attached to your job, if you live in the US a lot has been done to get you to unconsciously absorb it into your identity. When I left my job at a high-flying finance firm, I thought I would have no issues with identity. I had been thinking about retirement for ages. I knew with certainty that I didn’t want to work full-time at an investment firm. And yet I was hit hard by its loss. It was an easy way to generate respect when I met someone new. I’m a senior member of the team at a multi-billion dollar firm. I broker multi-million dollar deals. My insta-cred was now gone.
Furthermore, I had spent years on the corporate track gunning for promotions and raises. Suddenly saying that that stuff doesn’t matter creates cognitive dissonance no matter how much you’ve “prepared” for it. I would be watching Netflix in the afternoon and I’d think, “Was this worth $1000?” Or I’d spend a span of days reading bad romance novels and realize “My old colleagues made five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars in this time period. Have I contributed five, ten, or fifteen thousand dollars of value to my myself or the world?”
Try enjoying life with thoughts like that.
Meaning and Identity
For me, those thoughts then fed into questions about broader meaning. How could I know looking back after my first year that I had lived a year worth living? I was giving up so much money for this time…how would I know I had used the time wisely? I imagined a year of myself picking up various hobbies. Quilting for a month. Felting for another. Horseback riding. Knot-making. Laser-cutting metal signs. While that sounded fun, it rang hollow in the meaning category for me.
I don’t have a how-to guide on how to navigate this process. Everyone must go through their own personal struggle. I can tell you that coming out of it on the other side has left me a more confident, substantive, happier human being. In short, while you might not choose to deal with this of your own volition, at least take heart that it will repay you tenfold in overall happiness when it’s done.
Your Body Becomes Unused To Stress
After the initial transition, it is likely you will design your life so as to minimize stress. The way water flows naturally down the path of least resistance, you will find your life naturally drifts away from stressful interactions. You get to visit stores when there are no lines, and no one elbowing you as you stroll through the produce aisle. No honking horns on the freeway because there’s no traffic to speak of. No awful co-workers whose presence you’re forced to endure.
That makes your body immensely vulnerable to stress when it does come along. We are closing right now on our first home. Dealing with incorrect forms, chasing down slacker lending agents, and trying to figure out what’s next around the corner with very little experience to guide me has made me a giant stress ball. I was pretty concerned about my reactions to minor setbacks. I used to broker huge deals where tons of things went wrong and fires needed to be put out. Now an issue 1/10th the size was generating three times the amount of stress. Was something wrong with me?
Not really. My tolerance was just completely shot by not having to deal with this. Going from a clean system to a straight shot of this stuff is drastic. Before, I would have been dealing with way higher levels of stress such that this wouldn’t even hit the radar as an issue.
I wouldn’t recommend running out and inviting stress into your life just to keep your defenses up. I think it’s just something you recognize and deal with. And reflecting on the high levels of stress I dealt with back in the day has made me doubly grateful for retired life. After all, this whole closing situation is temporary, and I’ll be back to my blissful stress-free life in no time.
You Will Struggle To Describe Your Life To Others
One of the first questions people ask you here in the US when you meet for the first time is “What do you do?”
Well, my husband and I have discussed this at length and we aren’t comfortable divulging to others that I’m retired. It implies certain things about our finances that we don’t want to deal with. For a while, I would say that I was on a multi-year sabbatical. Then people would ask me what my husband did for a living. Ouch. Like I couldn’t support myself.
During the home-buying process, I did feel comfortable telling several folks in the process — lenders, mostly — that I was retired. Again: “That’s great! And what does your husband do?”
That’s another way of saying, “I don’t believe you”. I’d heard from several other early retirees that they’ve had success answering the question by sharing one of their hobbies. So I started telling people I was a blogger/writer. “Oh cool. What’s the name of your blog?”
“Oh…I write it under a pen name.” You see, my blog has my net worth and advertises the fact that I’m retired, so I can’t really talk about that, either.
