Planning what to do in early retirement is just as important as getting to early retirement in the first place. Too many people think about sipping mimosas by the beach and think that is early retirement. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We, as humans, need to work on some level to feel a sense of purpose.
I’ve been there before. Before I got a new job that started in January 2022, I had a month off in-between jobs. It was my mini early retirement that I got a taste of. Let me tell you, it felt amazing. It was disappointing that it only lasted one month but I could see what the FIRE movement was all about.
It was to get to that point where work becomes optional. Not a necessity but something you do because you enjoy and want to do it. I wasn’t bored because I was always preoccupied with things that I’ve always been meaning to get to. Things that I couldn’t do while I was gainfully employed.
However, there are people who reach this nirvana without actually having a good exit plan in place. Therefore, they go into early retirement thinking they can “wing it” and then become disappointed and end up going back to work. Knowing what to do in early retirement is just as important as getting to early retirement.
Failing to have a plan is planning to fail. Knowing what kind of person you are is key to having a fulfilling early retirement. Too many people think early retirement will solve their problems and they get miserable when they find out they still have problems, just a different kind.
What the Early Retirement Police Says
The early retirement police says that any time that you earn an income defeats the purpose of retirement. That’s wrong. Early retirement isn’t defined as never working ever again for the rest of your life. Early retirement is doing activities on your own time when you want to and the way you want it done.
If your efforts happen to make money, then that’s just icing on the cake. However, you could do with or without the money. It’s just a byproduct, not anything that you depend on to put food on the table. Don’t listen to the early retirement police who says otherwise.
However you want to define retirement is retirement. Whether we want to or not, we work every single day of our lives. Some things make money and some things don’t. Simple things like cleaning the house is work, we just don’t get paid for it. Therefore, what to do in early retirement doesn’t limit you from making money.
Now, obviously, if you’re working a 9-5 still and miserable doing so, you cannot call yourself retired. You’re still working for a paycheck and being miserable even if you have the financial means to walk away from the job. However, the vast majority of people in early retirement still work and gets paid for the work.
They’re happy to do so and they work because they want to. Not because they have to. Many early retirees blog and do YouTube on the side because they want to. They happen to make money from it. That still meets the definition of early retirement.
What to do in Early Retirement:
The first thing to do in early retirement is to SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! Many of your friends might not have considered things to do during early retirement. They should be planning for their own unique situations.
So with that said, let’s go over the concrete activities you can do during early retirement! One thing that matters is to choose quality over quantity in the activities to pursue.
1) Relax and Detox
Whether we like it or not, we build up a lot of stress from our jobs. We don’t even realize it at the time either. Our shoulders are clenched, and heavy. We have stress building up in our minds that doesn’t get unloaded. Work is a forever grind that never stops affecting you.
What to do in early retirement should include relaxing and detoxing from all the stress you’ve built up over the years. That kind of buildup doesn’t just go away in a month. it takes weeks, months, and even years for some people to get over. The stress gets built up in your neck, shoulder, back, and mind.
It even affects you on the weekends because you still can’t completely disconnect from work. You’re still thinking about that report you need to turn in for Monday. Or a hundred other things you need to finish. Work never stops. It’s a pie eating contest and if you win, the prize you get is more pie.
It’s crucial to have a period of relaxation. A chance to completely disconnect and walk away from it all.
2) Travel More in Early Retirement
Traveling is something the majority of people want to do. The world is a big place. Seeing the seven wonders of the world is a feat in and of itself. However, even if we do travel on our paid time off, we still can’t fully appreciate and enjoy it. We’re too busy figuring out how to maximize our vacation time because our time is so precious.
We only get a limited amount of vacation times per year. That’s what’s wrong with the current corporate model. What to do in early retirement should include a fair bit of travel. The world is a big place. When I visited my home country of South Korea in 2018, I still felt amazed at the country.
And I was born there! There’s so much things to see and experience. Some things will just give you an out of the world experience. It just doesn’t quite hit the same when you try to travel during your time off.
