Updated 2026. My mother passed at age 97 (2024) RIP. I will be updating this site so I can help retirees again. Write to me!

Retirement - Both before and During

by Irwin Lengel
(Auburndale FL USA)

Chillin' out!

Good afternoon:

I have been away from this site for some time now, and it used to be one of the things I looked forward to – composing and writing little nuggets of wisdom I have acquired over the years.

This will probably not be a long piece because with advancing age (leastways in my case) alco comes limited functions be it hearing, walking, sight or whatever. What I am trying to say is that my eyes aren’t what they used to be, and it is hard to sit in front of this laptop screen for a long period of time.

As the saying goes, long story short – I began working in 1958 and retired in 1996 (downsizing) and though I did work some part-time jobs to keep afloat until Social Security kicked in, in essence this year, 2026, will be a milestone in that while I worked 38 years of my life I have enjoyed 31 years of retirement life too.

I am sure there are many things I could write about regarding these past 31 years but three things that stand out or shall I say are uppermost in my mind are these:

This article is not only geared to those individuals thinking about retirement but also to those who recently retired. Okay, without going into a lot of detail here are the three things I would do differently:

(1) Food - I would watch what I eat. While I don’t think I have any issues with what I eat, although there are some changes I should change and am doing so gradually, but I do take medicine for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Let’s not go down that rabbit hole, just take care with your food choices.

(2) Exercise – I am finding out the hard way that the human body was not designed to sit on its (pardon the expression) butt in retirement. That old saying “Move it or Lose it” is very true.

(3) Hobby – If you have one when you retire – great – stay with it. If you don’t have one, find one. Why? Because as we all know, life – no matter who it is – has its many ups and downs. You need something to occupy your mind so that when you do hit that bump in the road and we all will, you need something to occupy your mind to take it, at least momentarily, off the issue at hand.

I am going to stop now and go – as the saying goes – back to the drawing board and think about what I will write about next time. And these are not written in stone that anyone must follow them. But they have affected my life especially this past year or two and I just thought it would be good to share them.

Until next time.

2025 PBS documentary: 

Aging In America!