There’s value to staying engaged through part-time work, as long as it’s not soul-destroying. If Klaymen can find a part-time job that he loves, he’ll never work another day in his life.
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I generally agree. I’ve started thinking about what I’d do if I could do whatever I wanted. I haven’t found a fully satisfactory answer. I’d spend more time on hobbies for sure but I don’t think I could do that all day every day.
Best thing I’ve come up with so far is working with a local nonprofit that builds small homes and then sells them at cost or thereabouts to lower income residents. Yes, housing affordability is an issue even in Kansas.
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Same.
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Maybe that’s why I’m so hell bent on retiring early. Because I have so many things I’d rather be doing than humping emails and spreadsheets
I’d rather level out my own property, mow my own lawn, weed my own yard, maintain my paver patio, leaf blow all the debris out of my garage
Then I can go inside and pull up all the floorboards, replace subfloor or screw them all down to eliminate the infernal squeaking, sand the stairs, knock down a wall and expand both bathrooms upstairs
I’m sure once my friends and family see the work I’ve done they will be interested in some help
So many thangs that need thanging
But also for myself I would probably go to the grocery store everyday and buy food to make, workout every day, naps, walks with wife/kids, super smash brothers competitive scene
It is so crazy to me that people just resign themselves to working instead of investing then chilling
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I feel I don’t even have an abundance of hobbies but I can’t feel the same way.
I have plenty of friends who I haven’t visited, some in years because they’re 6 hours away and we’re both busy. It’s too much for a one-day trip and I’ve never had a reason to be in their town, but we’re close enough to keep in touch. Some are getting grown children I’ve never met.
I would love to have more time to volunteer. I do some, mostly at the animal shelter or Habitat for Humanity. (Edit: I disliked this made me seem super philanthropic, we’re talking like 2-3 times a year.) If I had unlimited time, I’d try to average maybe 3 half-days a week that were dedicated to volunteering. I’d probably be much more willing to help with random things too, but would want some structure to my week where I’m always choosing to work those days.
I’ve always wanted to learn how to forge and craft metalwork, but it’s too expensive to begin without knowing I’d love it and there’s nowhere local to learn. I’d love to get better at snowboarding, dance, drumming, digital music creation.
I have so many gotten-for-free video games in my backlog where I enjoy each when I boot it up, but I see hundreds of hours ahead of me and probably won’t finish them all.
I used to read a lot and still do, but more like a book per month than a book every three days. I’d read a bit more with unlimited time. I work out a little almost every day, but with more free time I’d be on a better routine of 6 days per week. I love to cook fine foods, but could put a lot more time especially into things like smoking BBQ.
Random morning ramble. Gotta go grocery shop now with my limited time 
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I will definitely partake in many more steam sales when I stop working
I’m very much not a game sale hoarder, but I have at least 300 hours ahead of me between BG3, Tears of the Kingdom, Nobody Saves the World, Cult of the Lamb, Wild West… Half of those were free with PS+ subscription. I’ve probably spent $200 on video games in the last 3 years but still have more than I can finish.
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I’d like to think I’d start retirement by traveling, something like 6-9 months circling the globe. Between now and then I plan on doing a six week trip, I’ve never traveled more than two weeks so I’m not sure how much I’d enjoy living out of a suitcase for an extended period.
And I think whatever I do, I’d like the ability to take a few months off here and there. Learn something new, go take some trips around the US, whatever.
But I would like to contribute to my community in some fashion. So I think I’d want to find some way to do that consistently.
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Sometime before next winter I’d like to visit my best friend from high school in Pittsburgh. I’ll probably drive out there and visit a lot of other college friends from MI, WI, and other central states.
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Well if you make it down to Kansas hit me up and we’ll tear up the town here in Lawrence.
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Where did these charts come from? How are they looking now?
I need to make an RRSP contribution before the end of February to bring down my 2023 tax bill.
The modelling is based on the lagged effect of rate rises on the stock market using historical data.
Its done for fun, but it looks like its going to be fairly accurate (2025 being the correction year). This was posted back in 2023 and people didn’t really believe it as the market was booming.
You have never taken more than a 2 week holiday?
That sounds harsh.
Wait until you hear about many companies would outright refuse more than two weeks off except for FMLA!
I find travel very stressful and generally unenjoyable, so for me, anything longer than a week is far too long. But I’m hoping cruising feels different and I can do that in retirement for long periods of time.
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Welcome to the US of A. I think the most PTO I ever had was 25 days per year. But my wife had less and we burned random days throughout the year so two weeks is pretty much our max.
In 2018 we managed to pull off a week in London, a week in Amsterdam, two weeks in Italy, and a quick trip to Hawaii. We leveraged July 4 and Thanksgiving and everything. Was quite a year.
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My longest vacation is 6 weeks. I’ve taken quite a few in the 10-14 day range, but only one trip that was >2 weeks.
My pets generally limit me from taking really long trips right now. We have a pet sitter that checks in on the cats while we are out of town. For some vacations we bring the dog, but for others we board her.
I recently left 22 unpaid PTO days at a company. I never had enough time to take them. My state doesn’t require them paid out unless it’s in the company handbook, and it was not.
Fuck em though, my raise more than made up for it, and from contacts with old coworkers I very much made the correct decision to leave.
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Same here. We use pet sitters for the cats (they come in 2x/day).
Up to 4 weeks is generally ok (they are used to the sitters now) but beyond that they start getting anxious (and they start relieving themselves outside the litter boxes).
One of the reasons we prefer cats is that having dogs makes it very difficult to travel as you cannot leave them at home by themselves (even for a few hours). Has to be a kennel really (and even that can be difficult for them).
22?
Ouch. We can sell our holidays (up to 10) back to the company if need be (we pay tax on them as well). Not beyond that though as they (HR) are quite adamant about people taking time off.