Latest / Retirement Plot Twists / Episode 4 Lynn's Retirement Journey
Transcript
- Cathryn: Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of Retirement Plot Twists. I'm Catherine, and today we will be speaking with Lynn, who is going to tell us a little bit about her retirement journey. Welcome, Lynn. Hi there. Hi, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for joining us today. So if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about yourself, your age, maybe now, and the age when you retired. And a little bit about what your retirement plan was at that time. Okay, so I am currently 65. I retired when I was 61. I chose to retire early for a variety of reasons, most heavily that my father's health was declining. My mother had been married at the age of 18 and had never been a single woman. So I wanted to be there to help her through that transition. She was five years younger than him, so I assumed I had a fairly long, a large chunk of my immediate retirement was going to be spent with her in various ways, though we do live in different, we did live in different states. I was in Massachusetts, she was in Connecticut. And it was important to me to be there for her. I was closer with my mom than my sister is, so I was I was the one who would have been the support. and then Plot twist doesn't even come close to describing what happened. six weeks after I retired, my mom got sick and went from sick to dead in three weeks. And my father passed six weeks after that. Wow. So there went my five year and short term retirement plan of how I was gonna spend my time. I started that year that I did retire of cutting my I cut my hours to only work forty hours a week. That was your preparation? That was my preparation was to find out what normal people did at night. Wow. And how many hours were you working a week when before you cut down? I d I like fourteen hour days w I 'cause I was working with co with coworkers around the globe. So I was getting on at nine at n like I ran meetings from nine PM to one AM. Wow, so around the clock you were available. I was around the clock available. so tell me so Once both of your parents passed away and you found yourself now obviously very grief stricken from losing both of them in such a short time, I'm sure, you found yourself with a whole bunch of time? Yeah, so I became kind of I won't say phrase it is obsessed with exercise, but the o I was so full of I was like vibrating with energy, I guess. of of of emotions. Maybe it wasn't energy, but of emotions. So I had joined a gym. I had been going actually I had blocked my calendar while I was still working. I was going to a class from like eleven to twelve in the day because I was trying to meet other women that I knew were already retired so that I would have at least a small friend circle locally of other retired people. 'Cause I was younger than most I was retiring at a younger age than most of my friends. And but I was going to so after my parents passed, I was going for long walks. I started running. I would like go for a walk by myself and then I had a friend that I started walking with, but I was exercising four hours. Yeah, most every day because I literally could not sit still. I you were pent up with emotion and a and energy. I just I needed to let things out somewhere and that was and that was a complete an atypical response from me. I also stopped eating. Yeah. so you sort of lost yourself for a little while. I definitely did. I took on all of the estate management process for my parents. How did you think you would spend your time before everything crumbled? I had assumed I would be spending probably, I don't know, a week, a month with my mom or go going down to see her on a regular basis. How did you plan financially for your future after you retired? Well, that I didn't I planned for my retirement back in my twenties, I'll phrase it that way, and in my 30s. My ex-husband and I were aligned in a I think unusual for our age of living our income level. We made decisions to do that. We put into IRAs 529s I actually I recall when my still in entry in elementary school we bid on a session with a a financial planner and we went in with the assume that neither one of us are gonna have a pension. Assume that Social Security, we want to make sure that we're gonna be in good shape. Yeah. And we were at that point we were in our mid late thirties and the guy was like, you're you're just fine. Yeah. All right, so now let's move a little bit forward to current times. So tell me a little bit about what what you're doing today. are you still retired? No. I failed at retirement. You failed at retirement? I failed at retirement multiple times. and so h when did you start working again? about a year after my I my parents I ended up through contacts from my former company who had left to another organization, there was a consulting opportunity to work up to 20 hours a week. And I'm like, I think I'm ready to retire. So are you retired? No. You are not retired? No. Okay, so you've gone back. Are how many hours a week are you working now? So since I left that longer term gig, I've now I'm now on my second contract with in consulting. I have agreed to do up to 20 hours. I feel like it gives me some sense of value that I I can provide value to someone. The other part of it is a little bit more personal that the person who I've ended up in a relationship with is substantially younger than I am and is working full time. Are you planning on working because he's working for the next decade, or are you ready to find other things to do besides I'm trying to find a slightly better balance. not gonna I do not see myself working for another ten years, even on a part time basis. I do like the option of working a gig, having some downtime, getting to the point of being bored and finding something else. there's real well there's no reason why you should stop I went from being a couch potato which is what I had to be because I was working s eighty hours a week and I had no free time to do anything. I went from running halfway around the block on a challenge. to I now have been running eight, ten different five K's. I'm running five K this weekend. Again, I think you didn't you mention that you I just did one. Yeah. Yeah, no, I had one in yeah we I I did one in the middle of October. I have one this weekend, I have one Thanksgiving weekend and I have one the first weekend in December. And there might be a fourth one that gets thrown in there. Good for you. I'm like, I'm doing this because it's this is fun to me So my final question is so you're happy today. Yes. What to you would be the thing that would make you even happier at this time in your life? I think the cherry on top would be continuing to develop some female friendships of other retired women so that I have other people to do things during the day that also don't always have to be planned in advance. I think that's it. Well you're working so you you're not free every day. I'm not free every day, but it's like it's a gorgeous day outside today. Do you want to go for a walk right now? And having friends who respond to a text like that and say, sure, let's go. I'll be the and I can be ready in 30 minutes. Great. Well thank you so much for joining me today. Again, I'm Catherine with Retirement Plot Twists. And thank you for listening. And thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having me.