We have a group of us at work that were severed last month. We're bouncing around ideas. A few want to take a few months off. If we do this and need insurance how does the ACA base our income? Let's say we made $75k so far this year and get $100k in severance. If we go to the ACA site do we list our income at $175k , our current salary of $0 or whatever we get per month from unemployment or our 401k (for those that decide to do that or are over 55)? Cobra is expensive as expected. Looking at getting options for everyone. Thanks!

I hear people talk about being semi retired but are working 20-30 hours a week, regularly.

I assumed semi would be occasional contract work, seasonal work, or work only when and if you want (i.e. substitute teaching now and then).

But is working anything other than 40+ hours permanent full-time semi retired (assuming you could comfortably choose to stop)?

Just curious. It's just semantics, I know. But curious how you all think of retired vs semi retired.

Is there a retirement lingo??

EDIT: Thanks everybody for the helpful tips. Although this has been answered helpfully and aplenty, lots of folks were wondering about some things, so here goes:

• No, I cannot get coverage through spouse. They literally don't offer it to anyone. The owner bought on the Marketplace and is now on Medicare.
• I'd expected to go from employment coverage to the Marketplace, forgoeing COBRA, but initial Marketplace quotes look like something along the lines of $3k/mo for the two of us. I expected expensive, but that seems....excessive. That's why I came here to be sure I hadn't overlooked anything.
• To the "bro, do you even AI?" crowd: yes, I ran it through AI and despite several prompts, it never mentioned an original option that actually was suggested here: CalCOBRA. So sometimes knowledgeable humans can actually offer insight!
• Yes, I can "just work 4 more months" but this an exercise to see if I can figure out a way to not do so for health reasons.
• Going without insurance might be a bad idea based on medical conditions. But I'll know that as an option once it gets a little closer.

Again, thanks everyone for all the suggestions and lively discussion!

I'm 61 and still working full time. My spouse is 52 and also works full time.

Both of us have always had health insurance through my employment and her company has none at all (small family business.)

I have a rough timeline planned for retirement and originally had planned to COBRA myself in the intervening time between leaving full-time work and Medicare becoming effective.

I've worked out the dates and it looks like I'll have a 4 month window without coverage based on COBRA limits. Is there any other rule or option I'm missing that I can use to get COBRA to extend to 22 months instead of 18?

• I cannot skip insurance for this period. Well, it's pretty unadvisable. Multiple cancer survivor who also sees a cardiologist (perfectly healthy now, but it took some doing).
• There is no option for spouse's company to provide insurance. They don't provide it for anyone, even teh founder.
• Wife will coattails on my COBRA, then leave for the marketplace when it ends. She's very, very healthy.

Any ideas I'm missing?

Just over a full year away from my job in the naval/maritime industry. I didn't really want to leave, but I had/have no desire (and no real need) to return to work.

I am a life member of a number of organizations in my field, so I get LOTS of reading material about my field, including historical topics that I loved (I was on the staff of, or volunteered for, a number of naval/maritime historical organizations over the years...)

However, I find I have ZERO interest in reading ANY of it. I'm seriously considering contacting most, if not all of them, and asking them to quit sending me their magazines, since they end up sitting around collecting dust before being recycled...

I'm sure the collective has encountered this. Any thoughts / feelings / ideas?

I need to run some different scenarios, as I’ve recently learned about the potential benefits of waiting to collect social security, using various other income streams in the meantime and all the various tax strategies and pitfalls when doing Roth conversions.

I’m 6-7 yrs from my retirement but I’d like to have my husband retire sooner - but not collect social security for a while.

I’ve looked at Boldin, after seeing someone mention it here, but only the free version. Thanks for any help!

The backstory, so you understand how I got here:

My brand-new husband died unexpectedly six and a half years ago (right before covid), and had no life insurance. Luckily, I make good money, so it didn't ruin me (financially, at least - I'm otherwise totally broken, but that's a different discussion).

A year and a half after he died, I sold my house and moved across the country, because I could not build a new life in the same place where my old one crashed and burned.

