I’m retired so I fill my days doing whatever I want. But I’m always interested in what other people would do if they had more free time.
I’d get a motorcycle and a semi-nice camera (don’t wanna lose a flagship model when touching asphalt or something).
I also like gaming but I’m currently spending some 300 hours a month in front of one screen or another between job, freelancing and gaming. If I get to work less, I’ll also sacrifice some gaming time to get a bunch more outside time.
Get high and vibe. It’s my favorite thing, but it’s an expensive illegal hobby sadly.
Not expensive or illegal where I live. Stay strong, brother.
I read a lot. I would read more.
Sounds amazing. I work from home and manage my time as I see fit, working hours range from 2-12 depending on current load, so I’m totally on board with maximizing free time if I get my stuff sorted efficiently.
Guess if I cut it further, I would try to get more into gardening.
I tried gardening before, but I’m pretty terrible at it. But I only retired recently, so this spring, maybe I will give it another go.
I can tell you exactly what I do, because 25 years ago, I chose to forgo promotions at work and prioritize free time and quality of life over money:
I spend time with my family.
I do the things I want while I’m still young (or rather, while I was still young 🙂).
Generally leading a good life free of stress and drama.You were given only one life. You have a finite set of hours on this dirtball, and the countdown is running. Every extra hour you give to your employer in exchange for money is an hour you don’t spend with your loved ones, and you can’t buy it back. Retirement age is too late to enjoy your life.
Nobody goes to their graves thinking they should have worked more.
I can tell you exactly what I do, because 25 years ago, I chose to forgo promotions at work and prioritize free time and quality of life over money:
My hero! I just recently retired at 55 for same reason.
I’m the same age and I’ve been retired for 25 years 🙂
I have a job I really enjoy that I do a few hours a day, for the money sure, but also for fun. And then I enjoy a lot of extra hours doing the things I want.
It’s like retirement but with a few hours of fun stuff I gotta do every day, sure, but it’s still fun. When I retire for real, I just won’t do the few hours of fun no more.
I’m the same age and I’ve been retired for 25 years
I would have if I could have. But I had to wait until I hit the “20-years in” mark to be able to get my pension. It’s the lowest pension because I’m out early, but like you, I wanna enjoy stuff while I’m still fit and healthy.
My gf is 35, so she kinda sorta tried to talk me out of it. She’s fine with our age difference, but I think she got caught up in “OMG you’re getting a pension!” haha
After she noticed how much I mess around and do whatever I want now, she sorta changed her attitude. But I’ll be honest, she seems to be a little passive-aggressive. Maybe jealous of it?
Even tho she makes more money than I do, she seems a little bit resentful, so I dialed back the “Oh I just read this really good book all day” comments.
Not sure if our relationship will make it. But I don’t care. I have no regrets about retiring early. And now I get to fuck around on Lemmy all day too! haha
Nobody goes to their graves thinking they should have worked more.
There are plenty of workaholics that absolutely think they should have worked more in their last moments.
They tend to be awful people.
I already have a lot of free time when my boys go to their moms for the week, and it’s fairly busy when they are with me. Plus I work from home, and enjoy a good amount of autonomy with my workload.
You could say I am balancing both sides of this discussion. But I’ve been dealing with a lot of baggage — both from my marriage and other trauma from growing up — so despite my available free time, I struggle to find motivation to do things outside of the basic responsibilities of being an adult/father.
It’s not for a lack of want though. I have a long list of things I want to do. Some more expensive than others. But even the free stuff isn’t that appealing at the moment.
Ideally, I would like to get into exercising regularly, and pick back up on woodworking. I want to hardscape my backyard by building a stone patio/fire pit, and rebuild my deck. Today it occurred to me that I could build a chicken coop and raise chickens, and potentially sell the excess eggs for a little extra income. I also have to paint and decorate my house.
I suck at motivating myself. 🤣
Brother, I hear you and I feel you. I know all about baggage. Just let it go little by little if you can’t let it go all at once. You got this!
Thanks! I’ve been in therapy for the past year and a half, and have been doing all of the hard work. I’m definitely in a much better place than before, but I’m still stuck in the freeze. I’m sure it’ll come back eventually, but right now, like you said, I’m just letting it go little by little. 😊
I’m with ya in spirit, friend.
Since I saw a couple "read more"s - my trick, if you’d like one, is to put a book on the turlet. I open it up when I’m urinating, too - but usually I hit a point where I’m into the story enough where I start taking the book and reading it as my activity. But I’ve certainly taken months to get through a book just using bathroom time for nonfiction, less narrative stuff.
so, what? half the work hours but at double the rate of pay so it comes out the same?
probably read more. cuz that’s free. i can’t afford to do much else.
I considered it more as you’re not working, you have a fixed income in this situation. Like a retired person.
Exactly.
Not quite what I meant. I just mean what if you had more free time, but not more cash. Sort of what you wanna do for free that you can’t do now because of time restraints.
I’ll edit to rephrase the question.
More photography
Contribute more to FOSS. Maybe start my own open source project.
Definitely more 3d model design.
I think about this a lot, I have no actual clue what I would do. I wish I had a proper hobby to put my time in. Right this moment I could take some form of second job, I’m hungry for moneyyy (to pay off mortgage)
Yes, pay off that mortgage. To be honest, the only reason I’m able to be retired at 55 is because I paid off my mortgage. If I hadn’t done that, then my pension wouldn’t really be enough to pay bills. But since now I have no bills, it works out.
Debt-free is the only way to be truly free in my opinion. Good on ya, mate!
nothing,
glorious nothing
Nothing, can be very glorious! I make sure to load that into my day every day.
A smattering of random stuff because I have ADHD and being able to do whatever comes up on a whim is how I spend my vacation leave since it is the only time I don’t feel stressed.
Still get the essentials done, but not on society’s schedule.
Still get the essentials done, but not on society’s schedule.
One of the main reasons I retired early. I actually liked my jobs, I just hate being on anyone else’s schedule. It seems so petty, but I gave up a lot of money just to be on my own schedule. lol
Honestly if I could set my own schedule it would be great. My natural bedtime is around midnight and waking time is 9 a.m. so every day I get 5 or 6 hours of sleep because I have to wake up at 6 a.m. to conform to society’s schedule.
Decades of attempting to shift my bedtime earlier have failed, because even if I can get to sleep earlier I wake up at like 4 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep.
Game development. I’ve started implementing so many games, and I’ve always stopped because my day job sucks the joy of programming out of me before I can get far enough to release something.
There’s a lot of free things happening in my town. Okay-to-excellent concerts, art event openings, always something at the library, (bring/pay for materials only) FabLabs, screenings of weird old/foreign movies. I’d take more advantage of them, hopefully with friends and family. If no friends and family to embarrass, become politically active. Rest and read more.
