Ready For Retirement
Ready For Retirement
The Benefits of a Retirement Community and How to Find Your Purpose in Retirement
Meet Joe Sullivan, who found the first few years of retirement very difficult. Community is important to Joe, but he wasn't getting sufficient, routine social interaction to make meaningful connections while living in rural Virginia. He found his groove once he moved to a retirement community in Florida.
James and Joe discuss the phases of retirement and what those phases have looked like for Joe. Joe emphasizes the importance of remaining flexible and trying new things as retirees explore who they will be in retirement and what will bring them the most satisfaction and joy.
Questions answered:
How can I test the waters to see if a retirement community is a good fit for me?
What is Joe's advice for new retirees?
Submit your request to join James:
On the Ready For Retirement podcast: Apply Here
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Meet Joe Sullivan
3:07 - The decision to retire
5:28 - Impressions vs real retirement
9:11 - Needing something else
10:39 - Retirement community decision
12:05 - Before and after the move
14:32 - Finding purpose
17:16 - Phases of retirement
20:08 - Joe’s advice
22:05 - Emotional preparation
24:32 - Next phase of Joe’s retirement
26:07 - Final thoughts
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My guest on today's episode of Ready for Retirement is Joe. Joe opens up about how the first year and a half of retirement were challenging, as he felt very lost. He tells us about how he moved to a retirement community and that's made all the difference in how much he's enjoyed it. Then, finally, he shares his tips for what he's done to feel purpose in the things that he has done to make the most out of his retirement. It's all coming up next on today's episode of Ready for Retirement.
Speaker 1:This is another episode of Ready for Retirement. I'm your host, james Canole, and I'm here to teach you how to get the most out of life with your money. And now on to the episode Today on the Ready for Retirement podcast. I have guest Joseph Sullivan, and usually on this podcast we're talking about financial things, but the name of this podcast is Ready for Retirement, and sometimes being ready for retirement isn't just about getting the financials right. So this is the beginning of a new series where we're actually going to talk to real people who have actually retired and get their feedback of what worked, what didn't and maybe what they could do or what they would do if they could go back and do it again.
Speaker 1:So, joseph, really appreciate you being guest number one here on this new format of the Ready Retirement Podcast. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, james, excited for today. And, like I said, there's so much financial information out there and this financial information is about tax strategies and how much do you need to retire and what should you do for health insurance, and all that stuff is incredibly important, but if you don't also have the psychological plan in place or life plan in place, understand what do you want retirement to look like? I think sometimes people go into retirement not fully understanding that there is more beyond the finances. And so really excited to have this conversation and, if you don't mind, joseph, just kicking us off, where are you from and when did you retire? Or what did you do for work and when did you retire?
Speaker 2:I spent. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and joined the service, went into the Air Force and I did 22 years in the Air Force, retired from the service. While I was in the service I got my education, certifications and stuff and I came out and I did human resources for the next 20 years and I retired a second time from a major satellite company out of Luxembourg and been retired now almost four years. When you say retired a second time from a major satellite company out of Luxembourg and been retired now almost four years.
Speaker 1:When you say retired a second time, so, and thank you for your service, by the way do you mean retiring from the service? And then your second career is what you're retired from next.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I have a retirement package, if you would, from the Air Force and I've been receiving that since I retired back in 2000. And then I went to work doing HR for different companies and I fully funded my 401ks and everything. While I was working as an HR professional I've managed benefits administration, 401k administration, so very familiar with mutual funds and mutual fund investing and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So you've seen it all. What age were you when you retired the second time from the HR position?
Speaker 2:Actually I tried retiring at 61. My boss asked me to stay an extra year. The company was offering an early retirement where they actually offer you a year of severance and pay half your medical, dental and vision and it was a sweet deal. He asked me to stay an extra year because he was going to retire. But he didn't retire and I did so. I retired in October of when I turned 62, about three years ago, three and a half, almost four years ago this October.
Speaker 1:So, 62 years old, you retired about three years ago. What was it that led to that decision? In other words, was this something that from the time you're 55, you knew that you were going to retire at that age, or was it something that came on that caused you to retire earlier than you thought? What led to that?