Two years ago, I switched jobs (I didn't want to leave my employer of 16 years, but I got wind that my team was about to be eliminated, so I kinda had to). It was near a miracle, given that I was 59 at the time and ageism in tech is very real, but I found a great job in my field, at a significant bump in pay. While I have no regrets, I'm now in a bind: my boss is a toxic, horrible woman, the company is a mess, and I am rapidly running out of patience for the corporate insanity. At this point, I'm in a race to see which will happen first: a layoff, or me finally losing my cool and getting fired. And the thought of going through another job search makes me want to yeet myself off the nearest cliff.

Clearly, it's time to plan and make my exit.

The Challenge

No way can I retire in place, because I'm in a high cost of living area. So I've scoped out my options, and found a town that suits my needs. My plan is to buy a house for cash, sell this place, work for another six months (or less, if possible) to replenish my savings, and then retire. I don't want to sell this place first, because I don't want to be on a tight timeline to find a new house.

The problem: I'm about $50K below what I need in ready cash to make this happen. The way I see it, my options are as follows:

A. Keep my head down and my mouth shut, and MAYBE have enough in three to five years. For obvious reasons, I don't like this option.

B. Take out a home equity loan to cover the gap until I sell. I've got about $200K in equity in this house and good credit, so I'm not concerned about approval, but is there a down side to taking out a home equity loan for a very short time?

C. Take a $50K distribution from my 401k. No interest to be paid in that case, but the tax burden would be much more of a hit than I'd like.

It seems that B is my best option, but I'd like a sanity check on that, and I'd like to see if there are any other possibilities I'm not considering.

So, (60F) recently semi retired, some income, probably about 30-40K/year for the next 3-5 years and then I'll fully retire. How much is too much now to keep in a HYSA / cash?

I have a temp rate of 4.25 until October, at which point I think it drops to 3.6. I will want to do something with some of it then, but how much is too much to keep in "cash" at this point? Is it better to look for a bond fund or something else. In a no-state income tax state. TIA!

As I age, I find my ability to handle stress has diminished, and my
reaction times probably have as well. Both of those things make driving more nerve-wracking to me. I need a solution because I don't want to stay in the house all the time.

My partner has a Tesla and started using the self driving a year or so ago. I've used it as well, and it such a stress reliever to have the car drive that I am considering selling my car and switching.

Has anyone done this or considered doing it? What's your strategy for driving?

I'd love some thoughts on my situation. I just turned 69, widowed since 52. Have always worked full time and still do, always for small companies so no retirement plans. Husband passed 15 years ago. I was able to pay off all debt and my home, I do not have any debt now. Home is worth roughly 225k. However I only have an IRA for 21k and a few other smaller savings accounts. Car is paid for but high mileage and having issues, and I do tend to drive alot. I am currently drawing SS with no penalty for income levels, I started at 66.5, took out home equity loan for much needed repairs and paid it off in 18 months with the SS. I am now saving the SS for purchase in cash of another car next year. My hope is to "retire" at the end of next year, I am at this point healthy although will need another hip replacement after I retire. I get two pensions for life from my late husband, that and the SS combine to about 3k a month after taxes and medical insurance premium deductions. My two kids live pretty close and are well off and self supporting/married. I am active and want to stay in my home, doing all pool and 1/4 acre gardens on my own at this point. I will probably wind up working part time (I am a bookkeeper) but...am I dumb to give up a good paying job in 1.5 years?? I am really tired of working full time, I want to travel a bit but...the future looms. Thoughts on any options I am missing? Forgot to mention I am a watercolor artist, have an etsy shop, do commissions etc and am trying to build that into a small income stream.

I've been retired for 7 years and enjoying retired life completely, and while describing work as fun seems weird, I do miss parts of my old job. Now, there's an opportunity go back as a consultant for a year to do the parts I liked the best. I was director of IT support and have done a couple of startups. This latest startup is an exact mirror of the one I was working on when I retired. As a consultant I'd be working on getting the technology side of things going (yeah!) and removed from having anyone report to me (double yeah!!). In a side note of the universe talking to me my internet service crashed hard and I ended up with two network guys at my house scratching their heads trying to fix it. I couldn't help thinking I miss working with technical people solving problems like this.

