Getting used to it, Midlife
Getting Used to It, Midlife is a show hosted by two executive life coaches, Beth & Suzee, who are also expert friends and are both getting used to midlife. From empty nesting and aging parents to painful sex, and let’s not forget the extra lubrication, we will sift through all of it, speaking our truth faithfully and vulnerably. Listen as we live through this in ourselves and our relationships in real time and tease through the “how to” of this next phase of life. As coaches, we have the tools, but as women in the middle, we may not have all the answers. Scratch that— we’ll have some damn good ideas, too. Join us, and let’s get used to it together!
Getting used to it, Midlife
Getting Used To It: Retirement Reinvented. How We're Dreaming, Scheming And Making Plans For The Future
Whether retirement feels distant or imminent for you, this episode offers a fresh perspective on crafting a post-work life filled with purpose, community, and joy. We explore the delicate balance between monk-like serenity and rock star adventures while acknowledging that proximity to family, weather preferences, and financial realities all shape our options. Join us as we reimagine retirement not as an ending but as an exciting new beginning designed around your unique passions and values.
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Stay connected, stay curious, and we’ll see you next time!
Hi Susie.
Speaker 1:Hey Beth, what you doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking what am I doing?
Speaker 2:It's hot today. It's going to be in the 80s here in Los Angeles. I'm not ready people, I just want to tell the sun you're beautiful and I'd like you to just you know, blow some cooler breezes my way as you illuminate my life.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I'm not going to feel too sorry for you because you know I'm in South Florida, so I don't think you know what hot is. I'm just going to say I probably don't, and yet this is too much.
Speaker 2:I know, I know Well, we certainly have the dry weather here, and you guys don't, do you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's gets pretty humid out here but you know what you guys have been getting kind of humid too and um hot as well, um and so sometimes it's not fun visiting.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to say yeah, no, I hear you, I hear you, yeah. It can be on occasion like that.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to use this actually to segue to our topic for today.
Speaker 2:Especially because you talked about being elsewhere, and I think that dovetails nicely into what we're about to discuss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's a topic all y'all Retirement. What is that that? I don't know what you're going to do. Where are you going to go?
Speaker 2:yeah, so obviously this is a topic on our minds right and we're at that time of life where we need to really think about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So previous to hopping on here and recording, susie was telling me that she and her spouse have like a little bit of a nutshell plan in place, whereas my spouse and I have barely discussed winging it fun, but Susie's teaching me and I've got some good tools to go back and have a conversation and some ideas that, of course, I'm going to bring to our listeners today.
Speaker 2:But let's just start with you. Yeah, and kind of well, maybe we could back up for a minute. What do you think retirement means today to people you know? Su Susie's in her 50s, I'm in my early 60s. What does retirement mean? What are sort of misconceptions about what it is? I'm sure that both of us have had clients that were kind of finding their way there and we've had parents that your parents are retired in their eighties.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah. So let's back up and talk about what retirement means to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think also it's like what we thought retirement would be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right and then versus, like what it could be exactly golf, golf all I see is golf yeah golf in florida.
Speaker 2:Yep and polos and polos. Yes, exactly lunching we will need to eat during this retirement phase, so lunching is gonna be a solid that big part of it, maybe breakfast yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what, honestly, retiring sounded really awful before. It sounded like just that's all you did. Yeah, and sometimes I looked forward to that because I think when the kids were younger, I just wanted to sit. Yeah, get off this merry-go-round. Yeah, yeah, yeah, get off this merry-go-round, because my parents are in their 80s and retired. My mom says this all the time. She's like keep working, susie, you will be bored. Keep working, don't ever retire.
Speaker 2:So there's that piece of advice that's really interesting and I feel bored right now, so I get it.
Speaker 1:I get what your mom is saying, yeah yeah, so I think I'm going to heed that advice. Now I don't feel like I'm going to work 24 seven, but definitely what I thought retirement was going to be. I don't want that and I definitely that. That sounded to yeah, like I said, boring and kind of scary Like you just then shrivel away into nothing. It had its own finality. It had its own finality, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, neither of my parents actually made it to retirement because they both died early enough in their life. My mom was 52 and my dad was 66 and neither one of them were were retiring. Um, yeah, so I'm just thinking like I guess my grandparents were maybe retired and I was fortunate enough to grow up with them and actually seeing them retired as a smaller child, as someone's like eight, 10, 14, was kind of amazing, because while my parents, my young parents, were out working, my grandparents had the time to be with my brother and I, so that was kind of amazing and beautiful. So I suppose, if there's grandkids around, retirement could look one way. You know, if you're planning on having that kind of relationship with your grandchildren and you're fortunate to have that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think for me, when I think about retirement, I think I'm not golf. That's not me. My husband likes golf, but you know, he told me long ago I did not have the what was the word he used. I'm going to out him here but he said I wasn't. I don't think it was graceful, but it was something he said.
