Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
I think sometimes, or at least in my case, you have to force that mindset onto yourself. After 40 or 50 years of work, there's a habit built up to work, and like any other long-standing habit, it's hard to break. That's not just from a work perspective, but also a financial perspective. I've been running on positive cash flow for a long time, and have defined progress as a larger amount of savings at the end of each year. It was hard for me to tell myself that I had enough, and that I need to switch to a "spending it down" mindset. That's always been a sign of a bad year to me in the past, but now it's the new normal, and it's not a bad thing.
I've been retired for a month, so I'm actually still in positive cash flow since I got some vacation pay and a few one-off windfalls. I'm sure I'll be a bit traumatized the first time I have to move money from savings to checking. But I just need to recognize that that's what the money is for.
Retirement is a big deal because I think it involves three major changes: no longer working, shifting one's financial mindset, and figuring out how to use the sudden flood of free time. I've tried to prepare for these changes, but it's going to take a little time to learn how to navigate in these new waters.
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I did not have a pension plan at work. Just the typical 401k. I was so obsessed with accumulation to be able to retire early and have a nice long financially secure retirement. You are absolutely correct the transition from Accumulation to spending down is disconcerting.
I would fret every time I made a withdrawal for my accumulated pile. The funny thing is the first 3 years my net worth continued to grow. I am tracking to have a decrease this year as we spent a pretty good chunk of money on our property.
But after 4 years of livin the dream I am plenty confident that we are good to go.