It may always sound like a good thing to retire young however my wife and I have run into issues that we did not necessarily expect to have when we first embarked on this.

My wife and I before we retired were both workaholics in our careers and because for this we were given the opportunity to retire at a young age (early 40’s). We spent many months planning this move in our life but we now have discovered that there are somethings you just cannot prepare for in retirement and some of them never would have occurred to us to be issues.
 
First I need to explain to you a little about the life style my wife and I decided to undertake in retirement. Neither one of us could decide exactly where we wanted to spend our retirement years so we decided that we would sell everything we had and travel the country in a motorhome. This allowed us the freedom we wanted to see things visit all the places we have always wanted to and possibly find that perfect little community we were looking for.

Now let’s look at some of the unforeseen situations that have been caused by retiring young.

Boredom:

Believe it or not this is the number one issue my wife and I have found ourselves experiencing and causes the most issues. We thought at first that there are so many things to do and see but there still is only so much you can do. We are only a couple years into this new life or ours and we already find ourselves at times bored. Since we were both Workaholics we were not mentally prepares to slow down so much and really have nothing forcing you to even get out of bed on a daily basis. We think to ourselves we have another 30 to 40 years of this life styles so there is plenty of time to do things and there is always a tomorrow. We feel if we were later in life then we might feel different because of the limited number of years remaining that we could possibly get around easily and see things.

To help with this issue in our life right now we have considered doing more work kamping at the places we travel. If you are interested, click work kamping to learn more. This at least gives us something to do a couple days a week and something to look forward to at times. If we get tired of that we may be forces to go get part time jobs at the different locations just to help pass the time at least a couple days a week.

Friends

This issue has just started to creep into our lives and we are not too excited about it. Since our new lifestyle has been to travel the country in a motorhome this is more of a lifestyle by the older generation of people and thus couples that are much older than Mary and I. First let me say everyone we have met has been wonderful to us and has made us feel right at home and only a couple have ever been resentful to us because we did not have to work till we were 60 to enjoy this life style.
 
Most of our new friends due to this lifestyle are in their 60’s and 70’s and thus we have started to experience the issue of losing some good friends due to health and age. We have actually started to think that baring anything drastic happening to us we will most likely loose every one of our friends because of the age differences. As you can see this would not have been an issue if we would have retired later in life.

Even if you choose a different lifestyle than my wife and I did you will most likely still find that many of your new friends will be older. Most people your own age will still be working their own carriers as they are not retired yet.

Not all things are negative about retiring young though there are still some excellent benefits to it.

1)You are more physically able to do a lot of things still in life that you always wanted to. We chose to take up Scuba Diving and we have enjoyed diving at all the different places we have traveled to.

2)One of the biggest pluses to me has been I can spend the winters down south as I hope to never have to shovel another snowflake as long as I live.

3)We have actually been able to get healthier. Not only do we have a lot more time to take care of ourselves properly with both eating right and exercising but we also do not have all the stress that is caused by having careers.

4)We also get to travel more in fact as I write this article we are enjoying the country of Aruba where there is plenty of sun and scuba diving to enjoy.

In closing I still am very glad my wife and I decided to retire young. There are by far many more positive things that we have experienced than negative. However, realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side of things as every path you take in life will have its ups and downs and you just need to be prepared for whatever life brings your way in every decision you chose to make.