9 real retirees share what it's like to stop working and live the life you want
"It's been the happiest time of my life," said Dirk Cotton, who retired at 52.
"It's been the happiest time of my life. And, fortunately for me, I got to retire early and I've already enjoyed it for a long time," said Dirk Cotton, a former AOL employee who lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina and now spends his days researching and writing about retirement.
He writes about retirement on his website, and spends his days teaching others about retirement and its realities. "I spend hours and hours and doing this. I love it. I managed a very large organization at AOL and it kept me very, very busy," he said. "But, I think I may be busier since I retired than I was when I was working."
"I was perfectly happy for the first couple of days taking naps," said Bill Brown, who retired at 65.
Bill Brown, who lives in South Carolina, was worried by his former coworkers' comments that he'd 'go crazy' in retirement. He ended up building a woodworking shed to try something new.
"I was perfectly happy for the first couple of days taking naps," he told Business Insider. "But, you do get tired of it."
"The first few days of retirement I really spent doing nothing but going over to that shed, looking around, and thinking, 'Hm, I wonder what I'll even bother making,'" he continued.
Regardless, he said he's learned to enjoy retirement, and when he's not crafting furniture or birdhouses in his woodworking shed, he's traveling with his wife, or doing consulting work.
"The best part is that everything's on my schedule again. The worst part is I am not in law enforcement anymore," said David Fischer of upstate New York.
David Fisher, a former police officer and university safety officer from the Finger Lakes region in New York, loved his work. Saying goodbye to it was tough.
"The best part is that everything is on my schedule again. The worst part is that I am not in law enforcement anymore. It did hurt my feelings a little bit. I was in law enforcement for almost 40 years, and I don't have that camaraderie with my fellow brothers in blue anymore," Fisher told Business Insider. "I don't hang out with them. I'm not involved in that anymore."
But, Fisher said it's been all about enjoying those memories while making new ones. "It was kind of sad to see that go, but I think I'm clever enough to realize that I need to start that next chapter and do other things I'm going to like as much," he said.
A typical day is now doing whatever he feels like. "I get up around eight, and then I may take the roadster or the boat out," he said. "I may do some walking around the little point that I live on." Then, he spends time with his family. "I'm very interactive with my two grandchildren and my two children, I have a lot to do with them," he continued. "To me, I see it not as the last chapter of my life, but the next chapter."
"I was constantly bored and looking for purpose in life," said Karen Stermitz, who retired at 55.
After she retired, Karen Stermitz knew she needed an adventure.
"I retired at 55 and immediately started looking for other work. But we were in a remote little town in Washington, and people wanted me to move to Seattle," she said. While she wanted to work, she found that many of the jobs she tried were rather different than the marketing role she had retired from at HP.
"I was constantly bored and looking for purpose in life. I did some charity work, I always do charity work," she said. "So for me, the beginning was really hard and very boring."
Luckily, it didn't last long. When her husband, Joe, retired four years later, they sold everything and moved into an overlanding vehicle to travel the world.
"We had to make a tough decision," says Joe Stermitz, who now travels with Karen, his wife, around the world.
"I've always wanted to drive around the world," said Joe. He knew he wanted to spend his retirement traveling. When the day finally came to leave HP, he took it.
"I said to Karen, 'Hey, want to travel around the world?' And she immediately said yes," he said. So, the two gave up their old life — and their house — in exchange for adventure.
"Making that jump in and that transition was easy. But, to do it, we had to make it tough decision, no home, get rid of the things, and don't look back," he said.
The Stermitzes have now been retired for about three years, and have been traveling most of that time.
"It was a little bit of a shock because it was on more on their terms than mine," says Bill Davidson, retired at age 54.
Bill Davidson had always wanted to retire early. "When I was in my 30s, I wrote down several goals, and one was to retire at age 55. Then in 2008, I lost a lot of money in bad investments or bad timing and I said, 'I'm not sure I'm able to do that," he told Business Insider.
"When I was about 54 and a half my employer said, 'Hey, we're ready for you to go, and we'll give you a nice package to do that,'" Davidson said. "It was a little bit of a shock because it was on more on their terms than mine. But, I still had options, and they paid me through my 55th birthday, they were great."
"It was a shock, but then I said, 'Hey, this is exactly what I wanted to do for 30 years,'" he continued.
He and his wife, Rose, now divide their time between traveling the world and their home in New Mexico. "We have very full and busy lives doing things we really like doing," he said. "We like to travel and we travel a lot. We like to volunteer, and we do that a lot. We like spending time with the family and our children and grandchildren, too."
"I found as I get older, my tolerance for stress and pressure has diminished," said James R., a former college professor.
James R., who requested not to use his last name to protect his privacy, still works part-time as a professor online, but says that leaving his full-time job gave him a new level of happiness.
"I found as I get older, my tolerance for stress and pressure has diminished. It's more difficult to deal with hassles now," he said. Since he now works from home, and only part-time, there are certainly fewer hassles these days.
But after leaving work, he's also realized that he has to find a balance between his introverted tendencies and still being social.
"I'm an introvert and I'm not particularly social. I figured working at home all the time was perfect for me. But, even a person like me occasionally needs to be around people a little bit," he told Business Insider.
"Retirement was kind of forced on us," said Cynthia Staton, who retired just after the financial crisis in 2009.
"Retirement was kind of forced on us," said Cynthia Staton, who formerly worked as a real estate agent.
Edd Staton worked in auto financing when the recession hit. "When this first happened to us, and it happened pretty close together, we're thinking, 'Oh, we're highly trained professionals, no problem. We'll find work," said Edd. "Boy, was that a misjudgment on our part. We couldn't find work anywhere. Our entire industries had imploded."
The Statons were stunned. "After months of unemployment and living off of what was obviously shrinking savings, watching the value of our home plummet by two-thirds and seeing our nest egg shrinking, we knew that we had to take drastic action," said Edd.
"We spent some time trying to figure out what we were going to do with ourselves before we decided that we needed to retire early and move abroad," said Cynthia.
After a trip to South America, the Statons moved from Las Vegas, Nevada to Cuenca, Ecuador in 2010. There, they enjoy a much better financial situation and a lower cost of living. "We could never have the lifestyle that we have here if we were living in the States," said Cynthia.
For help planning your own retirement, SmartAsset's free tool can find a financial planner near you »Business Insider is looking for retirement stories to feature in our Real Retirement series. If you're in or nearing retirement and want to share, email yourmoney@businessinsider.com.
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