Around age 50, I started retirement planning in earnest. We are a two-income, no kids couple, we have both maxed out 401/457/453 and IRAs for most of our working life, and we both had pensions and retiree medical to look forward to.

At that time, about 5-6 years ago, I really got into reading more about finance and paying MUCH more attention to all our financial statements. Somewhere in 2005, we shifted a bunch of our assets to fixed income while I worked hard to get a good grasp of everything. I started managing our portfolio. When things tanked, a couple of times, my husband and I were both pretty glad we had our money where we had it. We didn’t suffer those huge losses that so many Baby Boomers dealt with.

I had always thought we’d retire when my husband was about 56, although he wanted to work until he dropped. (No, we were not in agreement!)

In 2008, my husband was let go from his company of 29+ years. He was 54 –
just before he hit that 30 year mark for full pension and retiree medical. His pension plan changed, blah blah blah.

Yeah, well, they say stuff happens, and we have readjusted our plans.

After 4 months, he obtained another position in his field, and 3 weeks later, I lost MY job at a local bank. Then about 8 months later, he lost that second job, in mid-2009.

It’s been quite a roller coaster ride, and here we are, “in retirement,” we think, only because neither of us have found another job — yet.

While I had made good financial plans, and I believe we are doing OK there, it’s been the other transitional issues that have been more challenging, like what do we do with the rest of our lives. We have been making that up as we go along. Some days it works OK, some days it’s a train wreck!

As of today, my husband says he likes being retired — although he didn’t want to retire at all — and I am gearing up for a job interview next week!

It’s been a very interesting experience so far.