Monday was an important anniversary for me. I retired on December 18th, 2015, making yesterday the start of my eighth year out. The 18th was a Friday back in '15 and the last working Friday of the year. The company would be open the next week, although only Monday through Wednesday (if I recall...) and then closed until after New Year's weekend. Around here, the manufacturing companies tend to close between Christmas and New Year's as paid holidays, usually with an extra day or two on the ends. I've always heard it explained as since we tend to be an area people move to for the job, so many people would take that week off anyway to go visit family for the holidays that it was pretty much impossible to accomplish anything.
I would have been at my last job for 20 years if I had stayed until April.
As you might expect, I posted that evening about retiring young (I was 61).
Everyone was asking what I'm going to do. Projects, of course. To begin with, all of my ham radio antenna projects begin with the phrase, "when it cools off, ..." It hasn't really cooled off to the extent it can in a Central Florida December; tonight's forecast low of 52 is probably the coolest it has been since last March, but it sure isn't summer, either. I need to do some maintenance on my little antenna tower, and see what kind of shape it's in. I really haven't done a thorough look at all of it in at least a year. Then I need to fix anything that needs fixing.
The main project is the CNC conversion of my Grizzly G0704, which I've written about many times, and I think I can get that going pretty easily now that I have more than just 3 or 4 hour days on the weekends. Then comes a bunch of projects, but I don't really have anything chosen, yet.
I substituted the link to the separate blog page for the CNC conversion for the one that appeared in the original post. There's something like 65 pages on the conversion, each typically a complete post.
The other things I talked about involved computer projects that I never got around to. Yes, I've done some programming, dove into CNC programming, 3D graphics and other things that pop up in the CNC and ham radio hobbies. Plus adding some code to some apps I've been playing with for almost 30 years. While this year has been a year of expensive things breaking too often and me extending my repair skill set, it hasn't been that way for the past seven full years.
Yes I've slowed down. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that after 40+ years of getting up at 6AM for work after years of getting up early for school, I feel better on eight hours sleep - or more - and don't wake up on my own at 6. I expected to be getting up at those old familiar times. Some hobbies have gone dormant, like fishing, others have taken on new aspects like the 3D printing aspect in the shop or my current adventures in the ham shack.
Let me conclude, though, with the final paragraph from eight years ago. A friend from the last job once told me that
a previous office mate of his had done a lot of analysis on retiring
ASAP or working longer. This friend had done a thick binder of Excel
sheets of different scenarios. The conclusion? "Retire early - and often, if you
have to". In other words, get out ASAP, and if you need to go back to
refill the account now and then, worry about it then. Those are words
to live by or with. Luckily I haven't had to go find a job as a Walmart greeter or something like that. I like to think I still have something left to contribute to a technical team.
Much like me. I went 5 years ago at 63, and have never regretted it. In fact, I wouldn't go back to work today for twice the money.
ReplyDeleteYou really do shift to a new phase of living. I sleep better, and am more relaxed. After years of getting up at 5:30, now it is more like 7 or 8. I enjoy it, SiG, and I expect that you will too.
Coingratulations:
ReplyDeleteI retired (finally) on April 1st 2008 at the age of 67 and joined the rest of those who had once considered Florida a waiting room; shouldna waited so long.
A widely circulated rumor at the Lazy L was that for every year you worked beyond 65, you lost two years of life expectancy. Almost like a company statistican had planned it when designing the retirement plan. (I guess those don't exist any more.) The housing collapse of '08-'09 drove me to retire earlier than I planned, at 56. Now I am glad I did.
ReplyDeleteSiG not allowing for actually making your Grizzly do what you want it to do and the reward in that, was the cost about the same as purchasing a CNC off the shelf?
ReplyDeleteYou know, that's a tougher call than you might think.
DeleteAt the time I started down the road in '14 to early '15, it was cheaper, but mostly if you don't put any value on your time. I had the mill for a full year before I retired, maybe a year and a half, and got to learn more about manual machining in that time. In addition, I had (still have) my smaller Sherline CNC mill that I put together years before, that I used to make many of the smaller parts of the conversion.
While it's several times longer than this reply, I did a summary post on the project that addresses a lot of this. Yeah, you can buy a professional version of this system from Automation Technologies, and at the time I did this it was maybe 50% more than what I spent. I consider the time building it contributing to my learning about machining, CNC and using it all. So buying the machine was more expensive but not as educational. I needed that but maybe you don't.
SiG thank you for the links and the thoughts. I am still in the considering phase without a defined path other than I could use one to make all sorts of fun things.
Delete"...I could use one to make all sorts of fun things."
DeleteI was going to say limited only by your imagination, but there are things like how big each of the axes are, how powerful the motor is... stuff like that.
There's a wise old saying that the answer to "how big a milling machine will I need?" is "one inch bigger than whatever you have."
I retired in 2013 at age 62. The company I was working for was circling the drain at an ever increasing rate, and when they laid me off, I took unemployment for as long as I could squeeze it, and then finally declared myself "Retired". Aerospace was slowing down a lot in SoCal, and any job I could have found would have been at less than half of what I was earning, so I said "Fuggetaboutit", and pulled the plug.
ReplyDeleteI retired early from a technical job, burned out on my hobbies after a while, went to WalMart p/t. Something to do and some extra money. Stayed 14 years, was treated better than my "real" job and enjoyed it and the people more. No, I wasn't a greeter.
ReplyDeleteRetired at 66 (due to Congress moving the goal posts) and am somewhat enjoying retirement for the last almost 6 years.. Lots of things to keep me busy, the problem is my lower back is now deteriorating to where I can't do any heavy work = yet, I have to because I just moved out of Washington State to Utah. LOTS of things to put right in the overpriced house I bought! Getting the back fixed, albeit slowly, trying to find things ("it's in a box somewhere"), getting reorganized, getting the pain managed to where I'm once again useful to The Wife Unit.
ReplyDeleteDang, parts are getting expensive!! Good tools even more so.
September of 2019 MrsPaulM asked me to be home, no more out of town jobs (still Colorado but not local). Finished my last contract February of 2020, age 60 (right as "officials" decided we were no longer free to move about...good timing for once in my life). Been busier more than ever doing projects that have languished far too long. Everyday IS A Saturday is what my brothers kid me about now.
ReplyDelete