What do you do in retirement? (besides travel)

[RX8]

I drive a school bus.

 

[pedro47]

I drive a school bus.

No way RX8, you must have a lot of patience. Good Luck.
Please be careful.

 

[RX8]

No way RX8, you must have a lot of patience. Good Luck.

The middle school students are actually a lot of fun. There are some challenging times but overall they are very well behaved. In fact, I think I would do this for no pay as I feel that I am doing something important. Luckily, the only option is for them to pay me.

 

[DrQ]

As I've detailed in another post, I have concentrated on diet and exercise to lose weight and build muscle in preparation for hip replacement surgery.

To that, I follow the training that I received in school and work (quality control, six sigma, TQM, ITIL ...) is that you can't change a thing unless you measure a thing.

I have the following devices:

• Blood Glucose (finger stick)
• MyFitnessPal (food diary)
• Blood Pressure Cuff
• Scale
• Fitbit

They all have their own apps and some use Android's Health Connect, but I can't find one app that can take all the sources and provide a "single pane of glass" for all the parameters of interest to me. So I decided to "Roll my own" Microsoft's Power BI Desktop, which is free.

Here is what I get so far:

This is a combination of data from MyFinessPal, Withing scale and Fitbit. There are others, but these are the best that show the integration of data.

My GP wants it sent to add to my records.

 

[Talent312]

One more thing I do... Eat.
My doc was concerned that I was losing weight (20 lbs in 6 mos),
Doughnuts (boston cream or jelly) and bagels with cream cheese
seem to have stabilized my weight.

My doc said, "Those are whole wheat doughnuts, right?"
I replied, "Sure,"

 

[AwayWeGo]

bagels with cream cheese

Cement donuts.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[pedro47]

I once gained 25 pounds by eating Krispy Cream jelly donuts at work with my morning coffee break and my afternoon coffee break.

Gaining the weight was easy; but losing 25 pounds was very hard. Just be careful with your weight gain and what you eat to gain weight.

 

[DrQ]

I once gained 25 pounds by eating Krispy Cream jelly donuts at work with my morning coffee break

I love Panera's Orange scones with my coffee, but it is limited to at least once in a two-week period, maybe longer.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

Microsoft's Power BI Desktop, which is free. Here is what I get so far:

Great "BI" (Body Intelligence). a question and 2 comments
on 9/2 & 9/4, your biggest exercise days, you didn't eat anything special, and in fact you ate only avg or less from the 2nd to the 5th. Why not?
On those big workout days, feed the machine.
More protein. Given your goals and weight, I (not a nutritionist, but hey) would say you should consume at least 150 g of protein/day. You only hit that 2x in the month.
More eggs is an easy add, if you like them. Oh, have you supplemented amino acids?

 

[DrQ]

Great "BI" (Body Intelligence). a question and 2 comments
on 9/2 & 9/4, your biggest exercise days, you didn't eat anything special, and in fact you ate only avg or less from the 2nd to the 5th. Why not?
On those big workout days, feed the machine.
More protein. Given your goals and weight, I (not a nutritionist, but hey) would say you should consume at least 150 g of protein/day. You only hit that 2x in the month.
More eggs is an easy add, if you like them. Oh, have you supplemented amino acids?

Great questions. My nephrologist wants me to limit protein to under 130 grams/day

I'm about to do a reset as I'm being kicked out of PT (2x a week) this week. I will replace it with going to the gym 3 times a week and I will have to see what the numbers say. I'm within 15 lbs of my interim goal of 220 (from 350) lbs which I need to hold for three months to qualify for skin removal surgery. And then there is my orthopedic surgeons opinion on my hip.

Lots of changes

 

[DrQ]

More eggs is an easy add, if you like them

My DW goes with me to PT and on those days my favorite brunch is:

• 3 poached eggs
• 3 chicken apple sausages (44g)
• 1 cup of mixed fruit
• 1 buttered English muffin
• Black coffee

 

[MrockStar]

10 1/2 Months away from retirement, so i will post here once Oct 1st, 2026, rolls around.