Speaker 2:So I've been planning for retirement all my life. My father-in-law when I was just 25, used to take me to all these free seminars and free lunches. We'd sit and listen to the sales pitch, if you would, and then we would talk about it, and then he taught me about NOLO, mutual fund investing and stuff like that. So all my life I've been preparing for retirement. So this isn't nothing new. I've been waiting. I actually looked at seeing if I could retire at 55, looked at the IRS guidelines and pulling money out. But the main reasons I wanted to retire early is there was cancer in my family. So my two brothers died of cancer. I have another brother who has prostate cancer. I have a sister who's had breast cancer. It's in the family and so far, so good. I haven't had it.
Speaker 2:The second thing that kind of led to my decision to finally punch was at the time when I retired. The pandemic was almost towards the end. I was tired of working from home. I was tired of doing Zoom calls with everybody because you know, yeah, you can interact with people, but I missed that human interaction and you know I saw a lot of people as an HR professional who got downsized and were forced to retire and how they transitioned.
Speaker 2:And I saw how hard that was for them because they weren't really planning it and all of a sudden it was thrust upon them. But I've also seen people that like there was a guy in his mid seventies I kept offering him early retirement every year. And you know, hey, nice deal, use severance. How can you pass that up? And he goes. No, his attitude was as long as I keep working, I'm going to stay alive. And you know what, six months after our last conversation, he ended up having a stroke, he ended up in a nursing home and he's paralyzed half his body and that's going to be his retirement now. And when I saw things like that, I thought I'm going to punch. When I'm early enough and healthy enough to go out and enjoy life, because I love traveling and I saw a lot of people while I'm traveling couldn't even make it down the street. Keep up with the group. So all those are reasons, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have the family side, the family health side, and obviously that will bring life into perspective. And then, being in your position in HR and these conversations, you see the consequences sometimes of not doing it at a certain time. What did you envision? So you thought of retirement your whole life, which is fascinating to me. So you thought of retirement your whole life, which is fascinating to me. What did retirement look like, as you had these dreams of what it would be prior to actually pulling the trigger and retiring.
Speaker 2:You know it's funny. I was in an RV one time and I visited some friends who they were both at the CIA and they both retired early and they had an RV and they were traveling the country. And I remember that night, after talking to them, I kept asking what do you do with your time? I mean, what do you do with your time? I mean, what do you do with it? I mean, you got all this time now right. And I remember dreaming that night that I woke up in the morning and I literally felt like I had no burdens in life and there was no stress in life and I could do anything I want to do. And then when I woke up and I go, that's just a dream. Well, in reality it turned out to be the same way. Yeah, so I always envisioned traveling. I envisioned spending time with someone I care for, helping others, doing things for people. Yeah, that's how I envisioned it, yeah.
Speaker 1:How has it gone and has it aligned with what you envisioned it would be?
Speaker 2:So for me, it was hard for me to retire because, you see, I've been working since I was 13. So I've always got up early, had to go to some sort of job, because I learned early on if I don't work, I'm not going to get anything right. And what's really weird is when you go to retire, you're usually making more money than you ever have in your entire life and you've got to the highest position that you could be in. Maybe and here it is you're going to step out and walk away from it and it's scary, it's very scary. That's like do I have enough money, you know? Will my investments last long enough, you know? So it's exciting and scary at the same time. And you know what used to provide structure and socialization is gone. There's no more structure in retirement unless you start organizing all kinds of stuff on your calendar Because you have all day to do nothing if you don't want to do it. It's really fun.
Speaker 1:Now, joseph, before you retired. So these things that you're sharing, which are so true, did you fully grasp the extent to which that was true prior to actually retiring, or is that something that you fully faced after making that decision, after retirement?
Speaker 2:See, I think you know I focus so much pre-retirement on how much money that I have, what are my investments, what are my bills? What would retirement look like? How much do I need to save for travel? So I allocated $2,000 a month for travel and you know, and I got all the utilities. I was going to move at the time. I was knew I was going to move to a retirement community. I knew I was going to be buying a home. I stayed for all that. So I planned for everything, but it was still. Once it happened it was like, oh my God, I've got all this time. Now what do I do? And I kind of floundered for the first year because I kept thinking I wanted to go back to work and I thought, well, maybe I'll just get a part-time job right and do HR do some benefits and stuff three days a week. Well, I went to LinkedIn and kind of put on part-time and all of a sudden I started getting these notices hey, joe, joe, you want to come join us?
