Retire by Degrees

Many people dream about their retirement day.  During especially challenging weeks at work they may even start counting down the years, or months, or even the days. Others either don’t have a specific timeframe in mind, or can’t understand why someone would want to ‘check out’ and be idle when they have a vibrant career…

My alma mater, Saint John’s University, in Collegeville, MN was home to the winningest coach in college football history, John Gagliardi.  He retired at age 86 with a total of 489 wins over a career that lasted six decades.  The award for the outstanding football player in NCAA Division 3 – the equivalent of the…

When you enter the ranks of the retired – or even semi-retired – you’ll be starting a new phase of life as a beginner.  Just like your time in high school and perhaps college your journey begins as a freshman (or ‘first year’ as they say now). Things during those first 12 months were mostly…

To mix it up a bit, today I posted my thoughts as a LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/phased-retirement-always-student-dan-mcdermott/?trackingId=7S1YWGN79awqH5dLBaut0A%3D%3D

Recently I wrote about anticipating retirement (link) and the joy that the mere expectation can bring.  It conjures up happy emotions similar to the time you might spend planning for a vacation.  Spending time visualizing what you’ll be doing, planning out trips you may take or hobbies to pursue. But as I was reflecting on…

This classic 1979 ketchup commercial lauded the anticipation of waiting for a good thing – especially made memorable by leveraging Carly Simon’s catchy hit song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLoyg3JKRQ The excitement of anticipation before a big event can really boost your mood. For example, the early stages of vacation planning and the anticipation of your trip have been…

Today’s post (link below) appeared in the Humble Dollar blog on August 4th, 2022: https://humbledollar.com/2022/08/ask-around/