 

[ScoopKona]

I cut down trees
I eat my lunch
I go to the lavatry'
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea

 

[TUGBrian]

i run a popular timeshare owner website!

 

[bizaro86]

i run a popular timeshare owner website!

I spend my time surfing a popular timeshare owner's website

 

[SmithOp]

@DaveNV I did not know you had taken up writing. We have a former neighbor and friend that recently retired from teaching and has her first book coming out soon. Her wife used to buy storage lockers, and was on one episode of Storage Wars in the Bay Area.

Home - Julie Snider

juliesniderauthor.com

They will be joining us in December for a short cruise, another retirement thing we enjoy but I suppose it counts as travel. Living close to Long Beach ports we take cruises to enjoy the ships, never getting off in the Mexico ports we've visited many times.

 

[DaveNV]

@DaveNV I did not know you had taken up writing. We have a former neighbor and friend that recently retired from teaching and has her first book coming out soon. Her wife used to buy storage lockers, and was on one episode of Storage Wars in the Bay Area.

Home - Julie Snider

juliesniderauthor.com

They will be joining us in December for a short cruise, another retirement thing we enjoy but I suppose it counts as travel. Living close to Long Beach ports we take cruises to enjoy the ships, never getting off in the Mexico ports we've visited many times.

Dave, that's cool to hear! Always enjoy knowing about other writers. I did a lot of technical writing when I worked in IT and in the Navy. Writing for pleasure is a whole different animal. It's great fun.

We'll be passing by you in December, picking up a cruise ship in San Pedro for one of those dreaded Mexico cruises they like to do so often. This one will take us to three ports we haven't seen, so there will be a bit of "getting off the ship" going on.

Dave

 

[1Kflyerguy]

This was an interesting thread. My wife will be retiring by the end of October. I have one or two more years to go. Mostly working on figuring out the best way to handle medical insurance until we are each Medicare eligible.

I plan to do more gardening and home projects, probably tinkering with my koi pond, and adding more high-tech automation to various things. Definitely travel more, though, based on the thread title, not supposed to include that... My wife does not like trips that last over a week, so we probably opt for shorter trips, even if that means higher airfare.

 

[DeniseM]

- Spend time at our 2nd home in the Sierras (Reno)
- Garden
- Walk - we walked 19 miles in Incline Village last week.
- Spend time with our disabled adult son
- Surf the internet
- Read
- I like to cook, bake and make sourdough bread
- Visit casinos
- Online business
- We don't have any grandchildren or golf.

 

[PigsDad]

This was an interesting thread. My wife will be retiring by the end of October. I have one or two more years to go. Mostly working on figuring out the best way to handle medical insurance until we are each Medicare eligible.

I absolutely understand that! With retiring early, medical insurance and expenses is by far our largest expense, and also the one of the most difficult to accurately estimate. If anything would have kept me from retiring when I did, it would be the uncertainty around medical expenses, and that is what we focused on more than anything with our financial advisor when going through the process of retiring.

Kurt

 

[pedro47]

Read the TUG website daily. LOL

 

[Tia]

The middle school students are actually a lot of fun. There are some challenging times but overall they are very well behaved. In fact, I think I would do this for no pay as I feel that I am doing something important. Luckily, the only option is for them to pay me.

You are doing something important!!

 

[SandyPGravel]

Since I retired over 17 years ago, I've played zero rounds of golf. Instead, I enjoy biking. I have logged over 24,901 cycling miles. That’s enough to go around the world. Thanks to a friend for inspiring me to set that goal. In Minnesota, the summer's are short, but the bike trails are scenic and plentiful.

View attachment 117034

My husband would be your new best friend if we lived closer. I sent him a screen shot of your post and asked how many times around the world for him.(He says 3*) He's been retired for 2 1/2 years now. He's been an avid(obsessed, insane insert your own adjective) bicyclist since 2008. He bikes almost every day as soon as the roads are clean of salt, until it snows again.

