Last Wednesday was an eye-opener for me. I went out for lunch with four friends all of whom are now retired. It was wonderful. We eased into conversation as if we had all been together on a regular basis instead of working full time jobs and only seeing each other intermittently. We could not recall how long it had been since we could see each other as a group especially at lunchtime on a weekday. Last year while working that would have been impossible, now it is a reality. 

Finally, our “work” today is lunch and shopping

We are all educated professional women who devoted a very large portion of our lives being a part of the working world and taking care of others. Our group consisted of two teachers, a pharmacy manager, a publicist and me, a former teacher/health care administrator/medical assistant.  We held various jobs, had immeasurable levels of stress and earned different amounts of money during our careers. But one thing we all had in common was how happy we were to be at this stage of our life, retirement.

Careful financial planning allows us to enjoy time together

These friends are all older than me so they were able to retire and get insurance benefits immediately while I have to pay for Cobra (which takes a hefty chunk out of my Social Security money) but as I have mentioned before, I am just grateful to have it since I am now uninsurable. The teachers get pensions and the rest of us have our Social Security and 401K’s to rely on so while we all have to be careful with our money, none of us need to work, at least at this time in our lives. We were united in our pleasure at staying home, catching up with projects and being able to do things during the day, even simple things like having a lunch date and shopping excursion with old friends.

Retirement gets better every week

While I was working I never realized how much I missed spending time with my friends until I had the opportunity to do it again. Now that I can be a part of the group once more, I can add this benefit to the growing list of things to do in retirement. Retirement gets more enjoyable each week.