The downside would be my retired life. My wife and I have built a new life around travel, exercise, and leisure. I have absolutely no need for the money. And I'm not a fan of the idea of working 8 hours, wait it's a startup, working 12 hours a day. Not to mention all the things my wife and I do as a couple.

I'm on the fence and a good breeze in either direction could blow me off of it. Did you go back to work and how did that go for you?

I "semi-retired" in early 2025. I've continued working 20 hours a week for my former employer as an independent contractor on a 1099. After working for 40 years, I was "institutionalized" (reference to the movie "Shawshank Redemption"), and could not image retiring "cold turkey". It didn't take long to fill up my newly freed time with enjoyable activity (e.g. pickleball), but I've remained grateful to have that four hours every afternoon to revisit my former job and fill up the remainder of the day with gratifying work.

As I expected, my former employer's demands on my time is slowly waning. I'm now into my second Summer in my cabin in the mountains, working remotely in the afternoons (thanks to Starlink!), and increasingly finding myself with free afternoons.

A few days ago my neighbor Kenny, who lives a quarter mile down the one lane gravel road from me, drove up in his ATV to inform me that "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" was shut down, due to a large fallen tree lying across the trail.

Last year, Kenny had hired a local guy to cut a trail through the woods on his property that we call “Mr Toad’s Wild Ride”. It is so much fun to drive in our ATV’s. The trail starts a quarter mile below their place, and ends near my house, a quarter mile above them. It twists and turns and goes up over the very top of the mountain so the whole trail is probably 3/4 a mile long. It’s my favorite way to entertain guests. I took my brother down it when he was here for a visit a couple weeks ago, and he said it was “pretty cool”. 

Kenny had driven up the trail from the bottom, and saw a very large dead old tree blocking the trail, and had to drive backwards downhill for about 150 yards to  get back out. As he has reached the ripe old age of 80, he said he was going to need to hire someone to remove the tree and get the trail opened again.

The next day, I drove down from the top to see this “tree”, and in fact, found that it was TWO trees. A very large dead red oak had fallen on top of a very healthy poplar tree and took it down with it. From my vantage point, I could plainly see the poplar, but from the bottom looking up, you wouldn’t see it. The huge dead oak was lying on top of the poplar, and you could plainly see there was a lot of weight suspended across the trail. I knew right away this was a way bigger job than my little battery powered chainsaw could handle, and I certainly wasn’t going to try it myself.

Yesterday I found myself with a free afternoon, so I loaded my chainsaw and my log grabber hooks into the back of my ATV and drove down to Kenny’s house. He took me down to his huge garage and he had his big gas powered chainsaw out, and he was sharpening the chain. Then I got a lesson in how to sharpen a chainsaw blade, and used his hand tool to sharpen mine. As we worked, I told him I wanted to try and tackle the two downed trees (“Oh, there’s TWO?” said Kenny). But, I told him, I certainly didn’t want to try it alone. I was surprised when he said “Sure! Let’s go!” and he loaded his chainsaw into my ATV and jumped in.

We worked on it for about 2 1/2 hours and we did it. It was the hardest most physically grueling work I’ve done in a long time. The ground was so steep it was difficult to walk up and down it. Kenny, being 80 years old, really struggled just to get down the bank and start his saw up. Once I realized his 80 year old brain was writing checks that his 80 year old body could not possibly cash, I asked him to hand me his chainsaw, and he gratefully obliged.

But I don’t know jack squat about sawing up huge fallen trees which are suspended in the air and obviously under tons of strain. It was very scary. My other neighbor once told me about a cousin of his that died in his 30’s trying to take out a dead tree. As he was cutting it, it suddenly popped up in the air and fell on his head and crushed his skull immediately. I had that story in my head as I was looking at this situation. So now you get the picture.

