Retirement Is Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be

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We all daydream about what retirement will be like, but will reality live up to expectations? In this episode, Eric and Jason are joined by Fritz Gilbert, who blogs at The Retirement Manifesto. Now nearly four years after retiring early, Fritz brings valuable experience + perspectives to this question. Our discussion goes well beyond the numbers, covering topics including finding your purpose, working “one more year”, determining your FIRE timing, and the keys to success in retirement.

Note: This content does not constitute investment advice and is being presented for informational and educational purposes only.

Show Notes

Retirement Is Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be – This is Fritz’ post that inspired us to make an episode of Two Sides of FI together. As you may have gathered from our earlier episodes, Jason completely agrees with Fritz that it’s impossible to really know what retirement is going to be like until you experience it. Now in his fourth year of early retirement, Fritz has a lot of experience to reflect upon and we’re grateful that he’s chosen to share it with us.

Keys to a Successful Retirement – As we discussed in this episode, Fritz recently wrote a book capturing lessons he learned on his retirement journey so far. His own description of the book is a really apt summary: “Covering topics like finances, embracing your passions, and dealing with feelings of aimlessness, grief, and depression that may crop up, this in-depth guide to retired living answers all the burning questions you want to ask—as well as those you’re afraid to. Take a complete look at your newfound freedom and explore what it really means to have a successful retirement.” We highly recommend it!

In this episode, we referenced a number of different blog posts Fritz wrote that we found useful, inspiring, and impactful. Please be sure to check them out:

Introducing The 90/10 Rule of Retirement: Be prepared for this mental shift when you retire.
The One More Year Syndrome: Why do folks continue to work after achieving Financial Independence?
The 10 Commandments Of Retirement: Fritz’ self-imposed guidelines for retirement.
How I Spend My Time In Retirement: A breakdown of Fritz’ time, and how it compares to his working years.
How To Build A Retirement Paycheck: This is the first of three great posts on Fritz’ implementation of the Bucket Strategy, which we discussed in this episode and in prior videos. The other two articles in the series are linked here too.
A Strategy For Buying Into A Bear Market: What Fritz learned from 2008 and how he’s managing today’s volatility.
Still want more? In this episode, Fritz talked about this list of all his blog posts to date, organized along a timeline. It’s a really great resource to walk through his pre- and post-retirement periods and see what he was thinking about along the way. We have found it a really useful reference guide to our own journeys.

Freedom for Fido is the charity that the Gilberts started, whose stated purpose is to:
“Free the dogs who live on chains in the North Georgia Mountains. We are a charity which provides free fencing and dog houses for low-income residents of the Blue Ridge area.” This project is clearly an important part of their lives and we’d recommend you check out the great and impactful work they’re doing together with their volunteer community.

You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.