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Hello, everyone!
I have been lurking for a few months, getting to know you from afar, and enjoying your posts and comments. Since I have wanted to chime in on a few threads, I figured it would be good to introduce myself.
My wife and I retired on July 1, 2025 from teaching (I ethics, she English) at the university level. While only three and a half months into it, retirement has been more wonderful than we expected. I think the surprise was that I loved teaching, and really did not want to retire. Then, once I stopped, I found that I loved the freedom from work obligations to hike, write, play, read, travel as we wish.
Another surprise of retirement has been how free we are financially. We lived for years on tight incomes. I was never one to track my finances, except once a year. Yet, I am grateful for the advice I received years ago to stick my money into index funds, let it go, and then live both frugally for ourselves and generously toward others.
You all have been wonderful in helping me understand all sorts of news aspects of a good life in retirement. Thank you!
Carl, like DrLefty I am also class of 2025. I retired mid August at age 62. I have enjoyed reading Humble Dollar over the years and plan to post soon on lessons learned on my journey towards retirement.
Brian, looking forward to your post. I’m also class of 2025.
Welcome from another member of the “class of 2025”! I also retired from a university teaching career on July 1. My field was (is) applied linguistics and writing.
One thing about an academic career is that I always felt like I was on duty. If it was the weekend, I still might have emails from students or papers to grade. Summer or holidays, I might be prepping my classes for the next term, doing my own writing, or administrative work to do. I vividly remember the 70-page program review self-study document I had to submit for my department on Jan 2, 2020.
Anyway, since July 1, I’ve had multiple delighted moments of just realizing how much time and freedom I have now. I thought I’d miss it more, especially the teaching, which I enjoyed all the way through my last class that ended in June. Nope, not really. I was ready!
Hi, Dana! I appreciate your generous welcome. Linguistics has always been a fascination for me (and my wife, who taught Language Arts in Middle School and the university level).
I can relate to the always being ‘on’ for the students, and the struggle to produce administrative reports. Ugh. Yet, I, too, loved teaching even to my last class. Hopefully my colleagues will invite me in for a few presentations. My only connection now is the IRB, which I chaired for years.
The freedom has been amazing. I look forward to contributing to this community.
Enjoy the new-found freedom. Please continue to post to the Forum.