I am shortly to become an OAP. The gestation period has been more than half a lifetime and I don't want the outcome to be an illegitimate offspring :-)
Suggestions and advice please (excluding holidays.. SWMBO is semi immobile)
Last edited by: madf on Tue 11 Sep 12 at 14:15
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I'd suggest trying to get involved in something for a couple of days a week. I initially had a little part-time job.
U3A?
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Depending on your pension arrangements, you may feel you need some part-time financial topping up. Mine are lousy and I certainly need to carry on working. In any case people say it's a good idea to 'keep active' even if, like me, you have a predilection for idleness. If there's something you've always fancied doing, have a go at that. Don't forget that after a normal working routine life (assuming that's what you have had) the change may require a bit of persistent effort.
Beware of depression and the irritable demeanour that often accompanies it. They can creep up on you. Freedom, or relative freedom, is a mixed blessing if you are a creature of routine.
Cultivate and stay in touch with people you actually like. No more having to smile at carphounds for career reasons! Yippee!
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 11 Sep 12 at 14:34
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I agree with the concept of keeping busy. I do voluntary work for a local society that assists disabled people and I am a meeter and greeter at a local nature reserve.
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Do "things" mid week and during school terms. Fewer brats and most people are at work.
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I thought of making my response one word: ENJOY!
I have been retired from teaching since December 1999 and have been a fully-fledged OAP since August 2010.
Some extra money is a great help once your salary disappears. I used my lump-sum to pay off all debts, including my mortgage. During 2000 I took on the care of my elderly parents, who transferred their house into my ownership, allowing me to let out the one I had been living in.
I trained as a reflexologist, which has brought me in very little money, largely because I did not promote myself aggressively; most of my work has been in a nearby hospice, which has been hugely rewarding in other ways.
I have been fortunate in being able to indulge my love of travel - outside of school holidays (what bliss!) My other big indulgence has been playing classical music and I have bought some nice instruments and taken lessons from a professional player, as well as doing a fair amount of playing myself.
In a couple of weeks' time I am starting a Master's degree - at the age of 67! I'll probably be the oldest in the whole college, but who cares?
My advice? Keep busy, keep active, keep fit. Do what you've always (secretly) wanted to do. Make the most of your money - that includes getting your bus pass, getting a senior railcard and so on.
Above all - enjoy life.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Tue 11 Sep 12 at 15:19
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>> I am shortly to become an OAP.
You'll wonder how on earth you ever found the time to go to work. Honestly.
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I don't get it. You have spent 40 years working, presumably largely unwillingly, for someone else. During that time you must have had other interests, real interests, which you couldn't pursue as much as you would have liked because work got in the way.
Now you are about to ditch the work side of your life, and you don't know what to do ?!
You have hinterland itching to be colonised, surely?
I'm fortunate to be in a job that I love, in charge so I can do exactly what I like. At present I'm doing 4 days a week. That gives me a 3-day weekend insted of a 2-day, which is a 50% increase, but still it's not enough for really enjoying life. I'll probably retire in stages over the next few years, then may be just keep my hand near the auto-tiller and drop in one day a week. Or hand over entirely. Or get sudden new inspiration and go back to full-time at 75.
I always thought that Dylan Thomas poem about raging against the dying of the light rather silly. The time to start raging is when you are 60 and still have a life left, not waiting until death's door.
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>> Suggestions and advice please (excluding holidays.. SWMBO is semi immobile)
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Please remind us re your location. In a city, in a town, in the hills ?
Usually lots of activities in towns and cities e.g Probus and talks on all sorts of subjects. Maybe you could give talks to other groups.
Wikipedia updates?
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This is an interesting thread as I have around 18 months to go to retirement.
After 45 years of work so far I am planning tours to places I want to go but never got time to see in my annual holidays....
Lots of DIY to do , gardening , extending existing charity work, lie ins and leisurely pub lunches with SWMBO , doing the Telegraph Crossword instead of skimming through the business pages....
Yes please......bring it on !
Last edited by: retpocileh on Tue 11 Sep 12 at 16:18
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>>doing the Telegraph Crossword instead of skimming through the business pages....
SWMBO banned that from the house, I'd spend nearly all day reading it!
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If it takes you all day to read the Telegraph crossword, how long does it take you to complete it?
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Don't think it'll be great on day 1. It almost certainly won't be. Well day 1 may be, but the novelty will wear off and you may feel bored and down.