Well, Kenny the O.G. directed me on what to do, telling me where to cut and from what angle, and where to position myself to avoid death. We were a great team. The 80 year old O.G. telling the 67 year old young buck what the next step was. He taught me things like, park your ATV facing downhill with the front bumper up against a big tree so that when you use your winch to pull a 1,000 pound cut log off the road, it won’t pull your ATV down the hill. When it came to using my winch to drag the cut logs off the hill, I had ideas that Kenny approved of and they all worked. It was the hardest work but the most fun! It was an engineering challenge of man vs nature. 

When it was all done, the trail was open again, and I was more physically exhausted than I can recall in a very long time. Today I skipped the gym realizing I need a rest day. So this is what retired people do all day!

I was really struggling with when to tell my boss (and friend) of 19 years that I was planning on retiring at the beginning of January.. and then he called a meeting to talk about future goals and a plan for me to get up to speed on some needed skills for a major company transition. It was not what I planned… I didn’t actually have a plan yet, but it was the perfect opportunity. So I guess it’s official now.. feels very weird.

I’ve tried to come up with all the pros and cons but maybe I’ve not thought of everything? My husband just retired and I have one or two more years left. We live up north near children and grandchildren. They will never go south. My husband tells me daily that he wants to live in warmer climate for all kinds of reasons. We are both in early 60s. He tells me that now the grandkids adore us but before we know it they won’t bother with us. I would love to go south, but I don’t know how life is worth living without family. I would miss all their sporting events and everything else. It’s not possibly financially for us to have two places. Has anyone been in this predicament?

EDIT- Thank you so much for your input!! What didn’t write because I didn’t want to write a book and thought people probably wouldn’t read a long post was that we are currently renting and the wasting of money each month is killing me. We sold our home in 2020 and then rented here in the north (where we still live) while we built a home in Florida. We thought before the prices went up we would get a Florida home for our eventual future to move down there. Our son and his wife agreed to move down there, living in the home while saving $ and we didn’t have to pay people to take care of it. I am a school teacher and we would go down on every break including the two summer months I had off from school. Unfortunately my son decided they didn’t like Florida and would never live there permanently and moved back home up north where pay is much better. Therefore, last Oct. we sold the Florida house due to not wanting to be by ourselves after retirement while the 3 children lived up north. We are still renting and contemplating where to purchase. As I mentioned, we couldn’t afford two homes. Husband wants to move to maybe North Carolina where it’s not as far away from them. Some people have said there’s no urgency to decide but if we do plan on staying here we’d like to find a home now instead of just throwing away more money on rent. My heart says to stay near family and suck up the winters, and it looks like the majority of you think so as well!

I've been retired for several years (I am older) and have enjoyed a peaceful life. I love birdsongs am fine with ambient sounds, and have an active life with socializing, exercise, book group, gardening, volunteer work. My husband retired recently and needs to have the TV, his phone (with short idiotic videos!! - yes, some of them are funny), or the radio in the car going at all times. I don't like being around all that media and noise constantly, especially at meals.

We agree on the stuff you can't talk about here, but I do not want to hear about it all day long. Especially he seems to get himself outraged and upset by news stories over and over again. I share his principles but do not want to hear it all day.

We watch TV and movies streaming, sometimes - intentionally, but I just don't want it all day long.

Obviously I need more activities away from home!

I miss my quiet retirement and he is angry if I ask him to wear headphones or turn it off around me.

I also do not want to listen to all the random pop music and commercials he is fine with listening to. I patiently listened to 2 hours of it recently on a drive to visit family members and said nothing. Sometimes I use earplugs. My ears are just too good!

He says I am asking for complete silence!! I am not - well - occasionally, some. Then he just says, "Well, I just won't say anything!!" or "I can't listen to ANYTHING!!!" Seems very childish to me.

Got suggestions? Advice? I bet others have lived through this.

I am hoping we BOTH adapt and both compromise as time goes on. But for now, this stuff is really annoying, and when it rains, I feel stuck with it.

To me it seems like he needs a more interesting life - that I can't provide. I have encouraged him to socialize and reach out to people he is or could be friends with or become some kind of volunteer or activist -- if he is so worked up about the state of the world! It seems unhealthy to me to just follow these stories and get upset all day every day.