Basically people think I’m a housewife or a kept woman. There’s nothing wrong with being a housewife or a kept woman. But if you were an engineer, would you want to be mistaken for a musician? Or if you were an entrepreneur, would you want someone saying you’re a stay-at-home husband? These roles are just so fundamentally different from what you are interested in and what you are doing with your time. It’s galling.
I’ve found some great people to talk with in the FIRE community, where the early retirement and blogger aspects of my life can be completely out in the open. As for the rest: I deal with it. I have some friends who’ve known me for years that secretly think I’m a homemaker. It comes through in small jokes about how the hubs supports me and how lucky I am to have him bringing home the bacon. I unwilling to share the facts it would require to correct them. Life goes on.
Your Time Is Taken For Granted
This next one is connected to the item above. It’s incredible how often you will be called upon to donate your time. Would you mind watching Frodo this weekend? Any chance you could accept the delivery of my new couch? I’ve got a crazy thing at work this week.
No.
I walked away from millions of dollars because I decided my time was worth more than the money. So no, I don’t want to twiddle my thumbs in your apartment waiting for your sofa to arrive. I don’t want to hand courier you the item you left at the restaurant near my house. I don’t want to pick a restaurant that is all the way towards you rather than at the halfway point. If anything, my time is more valuable than it was all those months ago. But again, it’s hard to convey this point without getting into details I am unwilling to share.
You’ll have to get good at the polite no when you retire early. Don’t say you can’t. Just say you are not available. Don’t explain. And if you’d like, you can say this is an important, short chapter in your life and you’re deliberately pruning down engagements. It’s crazy when you think about it how incredibly rude it is to make these kinds of demands of your friends. Money and time are transferable. I would never go up to my friend and say “Hey, I want to get a couch. Can I just have some of your money?” While doing favors for one another is a strong part of community, asking someone to do something because you value their time at less than yours is a different ball game, and none of us early retirees want to play.
It Can Get Lonely
For nine hours a day, your buddies will be unavailable. There will be tons to explore in your area, but there are only so many solo lunches and solo drives to the latest museum/exhibit/park you can take before you crave company. Fortunately, you will get used to this. And you will quickly take note of the other people who are out and about on Monday afternoons. Strike up a few acquaintance-ships and you won’t be lonely for long.
You’ll Still Worry About Money
You don’t go from making money one of your chief areas of focus to being totally carefree overnight. In fact, as you transition into early retirement, you may find yourself gaining a newfound appreciation for how quickly you can lose your nest egg.
I retired only months before Trump was elected. Now there’s a giant question mark over where the economy will go under his administration. My dollars have to stay deployed in order to generate income. And yet deploying them leaves them at risk of principal loss. Losing 20-30% of your nest egg in one year is not unheard of. The idea of making all that money back is frightening. Yes, most steep drops are followed by corrections which replace the value in only a couple of years, but your vulnerability as a retiree to market forces is astounding. I find myself watching the news hawkishly.
The only solution I have come up with to make this particular problem go away is to have so much saved for retirement that you can park it in a bank account and just withdraw the principal. Unfortunately, inflation will ravage its value. You would have to have millions more to accomplish this, and ain’t nobody got the time to work that many extra years. On the bright side, I’ve heard from retirees who are farther down the path than I am that you get used to this kind of uncertainty with time, just as you learn to absorb other kinds of uncertainty in other aspects of your life. It will still be there, but you learn to roll with the punches. I consider that to be a fair trade for all the incredible benefits early retirement brings me.
Conclusion
Retirement isn’t all roses and sunshine. But if you can navigate some of the standard challenges, you will be more than amply rewarded with its wonderful benefits.
How about you? Any retirees out there who want to spill about the darker side of early retirement? What has been unexpected, and how have you navigated it?