There is then a period where your life starts building to what it will be. I certainly agree that after a year you'll wonder how you ever had time to work. But you do need to put concious effort into developing your retired life, not just sit about wondering why you haven't anything to do.
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I shall never, ever, be able to afford to retire so at least this question will never be a worry ! I have looked into methods of altering my birth certificate and have started pricing bulk consignments of "Just For Men" in the hope of concealing my true age when the time comes. I'm just having to assume that Weetabix or the like will keep my strength up for long enough and that my teeth don't fall out or that I can prevent weeing myself at inappropriate moments...
Failing all that I shall just have to develop a taste for dog food I suppose.
:-)
Anyway good luck with it all madf. Jealous? Me? No !! 'course not !
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Tue 11 Sep 12 at 16:57
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>> I shall never, ever, be able to afford to retire so at least this question
>> will never be a worry !
Join the club.
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You seem a clever type, madf, and can certainly write better than the average, so consider doing an occasional column for your local newspaper.
See if they have a motoring correspondent, and if not, offer your services on a 'expenses only' basis.
Ask for a letter of appointment, and bob's your aunty - drive loads of different cars, assess them in print, and have fun doing so.
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Ignore the constant whining of "you need to keep busy or you will die" crap.
Do what the hell you want with your time.
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You're just bitter because the Olympics have finished.
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>> Ignore the constant whining of "you need to keep busy or you will die" crap.
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>> Do what the hell you want with your time.
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Exactly, I didn't work for 40odd years to keep working after I retired, I am now on "me" time. The winter holiday will be the Maldives.
My best non financial expert advice is "Retire debt free", it just takes a little planning.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 11 Sep 12 at 20:27
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Can we stop boasting about how close we are to retirement please? I had to check when a client would be eligible for the state pension today, and out of interest checked my details too. Assuming I live that long I will be sixty flipping seven before reaching state pension age, and will have to pay NI until then too. You lot don't know you are born....
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You will live longer to draw your pension though.
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>> Ignore the constant whining of "you need to keep busy or you will die" crap.
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"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."
The Great Gatsby
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Thanks for all your input so far: much appreciated.
Keep them coming.
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Lay around and do as little as you can get away with.
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>> Lay around and do as little as you can get away with.
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What's the point of all those years of making pension contributions if you are going to deliberately shorten the period in which you have left to spend them?
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I think it's working for Roger. Isn't he about the oldest contributor to the forum?
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"Isn't he about the oldest contributor to the forum?"
Oh good - a mine's-bigger-than-yours competition! Who's going to start?
Oh, I already have.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Wed 12 Sep 12 at 10:49
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Whatever happened to those elderly men who always wore a hat of some sort, thick plastic glasses, could only be found wearing beige, always with a tie and a walking stick waving about? Often driving a Metro with a much punished clutch and nearly always miserable as sin.
You dont see them as much these days but when I was a kid that was all there was, lots of really angry pensioners - Im sure the angry ones still exist but now they wear jeans like everyone else and some even understand the sat nav in their cars.
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In 60 years time, OAPs will be wearing baggy trousers with their Calvin Klein pants showing over the top, cheap gold necklaces and a baseball cap on sideways. They will be listening to Lady Gew-Gaw nostalgically, complaining about modern music being rubbish. They will be angry about how the youth of today have no respect, it's not the same as it was in the old days, you can't get a proper cup of tea on the new fangled spaceship thingummies that take us to Brisbane in 2 hours for SAGA weekend breaks, the country's going to the dogs and there's bloomin' immigrants everywhere.
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I have often wondered what my generation would be like as pensioners. Although even at 30, I find myself telling kids who ask me about computer games that I used to play games like space invaders that you loaded with a cassette, it is alien to even ten year olds.
I can see myself working in a transport museum when I get old but I am trying hard for not that to become my fate!
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Don't forget to book the car in to have its bi-focal windscreen fitted madf ;-)
Last edited by: NickinNZ on Wed 12 Sep 12 at 11:40
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"Don't forget to book the car in to have its bi-focal windscreen fitted madf ;-)"
Seeky chod. :-)
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Personally, I would avoid U3A and the recreational courses run by local authorities. For proper brain exercise, go for a qualifying course with some real intellectual discipline attached to it. Thousands of your age have started OU degrees with success - I was about 70 before I finished mine, my wife not much younger, for hers.This would also satisfy another need, to be part of something bigger than oneself: I think this why many people turn to charity work.
