wife is 10 years younger than me. I retired 8 months ago and she intends to work for another 3 years or so. Biggest issue has been restricted travel plans. I go to my gym most days even though I have a great home gym which I use for top up. I do have the odd lunch or so with other retired mates and go on trips with my 2 brothers ( straight out of Last of the Summer Wine!!). I keep in touch with my adult sons who both live reasonably close.
But the biggest reconciler is that I am trying to make it as a self published author (historical fantasy) so it means I still spend time at my desk (although constant dictation keeps me on the move). This almost looks like a job so it works well (but is much more fun than a proper job). Signing up to be a film and TV extra as that looks like fun too. Finally I actively manage my investments and that takes time too. This will all help fill out the gap in this “peri-retirement“ before my wife also stops working
You've missed out a couple of really important variables. One of them is caring responsibilities. This can mean one partner retiring quite early to look after perhaps an elderly parent or even two other parents or a disabled child. Another variable is the opportunity for some people in some kinds of jobs to take an early retirement package, which I did at 52, mainly to look after my son who's got a learning disability. This enabled me to draw carers allowance and also to work part-time, which meant that I was actually earning more as a part-time worker and I had been in full-time work. It gave me a lot of flexibility. But as it happens, my partner was actually older than me. She quite enjoyed her job, so she kept on working for an extra five years past the state pensionable age, which she was entitled to do, building up in the meantime a very significant additional benefit. In those days, it was 11% for each year that you carried on working and didn't draw your pension. Unfortunately, that's since dropped to about 6%.
wife is 10 years younger than me. I retired 8 months ago and she intends to work for another 3 years or so. Biggest issue has been restricted travel plans. I go to my gym most days even though I have a great home gym which I use for top up. I do have the odd lunch or so with other retired mates and go on trips with my 2 brothers ( straight out of Last of the Summer Wine!!). I keep in touch with my adult sons who both live reasonably close.
But the biggest reconciler is that I am trying to make it as a self published author (historical fantasy) so it means I still spend time at my desk (although constant dictation keeps me on the move). This almost looks like a job so it works well (but is much more fun than a proper job). Signing up to be a film and TV extra as that looks like fun too. Finally I actively manage my investments and that takes time too. This will all help fill out the gap in this “peri-retirement“ before my wife also stops working
You've missed out a couple of really important variables. One of them is caring responsibilities. This can mean one partner retiring quite early to look after perhaps an elderly parent or even two other parents or a disabled child. Another variable is the opportunity for some people in some kinds of jobs to take an early retirement package, which I did at 52, mainly to look after my son who's got a learning disability. This enabled me to draw carers allowance and also to work part-time, which meant that I was actually earning more as a part-time worker and I had been in full-time work. It gave me a lot of flexibility. But as it happens, my partner was actually older than me. She quite enjoyed her job, so she kept on working for an extra five years past the state pensionable age, which she was entitled to do, building up in the meantime a very significant additional benefit. In those days, it was 11% for each year that you carried on working and didn't draw your pension. Unfortunately, that's since dropped to about 6%.