Speaker 2:And I'm like I really don't want to do that I really don't want to lock that time up and I'm traveling all the time. So what am I going to do? I'm saying to them hey, I'm not available this month and that month because I'm gone, and it wouldn't be fair to them either, right, and I'm sure they wouldn't want that. So I finally came, and then I had my HR certifications. I worked hard for all those years and they were coming up for renewal and I'm like I'm not going to go back to work. And then it's.
Speaker 1:You know, it's a year later, after I've already retired but I kept thinking I needed to be doing something else. Did that surprise you, that feeling that you needed to keep doing something? Knowing that you had been planning for this retirement, which is often pictured as leisurely and carefree, and do whatever you want, was it surprising to you that you had that feeling?
Speaker 2:It did surprise me because I really thought that I wouldn't be dwelling on it as much as I did. Because, let's see, the numbers part was I kept crunching them, and crunching them, and crunching them, right. You know, every time I turned around and ran the numbers again, I'm like, oh, I'm good, I'm good, All right. And then I got into retirement, I'm like I got all this time on my hands. Now what do I do with it? So it's interesting when I first retired I was living in Virginia before I moved on to the retirement community. I'm in now and I had a good buddy that I knew I worked with. He was an engineer, retired a year before me, and he and I had a conversation and he said to me he goes, hey, Joe, what you been doing. And I said, well, you know what. I've been retired now what?
Speaker 1:six months and all I do is projects around the house and I go.
Speaker 2:You know I'm looking for to go swimming, but the pools are closed. It's wintertime, you know. Blah, blah, blah. You know. One excuse after the next and he goes. Joe, if you're really going to be interested in retiring, you need to be around like-minded people. You should consider moving to a retirement community, and that's what started prompting it Again. I had been looking at this place down here for a long time and I finally made the jump.
Speaker 1:When did you make that jump how long into retirement?
Speaker 2:About a year and a half after I retired.
Speaker 1:Okay, how did the first year and a half of retirement go, compared to how it's gone since making that move?
Speaker 2:Oh, day and night. So it was again. It goes back to that conversation I had with this guy and it was like, joe, you're living in a community, I own three and a half acres, I'm out in the woods, I have neighbors that live a quarter mile away from me, all over the place, and it's me by myself. I mean like okay, talk about feeling isolated and everything right, but when I ended up in the retirement community there was like so many like-minded people and there's so much to do. I got sucked into water, volleyball and entertainment and all kinds of theaters and going to plays, and Orlando is only an hour south of me, so there's too much to do now. There's 3,000 groups that meet every month. If you have an interest, it's here, right. But then that flip part is you could be here and sit and watch TV every day and isolate yourself, or you can get out there and try and make friends and meet other people.
Speaker 1:I want to come back to this because I think this is a very important point. But I want to go back to that first year and a half before you moved. So you retired, you're living on a bunch of land. It's more difficult to find that community I'm imagining, find those friends, without making a really dedicated effort to do so. What was the hardest part about that first year and a half? And then I want to come back to the since you've moved part of your life.
Speaker 2:It was hard finding things that, uh, um, that I was doing because sometimes the weather plays into it. So, like down here we can play softball all year round. I mean, you can play all year round if you want to get really, really hot in the summertime. But I think that owning a home that was almost 45 years old and I've already did so many updates to it, but I'm still doing stuff to it, I'm still playing, staining, painting, power washing and all this stuff, and you know, I'm getting older, and I used to be able to work eight hours a day, and now I'm going out for two hours and I'm, like you know, I'm done for the day.
Speaker 2:I used to think I'm 28, right, and I keep thinking I'm 28, but now I'm 66. So that first year and a half is hard, and so, towards the end of that first year, though, I made the decision I was going to move to the villages, which is a retirement community north of Orlando it only could be anybody's retirement community, it doesn't have to be the villages and I rented, for five months, a different house every month for five months, living in different parts of the villages, to see if I really wanted this, and the more I did it, the more I decided I wanted to buy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what has been the best part of that move? You're in the villages, but whatever community it may be for anyone listening, is it the community? Is it easy access to activities? Is it just the socialization aspect? What's been the best part of that decision for you?
