I love this life assessment piece by my friend Terri Webster Schrandt. Are you nearing retirement? Terri shares some great thoughts about how she prepared for and manages her retired life.
Three Ways I Rightsized in Semi-Retirement
We read a lot about downsizing these days as Baby Boomers are actively pursuing new ways of life as they consider retirement. “Rightsizing” is a process that implies a less than a cutthroat approach to restructuring than downsizing.
I have been following Kathy’s blog SMARTLiving365.com and recently had the opportunity to write this guest post while she was enjoying some travel. Kathy and I met in person at the BAM 2016 conference in Las Vegas. We found each other to be kindred spirits as well as neighbors living in California!
After reading Kathy’s book Rightsizing: A SMART Living 365 Guide To Reinventing Retirement, I also identified the ways I have rightsized my life. A big key for my semi-retirement was being able to retire from my day job of 32 years at the relatively young age of 55. After paying into the CalPERS (public employees retirement system) for years, I now receive 65% of my income as a pension.
Three other reasons factored into my semi-retirement decision:
1. Dissatisfaction at work. The economic downturn of 2008-2012, which acutely affected California, caused many folks to retire “early” (read: younger than if they had waited until the traditional retirement age of 62-65) from the public parks and recreation organization for which I worked. As a result, too many new people started making swift (and poor) decisions that affected best practices which became too much to bear. When I was passed over for promotion for the third time over a 10-year period, I knew it was time to go.
2. Being able to teach part-time. The ability to retire hinged upon the continuation of my teaching job at a university, where I am a part-time lecturer enjoying sharing my 35+ years of experience in the field with parks and rec majors. As a lecturer (and now “Retired Annuitant” I am able to teach 15 units per year). The money is GOOD and nicely supplements my pension.
3. My husband got hired with my former organization in facility maintenance. He now carries the health benefits, and he has the potential for moving up in the organization while still experiencing job satisfaction.
All those added up to my semi-retirement.
Best. Decision. Ever
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
14 responses to “Three Ways I Rightsized in Semi-Retirement”
[…] Three Ways I Rightsized in Retirement – reblogged Terri’s post […]
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I love this post from Terri. I’d never heard the word rightsizing before, but it struck a chord in me. It’s what I’ve been doing myself–whittling through mementos, old crafting things I used to do with my kids, decorations and costumes I’ll never use again. It felt good to donate everything usable to someone who’s still in that period of their lives (in my case, teaching and with kids). Now that it’s just my husband and I, I really don’t feel the need to celebrate holidays with the same sheer volume of stuff that I used to. And writing and painting is enough of an artistic endeavor for anyone. I don’t need crafting on top of it.
Now, not only is my garage clean, but I feel lighter, in a good way. 🙂
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Great! My husband and I have a huge mess in the garage that we need to right-size. We’ve done a lot of building projects, and I still have school and old project stuff. The problem for us is not wanting to be in the 100 degree heat working on the garage right now. But we need to do it. 🙂 I’m going to keep coming back to the article, and may do one of my own just to spur me on. 🙂 Thanks for your comment Cathleen. 🙂
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Hi Marsha, nice to hear that you were able to retire early and now have a good solution that works for you and your husband. Let’s make the most of life, right?! It sounds like you feel more fulfilled now 🙂 Thanks for the nice comment over at my guest post at Debby’s home and now I’m following you. Is the offer to guest post over the next few months still a possibility?
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Yes, let’s chat by email or FB. 😀😀😀
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Great 🙂 I just sent you a FB friend request. Talk soon!
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Got it, and I’m looking forward to it! 🙂
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Dissatisfaction with my job resulted in my retirement 6 years ago at age 55. It was a rather sudden decision and virtually no post-retirement planning went into it. There was a lot of trepidation at first, but looking back now I can say I’ve never been happier. Of course I miss the paycheque, but the rest is just right 🙂
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That’s great to hear Joanne. It’s a great feeling to organized your time for yourself, isn’t it? I did much the same thing at age 60. I lost my secretary, and we had a new boss. I didn’t want to get in a tizzy about the issue, so after talking it over with my husband, I told my new boss who was a former colleague. We had a great chat. I’ve been able to go back for visits with no hard feelings, and I’ve never regretted a moment.
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There is just SO much to do and experience 🙂
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Hi Marsha! Nice to meet you and this post by Terri is a perfect example of the benefits of rightsizing. The cool thing about rightsizing is that it is unique to all of us based on what really matters to us. So it isn’t whether you are retired or not, or live in a big house or a small one, or all sorts of individual decisions we can make. It comes down to what is important to each of us–and then eliminating the rest. Just as Terri’s story shows, it often leads the perfect solution for each of us. Thanks for getting the word out! ~Kathy
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You are so welcome, Kathy. This is a great post. I’ve been working on being retired for five years. Loving every busy moment as I’ve gotten deeper and deeper involved in blogging and community service at home in my little community of Woodlake, CA. I just love the way she tackled each aspect of her life and made it fit her needs now. 🙂 I think we all need to reassess what really matters to us on a regular basis whether we retire or not. Thanks for sharing your ideas as well and for commenting on my blog. Love having you here! 🙂
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Thanks for sharing this post, Marsha! There are a lot of valid reason to retire early. And I prefer to create my own stress 😉
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It was the perfect solution for me!
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