I’ve really enjoyed your blog and this post in particular. The section about describing your life to others made me think, “Why NOT share your identity?”. You’ve done something incredible. You’ve made a decision to live your life in a different way, and you’re helping others who are interested in doing the same. Why not take ownership of what you’ve accomplished? I understand that having your personal finance information available to the public might make you concerned about what they think or assume about you, but isn’t that their problem?
Really proud of you, and grateful for your posts! Just curious about learning more of your rationale to separate your identity from the blog.
Hey Zoe. Thanks for the positive note. It’s a tough call. My few brushes with new acquaintances learning about my retiree status have left a bad taste in my mouth – some are fine, but the bad/awkward/annoying leave more than their own mark. Putting it out there means I won’t get to control when this comes up and with whom. I have had to turn down some great news show interviews that I really think could have furthered the FIRE message, so I still do think about dropping the anonymity now and then. For now I’m happy with the the setup I’ve got.
And I realized in my original post, I only gave my initials– not my name– which made my post quite hypocritical. So updating it here now: Zoe Rose Buonaiuto. Voila.
Just what I needed to read. Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Dear JP,
A very important topic this post. I think you should present yourself as independent financial planer or broker. So you do not need to say where do you work, but yes you are working to make your money grow in an independent manner. On the other hand wow this is very important how to react to the new situation being so young. Is normal that people just do not belive it or of course you do not want to say hey I have enough money to live my entire life without working. We humans in a capitalize word, we were thouth we will need to work until 65. I can only say I personaly admire you and you are a strong woman sharing all this knowledge, we are with you.
Thanks JACC. You know, independent investor might actually work. I may skip financial planner because then I’ll get asked the dreaded “what would you suggest for me,” but I like that general direction. Thanks for the idea.
Thanks for this post.
I am not retired yet, but for me retirement doesn’t mean doing nothing, or not working. It means that I can do what I WANT, when I WANT it and how I WANT it. Retirement is more about changing the perspective from NEED to WANT.
And as of now I know exactly what I’ll be doing, I will be traveling my motorcycle around the world, writing and talking about it. 😉
Love it. Looking forward to seeing it come to life!
I retired early from a career in high-tech about 10 months ago and it has been absolutely wonderful!
The surprising thing I recently realized is that many of my friends and colleagues from the company believe that I was fired! I started to notice that fewer people were commenting on my FB posts and/or calls to say ‘hi’ wouldn’t be returned. Then I heard from a friend who was considering a job at the company I left and she told me about this rumor. I laughed it off of course, but at the same time it annoys me a bit.
So people who I worked with for years, some whom I even helped develop and grow their own careers, seem to be distancing themselves in fear of being seen as a friend (on FB, etc)! Crazy, but I get it and I can only hope that they also find true freedom and joy in their lives while they’re still “able” to enjoy it.
It’s almost 10am on a Tuesday and I think I’ll go to the garden center now, no traffic or lines, to buy some tomato plants for my garden ?
Great post btw!
Lisa, great to hear from another early retiree! You’re not alone – I’ve only kept in touch with one person from my old firm. I’ve gotten the same vibe of distancing/just don’t care about you anymore. It’s fine. To each their own.
Yes to no lines!
JP, thank you so much for providing a different perspective on early retirement. I would imagine it’s not rainbows and butterflies all the time and I think these topics above are great topics to consider. I’m on the path to early retirement but my husband will still be working until he’s probably 65. I hadn’t thought much about the question ‘What do you do?’ once I reach that point of early retirement. I will have to come up with a good answer eventually! As always, thanks for the insight.
Hey April, glad to hear from you. I really do like the advice to think about retiring to something and not just from something. Even if you don’t follow your plan entirely, having a few things sketched out really helps with the transition/identity crisis bit of it. Wishing you luck on your journey!
Wow, that was honest and down to the point. Thank you!
PS next time someone asks: -What do you do?
-I do my best.
🙂
I like it. I’m putting it in my tool bag.