Speaker 1:I've seen you move honey, and I don't think golf was graceful, but it was something he said.
Speaker 2:I've seen you move honey, and I don't think can't see your husband golfing for some reason. But you know what? Oh yeah, he comes from like a like a whole family of golf people. Yeah, you know, like his nephew was like a pro at a golf course and was like an assistant teacher, coach, you know, for a university and people were on golf teams and Etc. Yeah, big golfing people, his dad, his dad's twin. Okay, then comes me um, but he kind of did me a solid by letting me off the hook of like having to try to race to become a golfer.
Speaker 2:You know, when I when he's right, it just it wasn't going to be my thing. I acknowledge that Perfect. But I mean, when I think about retirement right now, I think, like I one, I can't imagine not working on some level. Do I want to be in a grind?
Speaker 2:Maybe not, but the I mean especially as coaches, like being able to contribute to people's lives feels really is incredibly rewarding, right and being able to be of service in that way. So it's hard for me to imagine just, you know, hanging up my work clothes I laugh and just sitting around. It feels like because, like when I'm not sure if I even have a hobby yet I need a hobby.
Speaker 1:I need a segue to something. Yeah, totally Exactly. I love the idea of travel which you guys are really into. We are really into that and we both have our hobbies, so I think that's what's helping us design this piece of our lives. We want to make sure that these hobbies are somehow incorporated into our future, which is, you know, my husband is a cyclist.
Speaker 1:I love to hike and run, so we just want to make sure that, because cycling is awful in South Florida just because it's hot that hot flat, all that running a same thing yeah you can't really hike here, unless you just want to hike a bridge, because it's flat people, it's very flat there. Yeah, no topo, um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we're just trying to make sure we have that in our future so when you guys tell us a little bit about because because, like I said, susie's one step ahead of me or maybe five the idea that you guys have been, you know, over the last couple of years, yeah, auditioning, demoing out different places to see if they have what you're looking for, like, how did you guys get into doing that? Like, how did you come up with your list of have to haves and how do you assess a place? Because you're, you guys are talking about having like a, you know, maybe not a second home situation, but being able to go someplace for a period of time and come back, to go someplace for a period of time and come back to Florida when it's not so menacingly hot.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. Well, you know. So we actually first started with just how like I think we got financially scared right.
Speaker 2:Can we.
Speaker 1:Are we going to be okay? We're tired. Like do we need to keep working? Like we just wanted to make sure financially. Like what do we need to do? What is our number? Do we have a number? And we, so we had to get really clear about that. And what does that even mean? Like, what we do, we need to afford Um. So we did a bunch of homework around like how much, what is our lifestyle like right now? And then, from bare minimum to the extravagant, like what, what, what our number be? So we figured that one out and then um, and started saving towards that.
Speaker 1:And then, after we did that, then we started to think, well, where would we want to go? So, because my family is in California and at the time most of his family was in North Carolina, we were trying to figure out, like, is it somewhere in between? Is it one of those places so we could be close to family? And you know, unfortunately Philip has lost both of his parents as well, so now it's just West Coast. But it just made us think, well, where do we just want to be? Like that, Just us. You know that's when we started thinking like, well, what do we need to have? What are we thinking we need to have? And he just loves cycling so much, and I love hiking and I don't love running, but for some reason I keep doing it. I don't know, it's weird.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking about your joints. Let's not pick a place for running. I mean, we haven't factored in joint and joint deterioration.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So again, love hiking, got into it a couple of years ago and I want to keep doing it, so that's been our focus. Like, where do you love to hike, where do you love to bike and where are the places you could do those two things together? Typically they kind of go hand in hand a lot of times.
Speaker 1:So we decided, up until my husband thinks about seven years, seven to 10 years he wants to retire fully and since I'm work from home sort of person and making sure I, you know, clear the nugget as well and contribute and all that, and so like we both think about, seven years is about that time. So within the next five years we want to whittle, whittle it down, like to where we want to be. Okay.
