Six Months In! (from Dana/DrLefty)

Happy New Year, HumbleDollar folks! Today, besides being the first day of 2026, is also the six-month anniversary of my retirement. How’s it going so far? I thought I’d follow up on a couple of posts from last year–this one was a year ago today (a “six months out” post).

So far, I absolutely love being retired. Seriously, I’m just ecstatic about it. I said to my husband recently, “I thought I’d miss it (my career) a little bit.” After all, even though university politics had soured me on my day job, I always loved teaching, and I enjoyed it right up through my last day of class in June. But I’m just feeling a sense of relief about the absence of responsibility.

The Biggest News. After a few months of watching me live my best life, my husband started rethinking the “maybe I’ll work until 70” plan (we’re 65). His contract with his firm requires six months notice, so he’s planning to give notice on April 1 for an October 1 retirement date. (Why that date? He has a couple of projects he wants to see through, and bonuses are paid in August.) It’s possible that they’ll ask him to stay on either as a part-time employee or as a consultant–he has a pretty specific skill set that will be hard to replace–and he’s open to that, but he’s committed to being done with full-time employment by October 1, 2026.

How I’m Spending Time. That has gone pretty much as I expected. After a lot of travel over the summer, we had a quieter fall mostly at home. I’m working on several academic writing projects (a new edition of one of my books, journal articles from my final two research projects, and a new collection I’m co-editing). I’m trying to work on those at a relatively leisurely pace. A typical weekday looks like this: a cup of coffee or two, a workout, and then to my computer for 2-3 hours of productive work. I’m an early riser, so I’m usually done with all that by lunchtime. In the afternoon, I might nap, read, get started on dinner, run errands, or do a household project. During the fall, I systematically went through the whole condo decluttering and reorganizing. Then I make dinner and in the evenings we either watch sports or a TV show(s) or do something social.

I continue to do various volunteer tasks for our church. I’m on a teaching team for the weekly women’s Bible study and give 4-5 talks per year for that. I’m also the main curriculum writer for small group home Bible studies–I write discussion questions for the groups based on whatever the Sunday sermon was about. My husband and I co-lead one of the groups, which meets in our home. My other volunteer role is on the HOA board for our condo community. My two-year term on the board will end in August, and I do not intend to re-up. I’m also hoping to get my major academic writing projects wrapped up by the summer.

Goals and (Lack of) Progress. In my “six months out” post, I listed a bunch of things I wanted to start doing or get better at. I’ve made progress on some but not all of them. One of my most important personal goals was to be intentional about being more social and a people person, not just a cross-things-off-the-list person. I’ve done pretty well with that so far. We’re socializing quite a bit with neighbors, we’ve been inviting people over, and I’ve been initiating with other women (at church and in the neighborhood) to get to know them better. So far my efforts have been well received. This month I plan to reach out to a couple of my favorite former coworkers, people with whom I promised to keep in touch, to suggest a coffee or a walk.  I also took a quick solo trip in September to San Diego for some “girl time” with my daughter, who had just lost her job and needed some care.  That’s the kind of thing that being retired allows me to do now.

I also have made some progress on getting our financial/digital life better organized. After reading some posts here, I decided it was well past time to get a password manager. I had actually installed one last year but got confused about how it worked and gave up on it. This time, I let ChatGPT walk me through how 1Password works, got it installed, and have it mostly up and running, including changing all of our passwords for our most important financial accounts.

Two goals that I have not attempted yet: (1) new workout options and (2) volunteering for a local nonprofit. I spent early fall dealing with a couple of minor injuries. Since November, I’ve just been trying to get back to where I’d been previously with my workout routine. I still want to try something new–maybe working with a trainer to level up my weight training. As for more volunteer work, I’m actually feeling pretty maxed out with the writing, HOA board, and church stuff. That may be a goal for next fall after I’ve taken a few things off my plate.

For the next six months, I think the goal will be to wrap up some of my current commitments (writing/HOA board) and to continue to get our financial lives well organized. My husband’s more imminent retirement date adds some urgency to this. While he was still working, we didn’t have to think very concretely about a “retirement spending plan,” but now it’s time to start envisioning that.  I’ll write a separate post later about how that is coming along. I’ll also follow up on our updated thoughts about moving to a new home –but this one has gotten long enough!