There’s that something that will always be missing because you can’t fully be present when you take time away from work..
3) Start a Lifestyle Business
This doesn’t mean start the next Fortune 500 business that will let you dominate the world with your product. This means start a lifestyle business in which you spend a minimal amount of time into. You don’t start the business for the sole purpose of making money, you start the business for the sole purpose of doing something enjoyable.
If it happens to make money, then that’s just a side benefit. There’s a car repair shop that I visit with mechanics who I trust. They’re well past their retirement age. Yet they still choose to work because they want to. They make a decent and fair bit of income from the business.
They’re not overly stressed, they work a fair 30 hours a week running the business and make good income from it. They’re doing it because they love what they do. They don’t do it because they have to do it. That’s a kind of lifestyle business with low stress, hours, and commitment that you could pursue.
4) Start a Blog
All you need is an internet connection and a computer to start a blog. With a full time job, I cannot devote as much time as I would like to to the blog. Sometimes, I have to work weekends in my job and it’s not possible for me to write more posts, even though I want to.
Let me tell you, blogging is hard work but it’s rewarding work. It’s been so much fun interacting with people in the personal finance community and I love writing posts to help people with their finances. It is a lot of work but with all the time in the world, why not do something that doesn’t cost a lot of money to run and is fun at the same time?
What to do in early retirement could be to start a blog because it’s so easy to start one these days. You don’t have to be a subject matter expert at it, either. All you need to do is write a couple of posts whenever you feel like it and share everything that you’ve done over the years. Fun and enjoyable thing to do.
5) Connect With Friends and Family
We neglect our friends and family during our working years. The majority of our time is preoccupied with work when we’re working. Business days are precious times for us. After spending that precious time, we’re tired out. Pooped from working hard all day long.
So then you have to spend the rest of the day trying to recoup the energy you lost throughout the day. That prevents you from actually spending quality time with friends and family and disconnect from them. What to do in early retirement could be to reconnect with friends and family that you love and respect.
It’s a blessing to reconnect with people because you want to reconnect with them. Not because you want something from them later down the road. But because you genuinely care about their well being and want them to succeed. That goes beyond the superficial business relationship we go through in our working years.
Genuine connections are well worth the effort.
6) Do House Projects in Early Retirement
In our working days, we always say, “I’ll get to it later” with a house project. There are some DIY projects that you were meaning to get to but never got around to doing so. Because you were so tired after getting home that you didn’t have time to go to Home Depot, YouTube how to fix house projects, and the like.
If you’re wondering what to do in early retirement, house projects is a great way to pass the time. There’s always home improvements that you can do in order to fill up your time. Whether you want to start your own garden or whether you want to improve your garage.
There’s always some house projects that you can do. What better time to do it than when you are early retired? One of my goals is for me to have the ability to build houses from scratch. I think that would be an awesome project for me to tackle in early retirement.
7) Read Books
Books are amazing. They give you knowledge and different perspectives that you hadn’t considered before. What’s even more amazing is that someone out there spent years of their life and a good amount of money in order to bring all of that information to you in exchange for $10. That’s awesome.
What to do in early retirement could be to read books. They are a great way to not only pass the time but to gain knowledge that you can pass down to your friends as well. If you utilize the local library, then the books are even free as well. That can’t be beat.
You don’t need to read in order to compete against someone else, either. You can read to enjoy the content and learn something.
8) Pursue Your Hobby
We all have that hobby that we couldn’t do because work got in the way. Sure, you could’ve pursued them on the weekend but did you really want to pursue your hobby on the weekend over relaxing and sitting on the couch? Most likely not. What to do in early retirement includes hobbies.
Mine is to be self sustaining. I want to create my own garden and see if I can live life from the plants that I grow myself. I also want to get in the business of buying and reselling stuff on eBay. Not as a business but as a hobby and see how far that I can take it.
Hobbies are great ways to find out what to do in early retirement.
