I have been thinking a lot about retirement. As a US citizen, I receive regular notifications about my Social Security account. It advises me on what I can expect to receive as a retiree. The amount changes with age. It also tells me at which age would be the most beneficial financially.

I have also discovered that I will be able to actually earn more income. Up until February of this year, retirees could only earn a small amount of supplemental income. That amount has been risen to include the amount I make now working fulltime.

Because I still feel I am able to preform at a high level, retirement isn’t about what I can or cannot do. As long as I see myself as being a benefit to my employers and coworkers,I will continue to work.

My plan has always been to work until I’m 70. Then get a little parttime job. Not to suplement my income so much as to just keep busy and remain productive. But with the income rules, all of that has changed.

Now, the plan is to retire at my full retirement age of 66 years and 10 months. If my current employer agrees, I will take a month off and return to the position I currently hold for another 2 years. Then I will have the funds necessary to purchase a small rv outright.

I have never enjoyed travelling for vacation. I dont like the packing and unpacking, staying in unfamiliar rooms. But I do enjoy roadtrips and seeing different sights. And I very much like the disconnect of being a solitary traveller.

Retirement takes planning. Even those who are financially set need to spend some time thinking about how to spend down time. So much of who we are in our lives is connected to how we make a living. We connect, hopefully, to our coworkers in a way not found anywhere else. The disconnect can be damaging to the view of ourselves and the value we have to world around us.

Emotionally I am as ready as I can be in an anticipated situation. But who knows. Two years and 10 months is plenty enough time for the world to flip over on itself, as evidenced by the pandemic, any pandemic. Not to mention the changes that can occur in the blink of an eye.