The Retired Life - Eating and Drinking Differently

Laurie and I did a lot of planning for retirement, including both financial and life planning. One thing we didn’t consider was how retirement might change how we think about and approach food, spirits, and wine. Turns out, we made some big changes that we hadn’t planned on making! This post is for those who might be thinking about retirement, whether it’s 2 years or 20 years away!

I’ve been retired for a bit over a year now, and I’m still surprised by the things I didn’t anticipate that I should have. Thankfully, I haven't experienced any bad surprises during my relatively short time in retirement so far! Everyone’s retirement is different, but I believe there are two universal truths that apply to most everyone who enters retirement: (1) You have a lot more free time than you used to have; and (2) You have a lot less stress than you used to have! These two universal truths have led Laurie and I to make some significant lifestyle changes in retirement that have impacted how we approach food, wine, and spirits.

First, we are definitely leading a healthier lifestyle – retirement has a way of forcing you to focus on what’s important, like taking care of yourself so you can fully enjoy and get the most out of your retirement years. In addition to exercising a lot more than before (humidity and heat be damned!!), we have changed our eating habits to incorporate more vegetarian food as well as seafood and fish (I mean, come on – we live on the gulf coast of Florida where fresh seafood is caught daily 45 minutes away!) into our weekly meals. We now limit red meat to once a week and have vegetarian and/or fish dinners at least 4 times a week. Doing so has had a significant positive impact on our energy and overall health.

Second, we have simplified our lives in a number of ways. We have less stuff (a necessary accommodation as we moved from a 4,000+ to a 2,500 square foot house). We also lived in a one bedroom, one bath apartment for six months while our house was being built, which made us realize we don’t need a lot of stuff to live comfortably and be happy. Also, I went from a 450-bottle wine cellar to a 75-bottle wine cellar which is much easier to manage, and which takes up a lot less space as well! Before we moved to Florida, we had so much wine that we ran out of storage space and couldn’t drink it fast enough (our friends ended up liking that quandary a lot - we just started giving them free bottles of wine to get the inventory down)! When we drove to Florida, we had room for six cases of wine in the car so that’s what we brought with us, and that’s about the amount we have now in our house.

We have also simplified how we approach cooking – I now spend less time in the kitchen making complicated and time-consuming recipes and have started gravitating toward simpler and easier meals. You might think that with more time on my hands, I would actually spend more time in the kitchen, and I do still make complicated recipes at times. Actually, I cook more than I did before, but what I cook takes less time which allows Laurie and I to enjoy our sunset cocktail hours without having to worry about dinner.

Third, we have gotten more interested in and spent more time learning about spirits and the world of cocktails, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Sarasota has a great bar scene, so we have been enjoying our frequent visits to bars and cocktail lounges in the area to explore new drinks and learn more about how to create unique and delicious craft cocktails. And as an added bonus, we have discovered that “Sarasotans” love their breakfast cocktails – most restaurants that serve breakfast have at least a few on the menu, with one of our favorite breakfast places showcasing five different Bloody Mary’s and 10 other breakfast cocktails on the menu!

Lastly, we have greatly enjoyed eating out more and exploring all that the fantastic Sarasota food scene has to offer. Before retirement, Laurie and I would go out for dinner maybe once a month if that. Now, we try to visit a new restaurant at least once a week, and we have also been seeking out food experiences we wouldn’t have before, such as Peruvian, modern Asian, Dim Sum, and seafood-focused restaurants. As a result, we have greatly expanded our exposure to different types of food from around the world and have become more adventuresome diners in the process!

Bottom line: Retirement has been good for our health (mental and physical), but also good for helping us to better enjoy what we have and what the area around us has to offer. So, it won’t surprise you that I highly recommend early retirement if you have the interest and means to do so. And if you don’t have either of those, then hopefully this post has given you something to look forward to whenever you decide to pull the trigger on retirement!

I’m interested in hearing about your experiences in retirement and how the transition to retirement might have changed how you approach the world of food, wine, and spirits – let me know!