Speaker 2:So what's your process? Yeah, oh yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna travel, so we decide we name you know North Carolina has some of those places. You know North Carolina has some of those places. Yeah, bend, oregon has some of those places. If you know, we do have the money to go to Spain, maybe is one of those places. Or like Italy or something like that, right, so that's, if we do like a maybe a second home sort of situation again we got to get to work but to save the money to do so.
Speaker 1:But that's basically what was your question. But basically that's how we're doing it, like so, okay, here are the places, right, and then here's what we're saving and within those next five years, as we whittle it down, if it happens to be somewhere that's a little bit more than we know we need to kind of push it. It push the gas a little bit more to make more money to do that. And if not, then we're okay at this speed of where we're making money. So we're we're just kind of seeing and whittling down more and more and what we're doing is visiting those places, hiking, biking in those places, seeing what the towns are like. We know we want to live in a bigger town as opposed to like somewhere like off remote into the woods. We've narrowed that part down somewhere that's cooler. Anywhere is cooler than Florida in the summer.
Speaker 1:But so true you know, cooler so that we can enjoy that weather, because we do want to keep this house here as well for the winters, and right now that's what feels right, as well for the winters, and right now that's what feels right. And, like I was telling Beth earlier, you know when the kids, if they start having kids, is that going to dictate a little bit of where we want to be, we will adjust and we'll see, but up until then, this is how we're doing it.
Speaker 2:Got it, and where will your next place be? Do you think Cause, like let's, just last year you guys went to bend and before that you went to north carolina?
Speaker 1:we're gonna. We were going to actually stay a month in north carolina last, or I was going to say because I work from home so I could just stay there and he can back and forth. Um, but then the hurricanes happened so we couldn't do that and that's why we actually ended up in Oregon.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, yeah, so love Bend, oregon, and Phillip's doing another race there again in June. So we'll be back there just to double check and see how much that's great, great, yeah. And then we're also going to do the month again in September. We'll try it again in September, so In North Carolina, in North Carolina, and see if that's still in the running.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was talking to my spouse the other day a little bit about this and I said you know where what's your? He's from Wisconsin. What's your retirement dream? Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he said well, you know someplace where we have friends or family would be high on the list. You know it would be hard to go someplace where we don't know anybody, and of course that makes so much sense. And so then I said so you're saying Wisconsin because I don't have any family in Los Angeles Right.
Speaker 2:And we're kind of here for me, because I did, and this is my home, and when we got together I, you know I had a you know brick and mortar kind of job, so you know we stayed for that. It was a good location for him as well. And you know we've grown our family here and friends and what have you. So yeah, I mean, and often I hear him say you know, someplace where the state income tax isn't so high, that's high on his list too.
Speaker 2:But, clearly we need to do, you know, more thinking on the subject. Plus our daughter's, you know, just a freshman, and it'll be, you know, several years until she's finished. So I'm kind of committed to keeping our house. Yep, you know for her, for just, you know, because she's not quite out of it, you know, and I want her to be able to come back to it and I think, like you know, it'd be great if he and I could like go someplace for a month. And then I think about the pets, how am I going to take the three.
Speaker 2:I have three pets. I have two dogs and a cat yeah but what am I doing with them for a month? I mean, yeah, you know, to go really try another city or what have you. I mean, how do I do that?
Speaker 1:you know it's not impossible, but it's not as easy as you know, with three pumps driving to palm springs, which is two hours away, which is not on my list everybody I was gonna say is two hours away, which? Is not on my list. Everybody, I was gonna say is it on your?
Speaker 2:list no, not on my list and I am I even hard pressed to have a list at this point. To be honest, like when I was younger, very much I was like seattle, portland. I like the west coast. You know I've already lived in extreme weather. I don't think I want to have super extreme weather and I definitely don't want humid summer. So that's on my list, you know. And again, where where our kid ends up is going to dictate and we'll have to be flexible because, as I'm fond of saying, I did not have this child to spend her adult life away from me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, you want to be around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly you want to be around and I just can't imagine just sitting like I'm just not a sitter.
Speaker 1:you know, and that would be my preconception, and possibly a misconception about retirement is that Philip's dad kind of go through this phase and you know, not that we can control all of this, but that's actually why I'm really like working on my strength training and doing being outside and really kind of making that my focus, not not just because of staying healthy or whatever and because I love it, but they really did stop moving. Yeah, I think that was what actually have them not so happy in retirement.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Also, they started to then start losing some of that muscle and mobility and it's not as fun some of that muscle and mobility and it's not as fun, I don't think, as it could be if they did work on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I understand that. I think I was reading something over the weekend that says I think it was Dr Stacey Sims like women are starting to lose muscle mass even way before perimenopause or like right as that's on setting.
