3046: Before You Retire - Powerful Lessons from Mini Retirement by Chris of Keep Thrifty

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Finance Daily. Before You Retire, Powerful Lessons from Mini Retirement by Chris of KeepThrifty.com I can't believe that we're already six months into our one-year mini retirement. It feels like just yesterday that I was packing up my belongings at work and at home as we flipped our life upside down to try something crazy.

[00:00:24] This mini retirement has been an opportunity for me to practice real retirement and I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I've learned some important lessons that will help me down the road when I finally leave the workforce permanently. No matter where you are on your retirement journey, and whether that's going to be traditional retirement, early retirement, or a mini retirement, keep these in mind to help you make the most of your time.

[00:00:49] Number one, don't retire from something, retire to something. Imagine yourself on the first day of your real retirement. You've been looking forward to getting your time back and now it's finally yours. This is going to be awesome, right? Okay, so now what? It's common to get really focused on what you won't have to do in retirement, like commuting and workplace politics.

[00:01:14] But if your only goal in retirement is to not have to work, you'll probably find yourself unsatisfied and even bored when you finally get there. It's really important to create a vision for your retirement so you know what you're retiring to. When we planned our mini retirement, I knew that I had features I wanted to add to the Thrifty app, a huge list of articles to write, and thoughts on a keep Thrifty site redesign.

[00:01:41] In addition, I wanted to spend more time with Jamie, coffee dates and daytime hikes, and with our girls walking them to school and volunteering in the classroom. If I found myself with extra time, I thought I might take an online coding class or two, spend more time exercising, get back into reading fiction books, and get more involved in our church. As a result of planning ahead, I haven't had a bored moment in the last six months, other than when I was waiting on hold this morning with our health insurance provider.

[00:02:12] Looking forward, I've easily got enough things I'd like to do to keep me busy for years. So make sure to develop a vision for what you want in retirement before you get there. Number two, when preparing, focus as much on your head as on your finances. If someone asks you when you'd be ready to retire, you might pull up a spreadsheet with projections on the growth of your investment accounts. Understanding when you'll be financially

[00:02:39] ready for retirement is great, but do you know when you'll be mentally ready? You might say, right now, after all, wouldn't it be great to stop working today? But there's a lot more to the mental transition than just wanting to stop working. We spend so much of our lives working before retirement that the shift can be a difficult adjustment. Whether you know it or not, you identify yourself as a breadwinner, a hard worker, or by your job title. When you retire, those all go

[00:03:08] away, and you have to know what's left to fill the void in your identity. When I was working, I got bi-weekly validation of my contributions through my paychecks. I had the benefit of feeling like I was part of something bigger. When people asked, what do I do? I had an easy answer. Engineering manager. Since starting the mini retirement, I've found myself struggling with whether or not what I'm

[00:03:33] working on is valuable. If people aren't paying, is it actually worth something? In the last six months, I've had the chance to redefine my identity. I'm not an engineering manager. I'm a writer, a coder, a husband, and a father, and a Christian. Understanding who I am outside of my job has been one of my toughest and most valuable lessons from this mini retirement. Looking back, I know I spent

[00:03:59] a disproportionate amount of time in the last several years focused on the dollars over time on understanding myself. The good news is that I'm getting a chance to learn this lesson now, that I'm not defined by a job title or a paycheck, so that I'll be in much better shape when real retirement comes. And number three, extra time is good. Extra time with structure is great.

[00:04:25] Remember that list of things I said I wanted to accomplish in mini retirement? I've had a lot more time to work on them. But for the first several months of my mini retirement, I was way out of balance. I've had wild swings from week to week. One week, I'll get a ton of fun work done, but sacrifice time with Jamie and the girls. The next week, I'll spend wonderful moments with my family, but suffer from an itch to exercise my creative muscles. Now that we're six months in,

[00:04:55] I've started to develop more of a rhythm of what my days and weeks look like, and the balance is much better. Every morning, Jamie and I have coffee together after we drop the kids off at school. We spend an hour of quality time chatting, playing cards, or planning a vacation. After this, it's work time until the kids come home from school. After they're home, the laptops are closed 99% of the time until they go to bed. Those hours are precious and we want to protect them. We've also scheduled

[00:05:24] when we volunteer in the kids' classrooms to make sure we're fitting this in. It's important, but easy to let slip. By defining clear boundaries and structure, we've been able to turn the blessing of free time in retirement from something good to something great. I feel like I'm now using my time to get bits of everything I had hoped for. As you look toward retirement, consider what your schedule

[00:05:49] might look like to make sure you're investing your time in all of the things that are important to you. What to do before you retire? Taking a mini retirement is a great practice session for real retirement. We've learned some important lessons that will help us when we're ready to finally retire for good. As you work toward your own retirement, take these lessons to heart. Build a vision for what

[00:06:14] you want your retirement to be. Create a loose schedule that allows you to make the most of your time and ensure you've developed a solid identity outside of your day job. If you can get all those checked off before retirement, I'm sure you'll have a great one. You just listened to the post titled Before You Retire, Powerful Lessons from Mini Retirement by Chris of Keepthrifty.com.

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[00:08:47] slash OFD. Rocketmoney.com slash OFD. I'm a big fan of mini retirements and sabbaticals. Not only does it allow you to test drive what full retirement might look like, but it can also help you mentally disconnect your identity from your profession. I experienced this during my first sabbatical in 2017. I took two months off of work to walk 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

[00:09:16] It was an incredible life experience for many reasons, but one that really stands out to me is that it helped me see that I am more than my work. You see, none of the people who I met while walking the Camino cared about my fancy corporate job with my high-profile clients and an office in the Empire State Building. Literally no one asked me what I did for work. They asked me about my experience walking the Camino. They wanted to know what I was learning and how this experience was

[00:09:45] making me a better person. I used to think of myself as an aggressive New Yorker, but on the Camino, I was shocked to see that I have some real maternal instincts. I felt a strong urge to take care of the people around me. I'd often walk up to strangers and adjust their packs so they would bear more weight on their hips rather than their shoulders. I carried more water than I needed because I kept

[00:10:10] meeting people who needed water. Many women are known to be nurturers, and they sometimes take care of everyone around them to their own detriment. I have never been that kind of woman. Admittedly, I was pretty self-centered most of my life. To see this nurturing side of me come out so effortlessly was simply thrilling. This sense of generosity has been something I've carried home with me

[00:10:35] and has become one of my most important core values. After returning from the Camino, my approach became much more oriented towards how I can help the people around me. And this has been extremely gratifying. So all that being said, if you're able to take a break from work and have a life adventure, I highly recommend it. And that should do it for today. Have a happy rest of your day, and I'll see you on the Thursday show tomorrow, where optimal life awaits.