So, I'm retired...sort of

G-Mac

G-Mac

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My last day of full-time employment was February 24th. I was a welding instructor since 2007. I am collecting my New York State Teacher's pension. Just turned 64. Have not applied for Social Security yet. Haven't needed it. I have been getting a fair amount of side work by referrals. Mostly small repair jobs on equipment. Have a guy bringing a landscape trailer to get all the cross members replaced. The local welding supply refers work to me. A friend of mine, who owns a welding business, also refers work to me. I guess I'm lucky in that regard. I need to learn to set limits. I can't do it all. I love staying busy but I need to make some time for me. I have ridden my new dirt bike a couple of times (2022 Beta Xtrainer 300cc) but my Harley Sportster is still in a storage unit with a dead battery. I think I'll try to get that going this weekend and go for a ride.
 
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I like the great big desk calendars. When we decide on an activity, a trip or camping, we put on the calendar. Somebody call with work, "I'm sorry those date are already scheduled" or "Can we start a day earlier, so as to avoid a conflict of schedules?" Sounds very professional! Instead of "I'm taken the Hog on a ride for a few days!"

I am slowly getting the wife and I to use our phone calendars since they are always with us.

We slaved our youth away! Don't let them poach you retirement years too!

Ivan
 
G-Mac said:
My last day of full-time employment was February 24th. I was a welding instructor since 2007. I am collecting my New York State Teacher's pension. Just turned 64. Have not applied for Social Security yet. Haven't needed it. I have been getting a fair amount of side work by referrals.
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Congratulations on retirement. You'll find you'll probably stay busy doing the things you never had time for before you retired.

Bald1 said:
Congrats. Now take a day off and go file for social security. The increase you get by waiting will probably never make up for what you didn't collect by taking it early. The fact that you don't need it means you can just sock it away in high yield savings account.
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If he just turned 64, he'll not reach his full benefit until about 67-1/2 or so. Since he's got his pension and is doing side jobs, he'd be limited in how much he can make until he reaches his full benefit year, without losing a little on his SS. If I were him, I'd let the SS go until his full benefit year, then his SS payments will be about 6% greater than if he started now, and if he continued to work side jobs, there would be no restriction on how much he could make. I retired at 65, my full benefit year was 66, so I only lost 3% of my full benefit amount, which was easily filled and then some by my pension. I started working with a friend who does landscaping and maxed out how much I could earn in 9 months, and had to give up a few bucks of my SS for the last three months before I turned 66. I'm almost 69 now, still doing landscaping 3 days a week (6 hrs./day), and making more money now with my SS and pension than I did working full time in health care. And I'm being paid a third as much landscaping as I did as an RN. I do the work because I love working outside and not for the money.
 
Sold my last motorcycle (2002 Dyna SuperGlide) in 2008 because I couldn't ride for a half-hour without pain for several days in my knees, hips, lower back, and shoulders.

Continued working for another 7 years. By that time the pains were constant no matter what I did or didn't do. Orthopedic surgeons have been "practicing medicine" on me ever since.

Get the Harley running and enjoy it while you can.

Also, be very thankful for the blessings of making your own choices in life.
 
Good for you G.

My father did the same thing. He retired and needed a hobby. He ordered parts to make an ATV trailer for hunting. When people saw his he started selling them. He was busy for a few years. But then got a pacemaker and had to stop welding.

So he took up fly tying and was soon selling those too.
 
G-Mac you need to be very careful. I have been retired for 23 years now,
and have found that I can be far busier than I ever was when I was working, if I'm not careful.
 
I retired from LE in '97 but went right to work @ USDOJ and secured a second pension in '03, but my wife was still working part time. The first few weeks not going to work was strange, I didn't know what to do with myself. I eventually became active in our retired police association, started to go to lunch weekly w/my retired cop buddies, and it all fell neatly into place. Headed out to LEOSA qualification this morning, then breakfast w/my old friends @ the American Legion. Now I wouldn't trade this for anything.
 
Hair Trigger said:
Congratulations on retirement. You'll find you'll probably stay busy doing the things you never had time for before you retired.

If he just turned 64, he'll not reach his full benefit until about 67-1/2 or so. Since he's got his pension and is doing side jobs, he'd be limited in how much he can make until he reaches his full benefit year, without losing a little on his SS. If I were him, I'd let the SS go until his full benefit year, then his SS payments will be about 6% greater than if he started now, and if he continued to work side jobs, there would be no restriction on how much he could make. I retired at 65, my full benefit year was 66, so I only lost 3% of my full benefit amount, which was easily filled and then some by my pension. I started working with a friend who does landscaping and maxed out how much I could earn in 9 months, and had to give up a few bucks of my SS for the last three months before I turned 66. I'm almost 69 now, still doing landscaping 3 days a week (6 hrs./day), and making more money now with my SS and pension than I did working full time in health care. And I'm being paid a third as much landscaping as I did as an RN. I do the work because I love working outside and not for the money.
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He'd have to live a long time for 6% to eclipse what he could have Collected from day one. Plus interest earned on it. A guy could die tomorrow and have never collected a dime of SS. Which would be to bad considering you pay into it your whole life.
 
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1st Rule of Retirement: Don't tell anybody, everyone thinks you have loads of free time, available for chauffeuring, babysitting, etc.
2nd Rule: Find something you actually enjoy. I knew a man behind the gun counter of a chain sporting goods store, said it got him out of the house, he always wanted to work with guns, etc.
 
I tried being retired once. It lasted for about a year and half. Wife told me to go get a part time job or hobby to get me out from under her feet. She use to say retirement, "twice the husband on half the income". I did as instructed and got a job photographing and making gun porn for a Cabela's Gun Library. It's a fun and interesting job most days.

Then again, some days the normal corporate silliness makes me think about retiring again.

48316980.HalfAMillionDollarRow1.jpg
 
I will be retired 18 years this October. It took me about 6 months to get used to it, then I was asked to come back part time while one of the women was out on maternity leave. The extra money was nice, but I was glad when it was over. I stay busy with martial arts which also keeps me too tired to get into trouble.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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Faulkner said:
You retired in February and your Harley still has a dead battery? Shame on you.

Hope retirement suits you.
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Thank you. I took the battery out yesterday and brought it home and put it on a charger. Went back to the storage unit today, put the battery back in and she started right up. I went for a ride today to a "vintage bike ride-in" that this guy has at his house every year. My Sportster is a 1988. I bought it new when I was 29 and I'm 64 now. I guess that's vintage enough. ;)
 
Bald1 said:
But the older I got the more I rode my Fatboy instead.
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Sometimes I think about getting a bigger bike. Something that my wife and I could take rides on. Harley has a limited edition bike right now. It looks like a 1968 Electra-Glide. But they start at about 27K.
 
G-Mac said:
..I went for a ride today to a "vintage bike ride-in" that this guy has at his house every year. My Sportster is a 1988. I bought it new when I was 29 and I'm 64 now. I guess that's vintage enough. ;)
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Man, that made me do a double take and then the math.

Good grief! You're right!
 
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