Well I finally decided to bow out and sell my business. My wife had a cake made for the office celabration. A cake fitting for a car guy that now may finally get back to a hobby I missed most of my life! The cake told the story of my 46 year career in HVAC

and topped out with me rolling on into retirement. I told the cake lady it looked like some of my body work!🤣

 

Ha! Watch out for the "stripe police" with that one!

 

Congratulations! Best of luck on your next chapter.

 

Great thread! Enjoy retirement...

 

Retirement.... great news! Enjoy it to the max for MANY years.

 

Congrats!

 

Congratulations and you will really enjoy it. I've been retired for 20 years and I live large and love it.

 

Congrats. Semi-retired and Love it!

 

Congratulations on retirement, you will soon find out that you will have less free time than you had before lol.

 

Been retired going on 6 years..love it..done more work on my muscle cars than any other time in life..Ya got the time learn, take your time and do..what could be better?

 

Congrats on your retirement!
I will be joining your status 2/23/2024, my last day. Working steady since my first job picking golf ***** of the Montammy Country Club in Alpine, NJ driving range in 1968 for $1 an hour, finished up in the insurance business making a bit more than that.

 

What car will ya be focusing on in retirement?

 

My current project is what the cake lady attempted to reproduce. I call it my 25' car because its looks good as long as you dont get too close!

 

Congratulation!

 

Retirement, the best job I've ever had, enjoy every day, congrats...Tedd

 

Welcome to the second half of life!

 

I’m looking forward to the day I can start a thread like this.

 

Congratulations! I'm counting down- 56 months to go.....

 

It will be here before you know it. Take if from me, I thought the day would never come. Now we can go visit my wife's family in Woodbine any time we want.

 

Grats dude.

7 years, 5 months, 14 days here. It's not so much the job, it's the management.

 

+1 , congratulations have been retired for 3 years now and love it.

 

I know you are going to sleep in every day till 9 am and sit around in your sweats. Nope.

 

I was an early riser into the office by 5:30 every morning. Surprisingly I'm sleeping until 7:30. Gotta admit I'm lovin it!

 

Congrats on your career choice, begin the new one. Happy for you. "Dues Paid in Full" Lot of do's to make that happen I am thinking, nice job!

Enjoy working on your own schedule of priorities.

Keith-
I am still riding the teeter-totter

 

Awesome!!! Stepping out of he rat race while still being able to enjoy it is GOLD. Cant wait for my turn.

 

Best of luck. Best piece of advice...Now that you're home a lot more, try not to drive your wife nuts.

 

Congrats. Hung up my pocket protector last August after 39 yrs. Been staying busy finishing up some home projects and getting wife's craft business up and running. Looking forward to working on my cars this summer too. ENJOY!!

 

I have now officially joined you in the ranks of the retired, effective: now.

Just curious, I already got this feeling I am now an unproductive bum. How long does that last., is there anything I can do to shake that?

 

Early 2025 is my goal, and in Sept that year I turn 70 and hope to grab my SS benefit. Its getting very hard now to get up and go to work when so much fun there is that I could be having with my cars and fixing all the neglect on and around the house.

 

it's okay to feel like an unproductive bum for a while. You earned it! I find now that I take a very different outlook on everything I do . I do it to the best of my ability without the pressure of time to finish it. I help lots of people with things now without taking the lead. I'm just a free pair of hands that doesn't care what time it is!🤣

 

That feeling will go away with time. My montra now is: "Every Day is Saturday".
So, what would you do on a Saturday? The best part is that you don't have to get a project done just because you have to get back to work on Monday!
Like Red Greene would say "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy"!

 

Relax, enjoy the day with no agenda for a few weeks.. then you can prioritize all the things you always wanted to do. Get started..I have done more work on my cars in 5 years than I ever did in 35 years. Also travel, spend time with family and friends. First thing you need to do is realize that YOU DESERVE this..it’s not selfish, it’s a reward for a long adult work life..Enjoy every moment as we all never know when we will be called home or get to the point we cannot work on the things we put off all those years..

 

Thanks I will work hard at this for sure. I'm a free pair of hands now, so I can now help others. During the week.

 

Congratulations on the retirement.

 

I look forward to this. I may have just accelerated my timetable at work. I interviewed for a lateral transfer, and I anticipate applying for two promotions. If none of those pan out, I shall look at my yearly compensation letter, and, if it should not have the large boosts they've given to all other positions recently, I shall probably hang it up. I'd like to write novels, but I will set myself a hard limit of no more than 3 days a week working, and I may trade ahead with myself to work more in the winter and less in the summer.

 

That looks to be a really good plan. The last couple of years I worked I always said I was one bad (or woke) boss away from retiring. Fortunately, that never happened, I had great mgmt my last 12 or so years on the job. Then when I turned 65 I asked them to allow me to work 100% remote (from SC) or I'd have to retire due to the move being made mandatory by my better half. That lasted nearly 2 years till I advised of my retirement last October for the 2/23/2024 effective date.

Nobody lives forever.

 

+1 on this. Have several friends who died before their retirement , so enjoy every day. ( also if you not have done anything that day )