Speaker 2:Access to everything you just said. Access to it. Access, I mean I saw Jay Leno come in here. They have all the major bands come in here. They have bands that play on four squares every night, different bands, 365 days a year. There's, like I said, 3,000 groups. If you have an interest joining an investment club, I think the hardest part finding out is what do I want to do in retirement? I mean what's important to me. What do I want to do in retirement? I mean what's important to me, and I think for any other retiree I would say the same thing. Start making a thing, a collage like put it on your wall, a storyboard, if you would. What are the things you can see and envision yourself doing in retirement? Like, I never thought I'd get sucked into water volleyball. I like it. I could play five days a week if I wanted to, seven days a week if I wanted to, but you know, but it's the opportunity. It's there now, Right, and I didn't have that before.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you do know what it is now you know. If you were to make your vision board, your collage, here's what Joe wants to do in retirement. Do you feel like you fully have that figured out, or do you feel as if it's a process that's continuing to? It's still a process.
Speaker 2:And I say this to you I have a good friend I've known probably for 30 years and he knows me more than anybody in my own family, right, he's that close, right. And one day we were talking and I was talking about something and he goes Joe, you need to find your purpose. What's your purpose? And I remember thinking about that after I got off the call. And you know, being in HR, I'm used to helping people.
Speaker 2:When I was in the service, I used to help people. My job is to help people and I wasn't doing that anymore and I started looking into volunteer work. Like I've worked at soup kitchens before. I've done food banks. You know I volunteered at food banks in Virginia. But there's a lot of things that need help here. There's all kinds of nonprofits that need help and I've been just reluctant to jump into it because why? Every four to six weeks, my girlfriend and I are traveling someplace. I mean we're in the go-go phase of retirement. I mean it's spend money to go vacation, right To travel, and I think that I still need to find that purpose. I think I've been looking at different volunteer opportunities, something that would understand and maybe work with my schedule so that when I'm here. I could do that. I mean if it's easy as stocking shelves in a food bank or washing dishes at a place that needs help because they're cooking food for the homeless.
Speaker 1:I'm not one to be out front, I'm one usually behind the scenes, so yeah, if you were to rewind three years ago, so prior to Joe actually retiring three, four, five years ago, could you have envisioned you living where you live right now, doing what you do right now? Or is this completely off script for what you would have thought?
Speaker 2:Off script. I I like I said, I've been looking at the villages for over five years before I retired, so I've been coming down here and spending some time, you know, whenever I had vacations and stuff. A couple of weeks here, a couple of weeks there. What's it like, you know? And I start envisioning it. But, but to see myself buying a brand new home, coming down here, settling in, buying a golf cart and becoming a villager, if you would. But it's the people in retirement that make it. I mean, there's some people that I just don't want to talk to a second time. There's other people that I go. I really like them, I'd like to get to know them better, and so that's a lot more, and I think that opportunity is here more for me than it was where I was.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you say that because a few weeks back I had Dr Riley Moynes on the show and he talks about the four phases of retirement. And he talks about retirement. Phase one feels like a vacation to a lot of people. It's what you expect no more alarm clocks, no more bosses, no more deadlines. Wake up when you want, do what you want, be where you want, and that's great. But that feeling doesn't last, that feeling of vacation doesn't last.
Speaker 1:And he says phase number two is that feeling loss and feeling lost of. Oh, I didn't realize I'd feel like I lost relationships or I lost purpose or I lost whatever it was that work provided and you feel a little bit lost. So just who am I and what I want to do and what's my purpose? And then his phase three is exactly what I see you do in Joe, which is the trial and error of very rarely do people have a perfect plan of exactly what retirement is going to look like and very rarely does it actually go exactly according to that plan, even if they have one. And it's that sense of I had no idea I would love water volleyball so much. I had no idea I'd be living here in the villages. I had no idea I'd be doing these things and traveling like I'm traveling and spending time with it. But it's that that, I think willingness to go through trial and to go through error, to know that it's going to take some time to find that thing that really sticks.
