OK Boomer has entered the chat. Seems most comments are from those looking forward. I left the paycheck life in 2019. Except for 2020 (catching up on every episode of The Office), I've been having a measured good time. I have lucky stars to thank. Got married in ’85. Adopted a daughter in ’91. Wife and I inherited a home when my mom died. We spent 30 years saving for retirement instead of paying a mortgage/rent. Was self-employed the whole time in marketing communications. Wife was a mid-level manager in health services, retired 2 years before me. We spent decades living below our means. I threw the towel in at 62. I think being self-employed (and a one-man show) prepared me for my after work life. I wasn't going to miss the office life and friends because I didn't have any, in the conventional sense. These days I work in the garden, getting dirt in my fingernails. I teach QiGong and Tai Chi pro-bono to a dedicated senior group at a local park, and I'm getting a similar gig with the city rec services to do the same. I'm a small-time landlord (one-unit granny flat behind the house). I recently transitioned from Mac to Windows (sorry Linux users, I know...) with great success. I drive a 25 year old stick-shift Toyota truck and hope it makes it to 300K. At 66, I exercise almost every day, and while I could be convinced to take a nap in the afternoon, I never do. My wife is a pickleball queen, and we manage to have lives together and apart. We both have pretty good health for oldies. Several of my peers have died recently, and the end of the road looms closer for me than ever before. My life is devoted to staying healthy and paying it forward as long as I can keep it together.

Not starve or be homeless.

I'll keep myself in a low key part time job. I've read studies that retirees die sooner if they don't feel like they have a purpose.

Camping, traveling, hiking and going places that are enjoyable and accessible with my wife and dogs.

Gardening / homesteading in such a way to live as self-sufficiently as possible.

My way I want to give back in retirement is working as a volunteer urban/wildland canine search and rescue team.

I train my dogs in scent/detection sports and tracking now so I'm prepared to understand how to do the real deal once I have time to volunteer in retirement. My current job is in a related field, so I already have many of the other skills and certifications that would be needed, but I don't work with dogs for my job.

If I need extra income in retirement, I'll probably get into offering dog training for detection/tracking.

Travel a little, volunteer in the community, use any (if any) excess funds to try and better the things around me, cook more, adopt pets.

haha, retire. as long as we're dreaming, i guess i'll spend my time riding unicorns on the moon.

but seriously, if this is somehow really an option for you... i'd teach community education classes. art, programming, basic cooking, whatever. i've met a lot of great friends in community ed. i think it'd be rad to contribute back.

Play video games. Make myself go outside for twenty minutes a day. Do some stretches as exercise. Hope my daughter visits me.

I talked to one person near retirement age who talked about climbing down the corporate ladder. The idea is to take jobs of progressively less responsibility and more vacation and use the time to transfer knowledge to junior staff.

Use the money to fund better and longer vacations.

"when"? Lmfao it's a big fat "IF" for those of us 30 and under, buddy.

Retire?

Ha, good one

I want to grow enough killer weed to tank the local economy.

I can’t even conceive of that. I’d sit and rot until I died. I’ll be working in some capacity until death.

Probably sleep late, then spend some quiet afternoons digging through the wreckage for a can of something that doesn't seem too radioactive. Maybe get into painting or something.

What do I want to do when I retire? Pretty much nothing! I want to watch TV shows and soccer games, play video games, sleep in, take naps during the day as I see fit, hang out with my wife, and shit-post online.

But I know that hobbies, side-projects, and socializing are important for delaying cognitive decline and staying active. So I'll probably, begrudgingly, do some of that shit too.

Still a decade or two before I can even think about retiring though. And things can change. So who knows.

Like many others here, travel. I would also like to get into gardening and become a better cook.

I'll be 95.

I'm hoping to breath and poop safely.

Slowly sail around the world, maybe document it so folks who might not otherwise have the chance to experience those places, can, if they are interested. Live as small and as green as possible on my boat. Solar, wind turbine, water generator.

I will probably spend a full year doing Not A Damn Thing™. After that, who knows. Volunteer somewhere maybe.

Take care of my body so I can enjoy retirement. I hope I find some things that keep me active in the community. I think I would make and enjoy more art.

Monthly briskets, brewing alcohols, fine overcomplicated precision woodworking with exotic wood inlays because "bubinga" is fun to say, road trips for natural features and new taco joints, painting, restore/modicfy cars, and a concerning amount of day-drinking because that is the only way I can get through the day knowing what the world has come to when I can't distract myself with any of the other things.

I don't expect to be alive by that point

Travel. Hopefully I am healthy enough and have enough money to go and live in many different places.

Don't believe in 'retirement.' Already have plans to transition into full-time writing.

Make good, free games. I want to be financially stable enough that I can just make cool stuff and give it away, and not worry about trying to monetize it, or protect it from pirates. I just want to create for the sake of creating. I've got no interest in starting a business/company/indie studio/whatever the fuck else it is people think I should be doing. Added bonus, if anybody ever takes issue with something I've made, I can happily tell them where to stick it. It's free, you have no right to complain

I think semi-retirement is the way for me. I like what I do, I just don't want to do full work weeks until the day I die. However, I would not mind slowing down with age, and ending up working fewer days a week until I'm old and dying.

At some point, I'd like to leverage the experience I'm currently building to get very comfortable on-site or in-office hours, mixed with work from home hours, and then slow down from there until weekends are longer than the work week towards the end.

Travel, play board games, and watch movies.

Go to Hawaii.

Have enough money to live

Oh model trains and Legos too

I kind of enjoyed being a tutor in college so maybe go back and be a staff-level instructor (lower level courses). If it wasn't actual work (for pay) probably I'd focus on contributing to open source projects I thought would really help people.

I don't want to think I "look forward" to retirement. The concept of retirement sounds like the one of the most anti-voluntaryist things I can think of. As my parents might say, give the money toward debt or something.

Make progress on the this is something I want to do list. I'm making progress now but interesting projects build up faster than time to do them. My current list should last about 3000 years...

Pretty much what I do now, but between the hours of 8-5.

Read.

Assuming I'm still in good health, I want to go on some long bicycle tours. Like weeks or months long. Maybe start with the GAP/C&O Canal as a warm-up. Then La Route Verte. After hitting a few other sections of the US and Canada I would move across the pond to the UK, Ireland, and western Europe.

If I can find a riding partner who is open to dirt then I would really love to do the GDMBR. There are lots of shorter trails that would be fun warm-up trips, too. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet anyone IRL who is crazy enough to do multi-day off-road trips with me.

Get some fucking peace and quiet.