9) Exercise
We just never seem to have time to exercise when we’re working. Whether it’s because we have a family of our own or whether it’s because the company charges for a gym membership so the incentive isn’t there, we just don’t have time to exercise. After I graduated from college, they offered the gym for free.
I regularly worked out. The second company I went to charged for a gym membership. I never worked out the entire time that I was there. The third company I’m working for has a gym membership, which I am fully taking advantage of. What to do in early retirement is to exercise because keeping your health pays dividends beyond money.
10) Take Care of Your Health
There are better things to do than stare at a screen all day. You could go outside, smell the air, and listen to the birds sing. We never appreciate these things when we’re working because we have other things that preoccupies our time. Take care of your mental and physical well being because we like to neglect them.
“I’ll get around to it” are common phrases we say out loud. What to do in early retirement is getting to do the things that you’ve always meant to get around to but never had the time to because they were secondary to earning money. Eating healthy is a big one that shouldn’t be ignored.
11) Explore Your Own City
Forget traveling and seeing the world, how about exploring your own city! There are tons of activities to do in any city. It doesn’t have to be a big city to have a lot of tourist attractions. There are new parks that your tax dollars fund. Or there are new shows that are around town.
When I was in Houston, TX, we would visit the city symphony play in downtown. That was an experience that I am unlikely to forget. They played Freddie Mercury songs in honor of his memory. Well worth the $120 we spent to get in. What to do in early retirement is to see and experience your own city!
It’s even cooler than you know.
12) Volunteer
When I’m retired, I want to volunteer at Junior Achievement, an organization that teaches personal finance habits to young people. Volunteering is an awesome thing that many people neglect. Now that I’m almost out of the “earn money at all costs” phase, I want to look into volunteering more.
Many companies offer days off for people to volunteer. So many people don’t take advantage of this benefit. Therefore, if you couldn’t take advantage of it during work time, then it’s great to take advantage of volunteering during early retirement. What to do in early retirement includes volunteering.
13) Try New Hobbies
New hobbies are how we grow and experience other things besides the routine and mundane tasks of the world. Early retirement is a great time to try new hobbies that you never thought you would try. It’s awesome. You could try kayaking or you could try scuba diving.
Whatever it is, now is the time to actually pursue these new hobbies. What else are you going to do? Sit around and watch TV all day? What to do in early retirement doesn’t have to be boring like watching paint dry. It can be fun and exciting as you make it out to be. It’s all up to you, after all.
Think about What to do in Early Retirement
Too many people don’t think about what to do in early retirement. One of my friends asked me, “what’re you going to do after you FIRE in your 30’s? Aren’t you going to be bored?” I just shook my head and cringed. If someone is bored while they are in their prime age in their 30’s, that’s just bad time allocation.
However, without a solid plan, it’s not hard to just let time pass and let your life pass in the blink of an eye. Having intentions with your time and allocating your precious time to things that add the most joy and value to your life is a great way to go. The opportunities are endless.
You can design your life however the way you want to. You are the one completely in control. That’s how great life is. There are many early retirees who are miserable for having retired early. It’s great for a year or five years, but thereafter, life falls apart because they are at a loss of purpose.
No matter what, we humans are meant to produce. We need some sort of purpose in our lives in order to feel self actualization and move forward. Whether that’s through starting a lifestyle business in your spare time or pursuing new hobbies, we need to keep entertained throughout our time. Comfort is the enemy of progress.
Therefore, planning what to do in early retirement is just as important as getting to early retirement itself. You want to live a life full of purpose. When we are working, we get our sense of purpose from our jobs. When we’re not working, we get our sense of purpose through the activities we actively pursue.
What to do in Early Retirement Shortlist:
- Relax and detox
- Travel more in early retirement
- Start a lifestyle business
- Start a blog
- Connect with friends and family
- Do house projects in early retirement
- Read books
- Pursue your hobby
- Exercise
- Take care of your health
- Explore your own city
- Volunteer
- Try new hobbies
