This episode is from the vault and was first released September 10, 2018 Randy Gardner's Retirement Experience In today’s episode, we have Randy Gardner, who is going to tell us about his great retirement experience. Randy just recently retired. In fact, as of our recording, he had only been retired 1 week. Randy serves as an inspiration for the many listeners of my show who want to retire early or planning to retire but may have some reservations. Incidentally, Randy is also a big fan of the Rock Your Retirement Show and started to follow it a few years back. He had to travel for three hours between cities and grew the habit of listening to podcasts. That’s exactly when he discovered my show and started listening to it! Soon, he got the idea to retire himself but wasn’t sure of his financial situation. He also had his wife to convince who was an artist but also adept when it came to finances. How a financial advisor can help you decide if you are ready for great retirement Randy sat with his financial advisor and went through his financial position. He tried to evaluate how his retirement may turn out if he chose to quit his technical job. Interestingly, both of them realized that he would be doing quite well even if he chose to retire right now! They worked on the finances and his income, including Social Security, to get a detailed picture of his financial scenario into the great retirement years. Randy got his wife to sit down with his financial advisor, who made the picture clear to his wife and answered all her questions. Getting the confidence he needed, Randy decided to give up his job and spend a life of retirement. Randy is a Rock your Retirement listener! I know that many of you are worried about being bored in retirement. Randy was also plagued by the same thought. He wondered how he could fill up his week, which was earlier spent working for over 40 hours. Let's take a look at Randy's great retirement experience. Randy had already started listening to my show and started taking cues and notes from the stories people had to contribute. He started to develop a list of things to do in his retirement life, which will keep him busy. To his surprise, both Randy and his wife had quite a few things which they had put off for various reasons. Here are some things Randy wants to do to have a great retirement experience For starters, Randy wants to play a lot of golf that he enjoys to the fullest! He is also thinking about continuing his interest in music and maybe start learning piano which he had given up at the age of 12. Both Randy and his wife also want to travel a lot! They would like to go on some train trips and cruises that they've always had their eyes on. Randy even wants to learn a foreign language and makes notes of things he wants to do in his iPad or iPhone all the time. Another impetus to retire was to spend more time with their daughter and son-in-law. Being retired, they were now free to move to Austin, where their daughter lived. They also bought a house in the city that is located only a short distance away from their daughter’s home. Randy is also free to spend time with his mother, who is single and over 90 years old. Retiring has also brought other pleasures that he could not enjoy during his working life. He can go to bed late and wake up late. Although by his standards 6 am is as late as it could be! Randy loves to watch the sunrise with a cup of coffee. He believes it is the best time to spend with family. He can begin the day with his daughter, son-in-law, and wife and talk about all the day has to offer. Advice from Randy based on his great retirement experience: Randy believes that we all should have a routine and purpose to get up the next day. It doesn’t have to be something extraordinary but simple things like going to the gym or taking a walk ...