*Since 2008

 

[FL Guy]

I retired in January of 2020, 3 months shy of my 64th birthday. I had planned to retire at 65, when I was Medicare eligible, but had an a-hole boss that wrote me up for not taking action about something I had no knowledge had happened for me to have done anything about it. So, I paid for 15 months of COBRA and began retirement life. (Had I known COVID lockdowns were going to hit 2-3 weeks later, I could have continued working, but from home, where I could have avoided the a-hole boss and not had to pay for 15 months of COBRA.)

My retirement has been very unlike anything I had envisioned it would be. First, COVID put the kibosh on travel plans. Additionally, it put the kibosh on activities I had been engaging in prior to retirement, which I'd planned to expand on, in addition to traveling, after retirement. I'm active in my church, and that was closed. I had been a regular volunteer organist playing theatre organ for the historic theatre here in town, and that was closed. So, my retirement abruptly went from working 45+ hours a week in an office, plus church activities/obligations & theatre organ obligations, to staying at home pretty much 24/7 and talking with friends on the phone, spending time online, riding my bicycle, and watching TV.

As things started re-opening from COVID, my partner and I decided to buy a house together, sell our respective houses, and consolidate and move two houses full of 20+ years' accumulation of "stuff" into one house. That took 1-2 years to get accomplished, and projects completed to the combined household. By that time my partner retired, and we were able to start some traveling together.

Now my non-traveling retirement time is mostly spent with church-related activities. I'm on the church board, play organ for church, and sing in the choir. I've never returned to playing the theatre organ for the historic theatre in town, but I miss it and keep thinking I'll start back again. But it's a time commitment to which I haven't been willing to tie myself to again yet. (The theatre is down to 1 other organist, so the organ is played very infrequently, and I know they'd be happy if I started playing again.)

Otherwise, time is spent with friends, my partner, and our dog.

 

[pedro47]

I retired in January of 2020, 3 months shy of my 64th birthday. I had planned to retire at 65, when I was Medicare eligible, but had an a-hole boss that wrote me up for not taking action about something I had no knowledge had happened for me to have done anything about it. So, I paid for 15 months of COBRA and began retirement life. (Had I known COVID lockdowns were going to hit 2-3 weeks later, I could have continued working, but from home, where I could have avoided the a-hole boss and not had to pay for 15 months of COBRA.)

My retirement has been very unlike anything I had envisioned it would be. First, COVID put the kibosh on travel plans. Additionally, it put the kibosh on activities I had been engaging in prior to retirement, which I'd planned to expand on, in addition to traveling, after retirement. I'm active in my church, and that was closed. I had been a regular volunteer organist playing theatre organ for the historic theatre here in town, and that was closed. So, my retirement abruptly went from working 45+ hours a week in an office, plus church activities/obligations & theatre organ obligations, to staying at home pretty much 24/7 and talking with friends on the phone, spending time online, riding my bicycle, and watching TV.

As things started re-opening from COVID, my partner and I decided to buy a house together, sell our respective houses, and consolidate and move two houses full of 20+ years' accumulation of "stuff" into one house. That took 1-2 years to get accomplished, and projects completed to the combined household. By that time my partner retired, and we were able to start some traveling together.

Now my non-traveling retirement time is mostly spent with church-related activities. I'm on the church board, play organ for church, and sing in the choir. I've never returned to playing the theatre organ for the historic theatre in town, but I miss it and keep thinking I'll start back again. But it's a time commitment to which I haven't been willing to tie myself to again yet. (The theatre is down to 1 other organist, so the organ is played very infrequently, and I know they'd be happy if I started playing again.)

Otherwise, time is spent with friends, my partner, and our dog.

Sound liked you may the right decision to retire early . IMHO
Enjoy your retirement. Life is to short to deal with foolish people.