Speaker 1:And his fourth phase is reinvest and rewire that sense of okay, what does this next act of my life look like? And it sounds like you're really there on that cusp of phase three and four, which is great, but I wanted to use an example just to encourage the audience of it was a year and a half of feeling kind of lost and feeling kind of like maybe purposeless, and it's not as if that's totally gone. But you're in that rewire phase, or that trial and error phase, I should say, of you're doing the things that need to be done to find who is Joe and what I want to do for the rest of my life, which is the part that can't be skipped over. You've got to be willing to try things.
Speaker 2:You've got to be willing to try things, you got to be open to new things, yeah, yeah. And if I was going to be like, oh no, I really don't want to do that, that's too much stress in my life, or whatever, but it was fun, stress, it was new. I mean I did line dancing, I did chair volleyball, I did chair aerobics, I mean all kinds of goofy things I tried. But I came down here right I got that's not for me, that's not for me you know, was it difficult for you to try those?
Speaker 1:in other words, did someone have to drag you to those, or was it something that was exciting for you to try new things?
Speaker 2:I sought it out and the reason is uh, remember I said about water volleyball I didn't know that I would enjoy it so much. But you won't know it until you try it you know what I mean, and then I got into it. I was oh, this is a lot of fun. I like this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you were to give one piece of it, because a lot of people you and I talked about this right before going live is. There's the financial aspect of retirement that we tend to obsess over. Do I have enough money? How are my investments allocated? Do I have the tax? All those things are really important, but if that's where the thinking starts and stops, retirement's probably going to be a letdown for a lot of people. They don't know what they're retiring into. What's one piece of advice that you would give someone who's not yet retired but is getting close to that time? What would you advise them to do?
Speaker 2:I think that after they've looked at their finances and they looked at their investments and they know what their bills are going to be and everything and they've they've identified do, the storyboard is what they can vision their, their retirement would be like. I would say that people need to take care of their health first and they need to take a look at that because I'm going to tell you, if you don't have your health, you don't have a retirement. You know, I see people come down here all the time and retirement communities people die because they're already older to begin with. Right, I mean, I think that people need to look at when they get, when they're going to retire. Are they going to retire in a place that has good doctors, good dentists? You know, what is it going to cost them for insurance on their car and their home? Because I saw a significant increase in those two when I came down here to Florida and the doctors and the dentists some nice doctors and dentists, but they weren't like up in Virginia you follow me when you got all the specialists and all the hospitals and everything. So I would say for them to do their homework and research on that too, yeah, yeah, but I think they need to be prepared emotionally to retire the set expectations.
Speaker 2:I guess there was an article I read the other day. They talked about people 65 and older getting divorced and I'm like what? People getting divorced after you've been together 40?
Speaker 1:years or whatever.
Speaker 2:And I'm like that just blew me away and I thought this is supposed to be the good part of your life. And it's like people are like been with that person a long time, I don't want to be with them anymore. So now I'm going to divorce them and, to be honest with you, I wouldn't wish a divorce on anybody, having gone through one myself.
Speaker 1:So yeah, how would you go about that process of preparing emotionally? If you could talk to 60 year old Joe, what would you tell him to say? Here's how you can start getting prepared emotionally for what's ahead of you.
Speaker 2:For them to start seeking out and finding what they enjoy doing now. So like, for example, several of my friends have retired One guy he plays tennis all the time, okay, and then he volunteers walking dogs at a local dog center a little. For example, several of my friends have retired One guy he plays tennis all the time, okay, and then he volunteers walking dogs at a local dog center a little. You know place to rescue for animals. I have another friend who he's in Virginia and he loves photography and he did photography a lot. He got really involved in it. He had that's his hobby, you know his activity, and then he volunteered in a local art gallery. So you got to kind of paint that storyboard, if you would.
Speaker 2:What does retirement look? To me it's not just about the money, although that's important. I think for most guys that's the big thing Do we have enough money to retire and can I live comfortably? But it's more than that, because you can always go back to work. That's what I even said to myself when I first retired. I thought you know well what the hell, if it don't work out, I'll just go back to work, right? Well, then I started thinking about it. People started offering me jobs. So, james, we're quick.