Out of curiosity, do you volunteer, or have you ever considered it? I’ve often wondered what I could do with my time if I can get to the point of early retirement, and that’s one thing that frequently tops my mental list. I would think that it would be a way to help with an identity crisis, and help you keep in touch with society.
Hey Francie. I have done a little volunteering and I have considered it. My experiences have been mixed at best. Most volunteering positions feel very superficial to me. I understand why: you’ve got brand new people raising their hands to help, but you don’t now their strengths or weaknesses, and you don’t know how committed they are. Thus, if you go the major program route, the programs expectations and training will be geared towards the least common denominator. Not a fulfilling experience, at least for me. I’d consider volunteer positions that suit my skills closely. They’re a little harder to find and I admit I haven’t been looking very hard. The alternative (sitting in the sunshine with my dog, writing for my blog, reading good books) is pretty appealing on its own.
Hmm, that does sound very unfulfilling when put that way. Sitting in the sunshine sounds like a much more enjoyable thing to do!
I read today that a friend will be working until lunch on the day he/she dies…..another said she will be working from the grave to pay for her casket….LOL.
I hope this isn’t my future! 🙂
Oy. I agree. If you’re frequenting FIRE blogs like this one, I have every confidence you’ll avoid that fate.
I had a few comments after I retired at 55. That was almost 6 years ago, how time flies. In answer to what do I do all day I just reply “Whatever I want to”
Hah, thanks Steve. Maybe a straight up, blunt answer works best.
Hi JP,
This post caught my eye. Why? I found myself in a similar situation having sold my company a few years ago. Here’s how it went for me:
Age 39 – company I co-founded gets acquired;
Age 40 – I finish up with the post-M&A period
Age 41 – I get married and buy a house. We then travel for half a year.
Age 42 – back home and find myself in the “what now?” stage
During this period, I’ve gone through bouts of mental anguish as I tried to think about what to do next.
Mental anguish, you say?? *Cue the tiny violins*
Please let me explain.
Logically, I shouldn’t be stressed about money. Between the home equity and our investments, my wife and I could live for the next 40 years quite comfortably under reasonable assumptions without requiring any income from jobs or such. However, as an ex-finance person, I still find myself thinking about edge-case situations such as: what if inflation sky rockets and/or the market tanks? What if an unexpected event (e.g. health crisis) occurs that requires substantial payment?
So how much do we *really* need before I never feel any financial stress again?
Weird, right?
My second experience is answering the “what do you do” question. I’m currently thinking through how I will devote my time (start another business vs. build community vs. become an active private investor) but I strongly lean towards building another company. The way I see it, I have another 20 years with the energy to try to do something great before scaling back towards more coaching/advisory/teaching types of experiences.
So what should I do and in what sector? How much financial risk should I take? How much opportunity cost am I giving up by not taking an executive level job?
My dilemma isn’t finding a job. My dilemma is coming to a decision on what I want to do given the amount of noise and opportunities that are in front of me. Again, enough to cause to mental anguish (*tiny violin time*.)
That said, I’ve felt satisfaction and a level of grace and meaning by spending time on volunteering for a non-profit organization and by making some angel investments in the social impact space. Now if only I could find a strong passive, yield product…
As for being unused to stress, I certainly find myself in a different state of mind with less craziness and more ability to focus, than from the time that I was working on building my company (and keeping it from going bankrupt.) That said, I’ve found getting into a habit of daily meditation and regular exercise helpful as I -dare I say “cope”- with this new stage of life.
Thanks for starting this conversation! I look forward to hearing from others about their own personal experiences.
Hey Bernie. Congratulations! My tiny violins can join your tiny violins. You described exactly the meaning crisis I had. Health is not great in my family, so the way I think about it is that I have conservatively 20 really productive years left in me to build the things I want to leave in this world (and I can be pleasantly surprised if my health holds up and I’m in good shape to do more).