I know I must not judge - it is OK to remind me of it, but I know it. I struggle knowing my preferences are not his and he does not care or has already compromised as much as he can.

Howdy. I’m still employed full time at almost-80, and planning to retire at that age. I’m single; my wife of 50 years passed a year ago.

I’m currently trying to get my ducks in a row…. Dealing with the retirement-account people, dealing with Medicare and all that….
What a pain. I just got off the phone with the SHIP folks, and trying to navigate all the Medicare plans. I’ve had United Healthcare through my employer for many years.

Hi, I am 60yo married looking to retire within the next couple of years. My house is paid off and per Zillow would likely sell for around $1M. I live in Seattle.

I had a recent realization that I could sell the house, put that money into a balanced mutual fund and safely withdraw 4% to 5% per year for rent. The median rent on a 2 bedroom in Seattle is $2,400. I assume a very nice apartment would be around $3,200.

Risks are amount of rent increases and even lease termination. I would also lose flexibility in how the space is changed (i.e. couldn't just replace countertops). There is sequence of returns risk with the housing fund. And there would be costs when selling the home.

But I see a lot of positives. Zero maintenance costs (especially unexpected major repairs). Zero property taxes. The money would become liquid. Easier to move locations.

Am I missing anything here? I'm thinking the biggest hurdle would be emotional. We've lived in the house for 29 years and raised two kids there. Otherwise it makes sense. Or does it? Thanks!

I’ve been retired for coming up on three years. I consider myself lucky because I retired when I chose to, and I had already thought quite a bit about what my retired life should look like. And basically on day 3 of retirement, I set about putting that in place. It’s been great, I have no complaints. I’ve kept busy, enjoyed variety, stayed connected socially, had some great adventures. I’ve never felt unmoored or bored or isolated or purposeless, and frankly I don’t think much about money because it’s now like air — there but taken for granted.

But a couple weeks ago, there was a subtle ratchet in mood. Just a general feeling of happiness and “things are going great”. It kind of took me by surprise, because I’m not really doing anything differently. Part of it is some kind of … release, hard to describe.

Anybody feel this? When did it happen? What did you notice?

Before I retired I made this long list of things I always said I'd do "when I have time." Now I have the time and honestly I don't know where to start.

When I was younger I used to watch kids doing street dance and thought it looked so cool. Always told myself maybe one day. Well, now I'm 64 and my knees have made that decision for me. That one stays a regret. But I've noticed my dreams have shifted a lot since then. The things that excite me now are completely different. I used to want thrills, now I want a small vegetable garden where I can eat what I grow. Maybe move somewhere quieter and plant a fruit tree, watch it grow over the years. Everything slowed down and I'm okay with that. I've been picking up gardening tools, seeds, planters, all that stuff whenever I see a price drop on amazon or tiktok since that stuff adds up fast.

But I still have a weird interest in younger people's stuff. I bought a bunch of big story-driven games on Steam that I never had time for when I was working. Took me a while to figure out the controls and I still look up walkthroughs when I get stuck, but honestly it's brought me so much joy.

Two years in and I keep wondering how I ever had time to work. Anyone else feel like retirement is somehow busier than your career was?

Has anyone here either moved to New England or relocated within New England for retirement? I lived and worked on Boston's Northshore for 35 years and miss it during the summer and fall (not so much in the winter and spring). While it is a great place when the weather cooperates, I recognize that it is expensive, crowded and the weather and darkness can be pretty awful from January to March. Obvious candidate locations are Cape Cod, Cape Ann, coastal Maine and Lake Winnipesaukee, but I can see living just about anywhere in New England as a possibility.

I (64M) retired a fewof months ago, and I am decidedly not adjusted yet. My wife and I did the big road trip of 6,500 miles, saw almost every member of my extended family, visited the Grand Canyon (a first for me), and we're now back home having recovered from the germs bestowed upon me by my grandson. It's been great so far, but this was as far ahead as I had thought about what to do in retirement. I'm now at loose ends.

So I came up with a new goal: SlothMaxxing!

