First name: Danny
Age: 60-79
Gender: Male
Children: Yes. A son and a daughter.
Highest school level: College/University degree
Social background: Married, will turn 70 in two weeks. Own two homes. One in SC and one in Cashiers. We spend 50% or more of our time in the Cashiers area. We attend church. I play golf but have no golfing buddies. We like to socialize. Both of us are retired. Our second home is in the Glenville area.
Career: We are college graduates. I worked for 25 years with Amoco/BP. Did various jobs after retiring. My wife worked mainly in construction supply side of home building.
Retirement plans: Already wholly retired
Forced into retirement: No
Retirement preparation: We had a planned retirement via pensions and savings. We both had various ideas and plans for our post retirement years but not all of them panned out. In reality, we are more of the volunteer type.
Describe typical day: Doing homework, yard work, running errands, and minor traveling.
Look forward to retirement: Yes
Expectations: Play golf, travel, volunteer, and visit places that we never have been. Of course stay healthy.
Hobbies: Yes
Continue to work: We both tried back when no-one was hiring fifteen years ago. The jobs available were working weekends and holidays mostly in the food and beverage field. If at the time our skills were needed, we both would still be employed. Didn’t happen.
Retraining: No
What would you change about second career: I did a start-up business prior to retirement to give me a goal upon retirement. The reality of the economic swings from 9-11 and the 2007 recession proved that big fish eat little fish and liabilities outweighed the assets.
Encounter ageism: When we retired you had a target on your back at 50 years older and you knew it. The workplace is not like that today. Companies held manager training courses on how to eliminate aging employees back in the late nineties. I attended them.
Did you relocate: No
Live near family: No
Advice for others: Make sure that you have a solid plan. The most important thing is the first years. You need enough cash on hand to maintain your lifestyle before the dividends/interest start to accumulate. Or a forty hour enjoyable job.