I don’t have a bulletproof answer to pass along, but one thing that has really helped me is a personal mission statement of what matters to me. It sounds a little froofy, but it’s immensely helpful judging how ‘productive’ your days are when you no longer have business metrics to hit. I can look at my mission statement and say “Yep, I was honest today, and thoughtful, and I spent time nurturing relationships in my community. I learned something new etc. etc.” all the way down my list of values and criteria for a life well lived. Plus, it’ll save your spouse from going absolutely bonkers listening to you repeat your mental angst. :o)
Best of luck. It sounds like you’ve done some great things and are in the process of doing many more.
This was fun to read, as I could relate to almost all your points.
– What is the FIRE community?
– I was making 150 an hour when I retired, or sometimes more, and similarly was always calculating how much money I had “wasted”. But those thoughts went away in time. Likely they will for you too if you still have them.
– What is the FIRE community you mention?
– I had the same experience with lower stress tolerance. I have no proof, but I suspect that it’s a healthier state of being to not be “used to” constantly high stress levels.
– I love how you refuse to let others waste your time. Expanding on that, I refuse, ever so curtly and politely, to spend time with people that do not give me the respect I deserve or that show that they are really “all about themselves”. This frees up time to find new acquaintances that are just more enjoyable to be around. There are billions of people in the world, one doesn’t need to spend it with drama kings/queens, gold diggers, frustrating cheapskates, or other myriad types of wackadoos that may befriend us or that we associate with through group activities. Standing up for your own time and not wasting time with dregs is liberating!
– BTW, what did you say that your sugar daddy husband does for a living?? (JUST KIDDING!–that is actually very insensitive of those people to make such rude comments.) Someday you might want to surprise them with a curt comeback revealing the source of your wealth.
–
I
Fred, it’s always a delight to see a comment from you. I can honestly say you are the only person so far to ask me what my husband does in a way that didn’t offend me, but actually made me laugh!
FIRE stands for financial independence, retired early. When I say FIRE community, I mean a collection of websites that espouse the same general message of living well below your means so you can become financially independent early. They include sites like The Money Habit, Mr. Money Mustache, Early Retirement Extreme, Frugalwoods, and others. I could do a better job of explaining some of these acronyms.
I look forward to having that annoying voice about “wasting time/money” go away. It’s improved a lot since I first retired!
Love this frank and honest post – keep them coming!
Thanks Rodrigo.
I also wonder if the stress from buying the property had more of an impact on you because for once you were dealing with your own money rather than the money of the company you used to work for. I also brought in millions of dollars to my last company but it’s very different spending and making your own on your own.
That could be playing a part in it. And I think it was also the fact that we had multiple balls in the air at once, which gave you less time to dwell on minor optimizations.
J.P.
I can’t honestly say I know what you are going through, but to a much lesser extent, I can empathize with your situation, specifically juggling the decision to chase the money or walk away, and then dealing with the consequences of that decision. Granted you had the courage to walk away, and I’m still pursuing the rat race. If this were an AA meeting, I would say — “Hi, my name is Jonathon, and I’m insecure about money. Hi Jonathon.”
My wife and I currently work 60+ hours per week each and make good money. Granted, our twenties have basically flown by us. We married 4 years ago in June. I was 25 and she was 23. Since then we have paid off debt, traveled the US, pursued our favorite hobby of skiing, and had a lot of fun being together. It has been great, but vacation time is perhaps 7 – 10 days per year. The rest is spent grinding at the office. Your point about selling time is a great one that really hits home for me. At some point, the cost/value of selling time no longer pays off.
I say this next point somewhat jadedly, but according to my family, waiting until almost 30 before having kids is apparently the blasphemy; however, quite frankly I am a little selfish, and having about 4 years alone with my wife before I have to compete for her attention with someone much smaller and cuter than I am is alright with me. In addition, the thought of not having achieved some of my financial goals before bringing another financial liability into the equation (yes kids are adorable, but its simply delusion to ignore the additional costs they bring), is what really pushes me to stay in a little longer. With that being said, we would like to have a kid or two, and working 60+ hour per week jobs isn’t conducive to raising a family.