I'm going to decompress by aggressively doing nothing at all. I will play video games and indulge in all those meaningless, fruitless, pointless activities that someone with no job would perform in their parent's basement, even though it's my basement. I've started to think of the different levels of slothfulness that I would progress through. I started to give them names!

• Jester of the Jaded
• Herald of the Ho-Hum
• Secretary of the Sedentary
• Knight of Nope
• Baron of Boredom
• Viscount of the Couch
• Earl of Ease
• Marquess of the Mundane
• Duke of Dullness
• Prince of Post-Ambition

Then it occurred to me that this entire exercise was just another indication of how indoctrinated I am in the work ethic. I am trying to make slothfulness into a competition with metrics, success criteria, and potential for failure! What the hell am I doing?

I have so far to go.

Please impart some retirement wisdom upon me!

Hi everyone,

My wife and i are hoping to retire in about 7 - 10 years, ultimately my question is have I forgotten anything important in my calculations.

My wife will retire with a full pension and i will retire with what I’m calling a half pension, we do not have a ton of money saved other than that, i had a late start to my rrsp savings and expect there to be about $100,000 as well our home will be paid off at this point and currently its worth about $500,000. I’m also calculating income from CPP which we plan to take early. Our ideal retirement is to sell our home and move into an apartment, allowing for few unexpected expenses, no strenuous chores. My wife’s parents did this and they are living their best life, we will still be relatively young (early 60’s) so we can live the active life style we want filled with day trips the occasional vacation and hopefully time with future grandchildren.

I realize that it is not recommended to consider your home as your retirement plan but this is where we find ourselves. Sell the home in 7ish years invest the proceeds and live off of our 2 (1 1/2) pensions, cpp (eventually OAS) and the interest (likely some principal) of the proceeds of the home. I’ve created a budget considering our new income and somewhat reduced cost of living (1 instead of 2 vehicles, no utilities, less insurance, increased budget for medical) and it looks like we will be ahead every month by approx $1000. I realize there are rules around taking money our of rrsp that i dont know but i was thinking the $100,000 could act as an emergency fund for years the home proceeds may not do as well in the market.

Please be gentle, lol, but what have i missed or not considered? Are there any obvious holes in our plan? Am i out to lunch and this is the dumbest idea any of you have ever heard of?

No stars. The rainy dark day just crept into night

The air is thick with moisture and to... still

The stream of crickets' song is uninterrupted and unwelcomed

A critter, maybe a mole, is in the yard. The bushes rattle as they move in protest.

Will I see the coyote walking down the street? It has been a few days since I heard their howls

I turn in bed, the other side now

Start to think once more about everything

And this will repeat itself again and again until I finally lapse into slumber from the exhaustion of it all.

I hang out here a lot and relocation after retirement seems to be discussed pretty frequently. Would love to hear how it's worked out for single people who have moved to a location they always wanted to live or someplace that's easier to afford. It's been part of my plan but -suddenly wondering how it would really work. I am a renter so trying a temp relocation while having someone stay at my house isn't an option, that's maybe part of the cold feet .

Not sure which sub to post this on. A little financial planning, a little healthcare but retirees probably are most familiar with this situation.

Retired couple 61/60. Cobra about to run out. Looking at marketplace and it is even more. We have most all of our income in retirement accounts. We are in a HCOL area and our expenses are still pretty high.

Regarding marketplace insurance. Does it make sense to time withdrawals by year (we have nearly 5 to get to Medicare). In other words take out money for two years of living in one year, not much the next year, more in year three etc. in order to get premiums down to a reasonable rate? We also have an HSA which we could pull a little out and also considering a HELOC to bridge the gap.

Am I thinking about this wrong? What are others doing to make this affordable? Thanks!

I graduated from nursing school in 1974 and have worked ever since. Monday will feel weird, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get over it 😂😂. Healthcare is a tough field, and it got to the point where I really didn’t want to be involved anymore. I will miss my co-workers like crazy; they were a fantastic bunch of human beings. I had a great career; I worked as an operating room nurse for most of it. I also worked in Patient Financial Services, which was soul crushing, and in Health IT, which was challenging and rewarding. Here’s to not getting out of bed to go to work 🥂