I retired at the end of 2017

Haven't missed work for a minute, except for the daily interactions my work brought me with colleagues who were substantially brighter and more interesting to talk to than what I have found since being released back into gen pop. But the intensive workload of my 20s and 30s was less tenable as I neared 60.

Basically, the two answers to why I retired on the early side are 1) because I wanted to and 2) because I could.

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I've done an annual household balance sheet for over thirty years, but the most important to me now is the period since I retired.

Bottom line as of three days ago: nominally, we're worth just over 25% than on the day I retired. In that period, the CPI has gone up a little under 26%. So: tied.

Add to this the fact that these last years were the pre-Medicare, pre-Social Security period, which when claimed are projected to decrease annual pressure on the retirement accounts by around 10% and 20% respectively.

(Add further an enormous one-time discretionary purchase - a private jet card - when in peak pandemic, our eldest told us we needed to meet his live-in girlfriend soon as he was planning to propose later that year. Two thousand miles away. It was great -- she is indeed now our DIL, and their new house is twenty miles from here -- but those stars will never align again.)

So, seven-plus years from my last paycheck I'm as confident as one can be in this world that DS and I will run out the thread in reasonable comfort. Meanwhile, we're doing all the traveling we want (not much); buying all the books (me) and fabric (spouse) we want; and filling the grocery cart without regarding the price, mostly. Every year brings a new gadget or two (last year it was a real backup generator, and a 2022 Rivian to replace my 1995 4Runner). Plus, each year brings some kind of an extrabudgetary disaster, whether it be an enormous oak limb taking out part of the front veranda, or an exploding spleen in a middle-aged rescue dog on a Friday afternoon -- which are no fun to handle, but do-able.

And even after the $$$$ terminal care years, there's a high likelihood that we'll be leaving our progeny enough to see them through a career-limiting illness and their kids' educations. Enough, say, to do "anything but not nothing", as the man says.

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For the purposes of this board, the biggest thing I've learned is that it is not only psychologically difficult to go from retirement-saver to retirement-spender, but working out how much to withdraw from what grove and when so as to maximize ACA benefits, and to minimize (this year, next year, five years from now) IRMAA, state and federal taxes is a nuisance. A nuisance whose details become more complicated while I simultaneously become get less interested in dealing with each year. So, while our peri-retirement CFPs aren't cheap, for at least for the next few years it continues to seem like value received.

And I haven't missed my professional identity for a second. Nor -- as near as I can tell -- have my wife, family, friends or dogs.

YMMV, but from here each morning is still the first day of vacation.

--sutton