As for the body, health becomes very important and moderate exercise, activities such as gardening, DIY or woodturning (very pleasant), moderate alcohol consumption and nil smoking should help a lot here.
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The U3A varies enormously by location and the local affiliation
I think it's fair to say its pretty mickey mouse in most locations
As above Try an OU proper degree course
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>>In 60 years time, OAPs will be wearing baggy trousers with their Calvin Klein pants showing over the top, cheap gold necklaces and a baseball cap on sideways.
It`s here now! - or was - Jimmy Saville !!
P.s
How come my log-in expired barely two minutes after signing in! ;-(
Last edited by: devonite on Wed 12 Sep 12 at 11:41
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I retired 6 years ago @60, so really an OAP 12 months.
My recommendation is to change small things, get used to a different day/week etc.
I would not go out on day 1 and move to another part of the country,(unless you hate your current area!) retire to the seaside...........leave any big decisions for 12 months then decide on the bigger picture.
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..........er what day is it today?
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>> ..........er what day is it today?
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When you find out, please tell me.
And the year as well...
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>> >> ..........er what day is it today?
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>> When you find out, please tell me.
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>> And the year as well...
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Just look at the top right of your post!
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>> lots of really angry pensioners -
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That's always the image that comes to mind when I hear a radio announcement about the programme "Crossing Continents". :)
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I took early retirement at 56 (3 years ago) and moved to Austria. Getting set up here took a lot of my time, as did getting the hang of the local lingo (obviously constantly ongoing).
But 3 years on, I have found the biggest problem is getting a round tuit. Even simple DIY jobs are easy to put off, because if you don't feel like doing it today, you can do it tomorrow...and it never gets done because there is always tomorrow. I make lists of things I need/ought to do (e.g. DIY stuff, write letters, whatever) and try to knock something off the list every day. As other people have said, the days fill until you wonder how you had time to work, but some days I feel that I haven't really achieved anything - a loss of that "sense of purpose" I suppose. We also own and run a holiday apartment here, so that helps to keep busy.
Luckily we're both healthy & active so we often just go out walking or whatever. And, as has also been said, you have the freedom to do these things during the week when everyone else is at work. If you have friends, it's much easier to keep in touch when you have more time particularly if they are also retired.
Lastly, I have found that it helps to have some sort of routine. We have defining activities each week - local market on Friday where we meet friends for coffee, my wife sings in the local choir on Wednesdays, I have German lessons on Tuesdays, etc. It all helps to keep a sense of structure and usefulness.
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I retired from my main job, in effect a year ago, although I'm planning alternative work and that's shortly to come to fruition.
Here are my thoughts:
I moved from a city to the country side and now have a big garden. I always hated gardening (but liked the garden looking nice). I now find myself enjoying gardening (to a degree). I get a load of fresh air and the harder physical work has had me lose in total a stone in weight.
The other thing is doing trips. Boat trips, stately homes, steam railways, that sort of thing. Wonderful to have the time to do it.
Sometimes I'll stroll down the local at 4.30pm ish...two or three pints, then back by 6.30pm for dinner with the kids and an evening in with the missus.
I can now read a book, what bliss.
I honestly thought i'd be bored. I haven't been. I've been meaning to join the local golf club...but haven't had the time.
Enjoy it.
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I have one hard and fast rule in retirement. ( I retired at 56 )
Never laze around in bed during weekdays. Weekends with tea, toast and the times in bed is fine, just as it would have been when working, but during the "not working any more" week, its up and about by 7:30. (even if you have just finished a midnight shift at the games)
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>> Never laze around in bed during weekdays.
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Yes, we've made that resolution as well, but when there is no overriding reason to get up it's not easy! Particularly when it's -15° outside.......
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I've often had to get up regularly early for work, and I've always hated it. Indeed in those stages of my working life this hatred of early-morning activity often led to embarrassment and even trouble. But you can't work in a City office or do third world hacking without having to cope with unsocial hours.
My natural tendency is to rise very late and stay up very late. I am a night person and always was. It isn't super-efficient but it's still possible to produce.
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>> My natural tendency is to rise very late and stay up very late. I am
>> a night person and always was. It isn't super-efficient but it's still possible to produce.
Makes it harder to reproduce, though!
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No it doesn't Rastaman. Anyway I did all that years ago. Got away with it too so far.
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On becoming an OAP - advice please. - bathtub tom