Speaker 2:So I always wanted to teach school. Because when I got out of the military, I said, hey, I want to teach the teachers, they offer it up. Right? I said, well, I want to go teach school. Right, I'm going to be a teacher. Well, they didn't want me because I didn't have a biology degree, you know, engineering degree or anything like that, an HR degree. What's that do for you, right? So when I came down here to the villages, I thought, oh, become a teacher. I put in for substitute teaching. So what did they do? They called me on the phone. No lie, I freaked out. I freaked out. They called me on the phone. Oh, my God, I can be a teacher. I really don't want that. So be careful what you want, what you think you want, it may not be what you really want.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad you said that because, yes, the importance of creating that storyboard, whether physical or just mental, what you want, but also recognize the fact that what you think you want may not actually be what you want. So don't be afraid for that storyboard to change or those desires to change, but start with it and maintain flexibility, flexibility yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great. So what's next for you, joe? You've been retired for three years. You contemplate and go back to work. You decided against it. You had the first year and a half in Virginia, where you felt maybe not as good as you feel now in the villages and being able to do a lot more. What's next for you in your retirement journey?
Speaker 2:Traveling, continuing to travel. We do four major trips a year at least, and so even my neighbors all say to me they go, well, you're never here. I'm like, oh yeah, you're right, and it's hard to make friends if you're never here, Right, so uh, so uh. Travel is important to me. Taking care of my health is important to me. I uh, I go to all my doctor's visits and everything. Um, I think, um, finding my purpose is still important. I think that I need to settle down and start doing some volunteer work and actually feel like I'm giving back to the community. I mean, I donate money all the time to different causes, but donating money isn't really satisfying to me personally. I think it's when you take your time and you go out and you're helping somebody else and you can see the efforts of your. Like Habitat for Humanity. I consider that, since I like construction projects, you know, but I need to kind of just start.
Speaker 1:What's been the hardest part of it? Is it finding the organization to start with? Is it finding a cause that actually lights you up?
Speaker 2:I think it's both. There's so many down here to do. I mean, it's so many different things, so I just dipped my feet into the water. This weekend I went to a training class on helping veterans get their new Department of Defense ID card, which all the cards currently are going to be expiring unless you have a new card by 2026. So I'm going to be going to all these nursing facilities and stuff and talking to veterans and seeing helping them get their new ID cards online.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Great Well, joe. I really appreciate you coming and sharing just a transparent sense of what's gone well.
Speaker 2:what hasn't Is there anything you would like to leave the audience with today as we start to wrap up. Life is short. We don't know what we have tomorrow. And my sister said something to me one time a long time ago. She said, joey, when is enough enough? And I sat there and I started thinking about that and again, if I wanted to apply that, I'm making more money than I ever have in my life, I'm saving more than I've ever had in my life and I'm going to walk away from it. And that was part of the scariness, because all my life it's always been about saving money and preparing for retirement. And then you go when is enough enough?
Speaker 1:I think you know when you write your numbers. Yeah Well, thank you, joe. I think these are feelings and fears and concerns and all of it that so many people feel, and so I think, one, just people knowing that, oh, this is totally normal for me to feel these things. But two, to see the example of someone that didn't move forward with retirement in spite of that and acknowledged that it took some time to really start to feel good about what the day-to-day looks like in retirement and acknowledges that it's still a process of continuing to seek that purpose and what it means and to do all those things. So, joe, I really appreciate you taking some time to be on the Ready for Retirement podcast. It's been a pleasure and thank you so much. Thank you Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Hey, everyone, it's me again for the disclaimer. Please be smart about this. Before doing anything, please be sure to consult with your tax planner or financial planner. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as investment, tax, legal or other financial advice. It is for informational purposes only, with clients all over the country, and we love the opportunity to speak with you about your goals and how we might be able to help. And please remember, nothing we discuss in this podcast is intended to serve as advice. You should always consult a financial, legal or tax professional who's familiar with your unique circumstances before making any financial decisions.