One of these days, it is my goal to experience what you are dealing with now, and hopefully afterwards, I’ll have some meaningful input. Until then, I’ll keep reading your blog.
Hey Jonathon, great to hear from someone in the same boat. We felt the same about kids and I can’t say we’ve regretted having the extra time to ourselves. Wishing you luck on your path – it sounds like you’re making great headway!
Great insight to your own 9-5 detox experience. Even with such a steep transition from your once demanding career to early retirement….I think you are doing the absolute right thing to protect your time (and your identity). The room to grow will be extra valuable if you and your husband decide to have kids. Awesome insight and analysis. Thank you.
Thanks Cal.
I am 6 weeks into retirement which I have worked on since I was… hmm…23! (now 43)
I have gone on several “bucket list” holidays (done frugally.. of course..!) and just arrived back .
My first thought since arriving back :
Everyone’s at work. I’m not. Am I a loser? (Identity crisis)
Then a text from a well meaning friend :
I heard you resigned. well, enjoy the next month or two of your holiday. It’ll be back to the office before you know it!
And a follow up text , from same person, asking for me to pick up a delivery. lol.
hmmm. need to work through my thinking. Thank you for the inspiration.
The delivery requests. Maddening!
But really, congratulations. Looking forward to hearing more about what you cross off the bucket list!
Hi JP
Very enjoyable post to read. My husband and I have been saying that we “work from home”. There seems to be little point in explaining to anyone, as even old friends and family can’t seem to understand what we are doing so we just gave up on trying to explain.
Caveat: I would say we are more semi retired as I have started a small “maker” side gig, as I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So this is what I say I do now.
My husband likes to stay up to date with his skills, in case everything goes pearshaped ;), so he has done a contract since we retired and is looking at picking up some more work.
Also, I can totally relate to what you say about stress… we’re also closing on our first house and I have to try to remind myself not to get stressed and have definitly been having talks to myself that this is nothing compared to the stress I endured during my “career”.
Good luck, Maddie! Us first-time homebuyers can stick together. I like the idea of keeping our skills relevant. My husband is an engineering manager and wants to keep his skills sharp with projects when he decides to retire. Freelance/contract work would be a great way for him to do that.
Yes, freelance/contract work can be amazing! My husband was making way more in his post-retirement contract than in his pre-retirement full time job – we were like D’oh… why didn’t we do this before retirement ;).
Good luck to you too with the house!
Love it. I’m storing this bit of info away.
JP, you’ve done it again lol. I really enjoyed reading this post, I found this article to be inspirational as well as humorous. I subscribed to your blog but for some reason I’m not being updated when you have a new blog.
Hey Joshuwa – glad you’ve found the site. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t be getting the updates; I’m about the least tech-savvy millennial in existence so I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I would check your spam folder and the promotional/social tabs if you use gmail. Hope that helps and hope to see you around!
At 72, I have been retired for 12 years. My husband, at 77, has been retired for 14 years. We are not FIRE people, however I think most people experience many of the dark side of retirement issues you have written about: identity crisis, over reaction to stress, requests from friends who think you don’t DO anything, isolation, but maybe to a lesser degree. So many retirees go “down hill” quickly after retirement for one or more of these reasons.
I have been told by several young friends that they want to retire as productively and gracefully as we have. I believe that one’s personal drive has a lot to do with how well you adjust to retirement. My husband retired beautifully, maintaining social connections using his work expertise to advise & help others and becoming more involved in community. I am not that personally driven so without him I think I would have gone “down hill” quickly. He pushed me to take up new social contacts, creative ventures, intense physical exercise. As a result I have retired beautifully also.
Writing and updating my “Retirement Mission Statement”, as suggested by my daughter, is a constant guide to my comfort with retirement. My husband does not seem to need a mission statement. He drives forward with activities and community involvement daily.