What Do Retired People Do All Day?

Last week I provided my advice for what to do before you make the decision to retire early. I realize that post might have read more like a Wall Street Journal article or a Fisher Investments brochure on retirement than one of my usual posts. So, to personalize things a bit more, I decided to address the question I’m most often asked by friends and family – What exactly do you do all day as a retiree? Here’s the answer!

Many people I know simply don’t “get” retirement. They don’t understand how you can suddenly go from working 5-6 days a week for 8, 10, or 12+ hours a day year after year to living a life free from work and structured activities to fill your day. After joining the ranks of the purposefully unemployed and hanging out with others who recently made the same decision as Laurie and I, it’s clear to me that the transition to retirement is different for everyone.

Many of my fellow retirees have found the transition challenging and struggle to adapt to a world where they don’t have a job to keep them busy and are faced with unlimited free time each day. Others, like Laurie and I, found the transition to retirement to be seamless and uncomplicated, and relished the freedom that comes with no commitments and unlimited free time to pursue the things we always wanted to do but never had time to do when we were working. It really comes down to how you are wired - personalities and proclivities.

But faced with day after day of nothing but free time to fill with no work commitments to speak of, how does one go about spending that time? I can only speak for myself and my own personal experiences over the past three years, so here’s my story!

Hanging out with neighbors Dave, Matt, and Charlie for a weekday lunch

From day one, I fully embraced the notion of having unlimited free time, since I had very little of that when I was working and especially during my last six years running the Center for Naval Analyses. If you read my blog last week, you will know that Laurie and I actually spent a lot of time figuring out what we wanted to do once we were retired. We turned those discussions into a plan for how we would spend our time in retirement.

To give you a better idea of what a typical day in retirement looks like for me, I decided to keep track of my activities one day last week – here’s what it looked like!

I woke up at 7:30 am and went for a four-mile walk. Since it was incredibly hot and humid that day, I jumped in the pool to cool off for about 30 minutes when I got back home. After a quick shower, I had breakfast (yogurt, granola, and blackberries), and then read my two daily papers (The Washington Post and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune). Then I went grocery shopping since we were hosting a 4th of July Fireworks Watching Happy Hour the next evening. When I got back, I made three batches of Sangria for the party (one red, one white, and one blue of course!). After that, I went back in the pool to read and swim for an hour or so and followed that up with a short afternoon nap. Refreshed from my nap, I settled in to read for a couple of hours until Laurie and I left for an evening out to try a new Italian restaurant that recently opened up near us. Back home, I poured myself a finger of bourbon and got caught up on the day’s events and texts on my phone, followed by more reading before I turned in to bed around 10:00 pm.

Beach visit to sip some wine and watch the sunset – Lido Key Beach

As you can see, as a retiree I keep plenty busy, and Laurie even more so! Broadening out a bit, here’s what I have accomplished during my first 1,095 days of retirement – I have:

• Walked 2,500 miles, almost enough miles to walk from our home to Napa Valley, CA!

• Read 190 books, a bit more than one book per week

• Took about 780 afternoon naps (no better way to spend 30 minutes in the afternoon!)

• Watched about 450 sunsets (most at home on our lanai, but also many at the beach)

• Wrote 167 blog posts on food, wine, spirits, and other related topics

• Created 112 music playlists for walking, hanging out in the pool, and entertaining

• Went to the beach or gulf 20 times so far (that’s a lot given I’m not really a beach guy!)

• Ate at 125 different restaurants in the Sarasota area, and 71 of those multiple times

• Took two on-line wine courses and attended three in-person wine classes

• Created 68 food recipes and 30 cocktail recipes for a cookbook Laurie and I are working on

• Reviewed over 100 restaurants as a Google restaurant reviewer

• Hung out in our pool on about 955 days (we LOVE our pool!)

• Played bocce ball once (and looking forward to playing it much more in the future)

• Played pickleball four times (my knee doesn’t like it) – Laurie plays about 4-5 times a week!

• Survived one Category 4 hurricane (Ian) and two tropical storms (so far)

• Left Florida nine times since moving down here (two weddings, one retirement vacation, a summer getaway to Vermont, and trips to MN to visit my mom before she passed away and family there)

• Hosted 32 out-of-town visitors in our home (almost all in the winter of course!)

• Hosted six wine tasting dinners for friends and family

• Haven’t regretted retiring a single day of my 1,095 retired days so far

• Haven’t missed my job a single day, even though I loved working at CNA for 34 years!

Visit by two of my college roommates, Rich Voss and Scott Williamson, earlier this year

All in all, I think that’s a pretty good start and obviously doesn’t include all the things that tend to fill up the rest of our days – get togethers with friends, regular visits to local area attractions, activities at our community clubhouse, cocktail hours at local restaurants, cooking, and hundreds of other things! Bottom line – retirement has been relaxing and fulfilling for Laurie and I, and we look forward to many decades of retirement to come!

Laurie partying with friends from the neighborhood

One final thought. I have always sought out retirement advice from the experts and non-experts. Much of that advice has been incredibly helpful, but the absolute best advice I ever read came from the late, great Anthony Bourdain, restauranter, author, and rebel chef. About a month after retiring and moving to Sarasota, I read this piece of advice that Anthony had for anyone “living life” with a focus on food, wine and spirits – I felt it was perfect for retirement, and I have worked hard to follow it – you might be well-served to do the same, regardless of whether you are retired, or 40 years from retirement – here it is:

“Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o-clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you.

Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you but have a drink with them anyways.

Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.”

The late great Anthony Bourdain

Happy hour at Sage Restaurant in downtown Sarasota