A little late for my 2021 recap/2022 look-ahead, and ill-prepared, but here goes ...
Of course the main highlight of 2021 was separating from my long-time employer as a retiree at the end of July. Financially I've basically been treading water. The first couple months were pretty spendy but things have stabilized and I averaged spending about $1,000/mo below my net monthly annuity income during Q4 '21. That's a little misleading because I'm not bearing the cost to maintain a home on my own like I will be at some point in the not too distant future. I should still be able to slip in under my net income, but with less margin than I'd hoped for, but at the same time there are some financial inefficiencies I can address to eek out a little extra breathing room.
For those who like metrics, my 2021 withdrawal rate was 0%. After retiring and stopping contributions, the stash grew by about 1.8% nominal (probably around 0% real). Based on Q4, my spending would extrapolate to a 2.3% withdrawal rate if I were pulling from the stash to fund it.
However (and it's not easy to say this because it sounds a bit asshole-ish), money and financial metrics aren't really all that important right now in terms of being subjects worth putting my energy into stewing about. All the evidence suggests I've put a check in that box and money just isn't an issue. I thought my mathy engineer brain would cling onto the bookkeeping and analysis out of habit/instinct, but for now that's not the case. All the digital music creation stuff I've been delving in seem to scratch that itch, which isn't much of an itch--guess my "left brain" is happy cede the heavy lifting to "right brain". I still haven't put together a modified iDaveSim III spreadsheet to track my financial situation post-retirement. I'll probably do that at some point. But it's not feeling very urgent.
Although it's been a relatively mild winter here so far it's been some days since it got above freeing (I think it's about -5F as I type this) so for now life is centered indoors, although one of my plans is to see if there's enough ice on a small local lake to get out and do some ice fishing, something I haven't done in over 40 years. I'm in the market for a high quality winter coat (one suitable for spending significant hours out in the cold and wind). If anyone has recommendations I'm all ears. I've got the get around town/shovel the driveway niche covered, this would be more to cover the rugged (
) outdoorsman/emergency survival niche.
Anyway, got off track there. So its indoor season and aside from day-to-day tedium and chores, about all I'm motivated to do is pick up the guitar. I'm even on the hunt for a local instructor who can maybe help and old fart like me with decades of bad habits burned in to get on the path to playing the thing right. At this time of year I tend to get guitar-focused. Maybe because I do my annual project to coincide with the holidays, then 3-4 people listen to it and say encouraging things, hahaha. Regardless, I'm deeply curious what a year of intense focus and study might do without a job to drain away a lot of my energy.
Otherwise, it will soon be time to start thinking about what will likely be an eventful and expensive season at the cabin. I've got a local guy lined up to jack up the structure and redo all the piers and footings to hopefully cut down on problems due to "frost heaving", then as soon as that's done I've got another guy lined up to put on a new roof. After giving it a lot of thought I've opted to go with a metal roof hoping it won't need any significant work/replacement in my lifetime.
I think when I look back in ten years or whatever the highlight of this time will be taking advantage of the opportunity to do boring retired salaryman stuff with my dad. I'm seeing a lot less of my siblings than I anticipated, mainly because of the vaccinated/unvaccinated family bifurcation. Happens I am staying with arguably the most vulnerable member of the family so I feel like I need to be extra careful. I haven't even made it by my old grade school chum's bar for a tequila since I got back!
I'm starting to ramble so I'll shut it down for this entry. Best to all!