Speaker 2:You know, I agree, staying like I can't. I think when I got to the point in my early 40s where I realized moving which I had been doing, moving my body actually helped my brain and my mind so much I realized I can't, I'm not going to have a future without it. Like it's important to me to be able to do all the things and not actually have a hard time sitting on the floor, like that's actually a thing to me. And so I, too, work on my strength training and you know, for today and for the future, Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's like, yeah, part of part of my formula yeah, part of me, while we're talking about this, is thinking like I could, you know, start a little coffee shop somewhere? That would be fun, and in my mind I'm like, oh, and we could like have a little theater night, like maybe it's a coffee shop that has like a stage, oh no.
Speaker 1:And then just keep growing.
Speaker 2:I'm just like that could be kind of a fun thing to do. People could bring their. You know, like I'm just dreaming here, I am dreaming.
Speaker 1:Dreaming Well you know, so this kind of would actually be a fun exercise of like what, how do you see your future self? Right? Like, are you living like a monk or like a rock star yourself? Right, like, are you living like a monk or like a rock star? Right? Or, you know, are you in a mountain or you-?
Speaker 2:I can see both monk and rock star. I'm a monk rock star. The next tattoo Is that not a thing? That's the next tattoo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But then just see, like, what would you know as of today, what do you think future you would be like, even down to, like what are you wearing? You know like, how do you think you'd want to like?
Speaker 2:what are you wearing? What?
Speaker 1:are you presenting? How are you, yeah, going about your day? Are you like walking into town getting little, you know, groceries, or are you like farming?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no for farming. For me, nope, no farming. I like the walking into town. Yeah, learning and culture yes, around me like I need that and community like I need totally like community happening that I could also happen into. That is so key for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And that's why I think Philip and I, my husband and I, like landed on like a town. We don't want anything. We used to actually want to like go back to San Francisco and like be in a bigger city, but you know, I don't. I don't know if it's me.
Speaker 2:Did you let you guys live there?
Speaker 1:He lived there for about 10 years and I lived there for about a year with him and then we were so for a while. Yeah, we're go back to New York, go back to, but I don't think we want that anymore. We just want it to be a little bit more quiet, but we still be able to walk to the town grab a cup of coffee go to the bookstore run into a friend. You know that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But then live far enough away where you're like leave me alone. I want to be introverted. A little of everything, I'd like a little of everything. I want it all. Yeah, I know I find myself like, so tell us a little bit about the hobbies that you've been exploring, aside from hiking in your cause. I know you can't really hike in your flat Florida.
Speaker 1:I mean, I try though flat Florida.
Speaker 2:I mean I try them.
Speaker 1:Um, I actually I really do try Um. So the other hobbies I do.
Speaker 2:I guess it's, it's language learning a hobby, because that's part of I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, is learning a hobby? That's, you know, acquiring a new skill. Is that a hobby? So, oh yeah, tell us what you're learning. Let's, let's go with it Cause I feel like I feel like perhaps for us you know, it isn't golf and knitting, although it can be those things too but maybe our view of retirement.
Speaker 2:I know, perhaps our view of retirement um Mahjong, um is maybe like a little bit more a sandwich of a few things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a crochet definitely is one of them. When you said knitting, I'm like hey me. So crochet knitting different, but crochet In the yarn arts.
Speaker 2:I think is what you're trying to tell us In the yarn arts and, you know, trying to tell us. I'm in the yarn arts and, you know, fiber person I'm definitely a fiber person, both edible fiber I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1:Edible fiber, oh that kind. Oh shit, now I know what you mean, yeah yeah, yeah. Got it, got it. I was like wait, wait a minute. Susie's eating yarn. No, she's getting high on fiber.
Speaker 2:I'm not understanding. I was wondering if this was some new edible.
Speaker 1:I figured you thought that no, but definitely, like we love wine, we love food. I mean, that's very much one of our hobbies and like reading, like you said, I really do want to learn how to like do ceramics as well. I'm like I can't gesture ceramic, yeah, so yeah, I do want to live in a town where that they offer these sorts of things, where I can go to classes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so again, that's a part of the design so that's on the list too is finding a place, because you can't find that everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Asheville, Was that one of the for?
Speaker 1:whatever reason, brevard was one of the towns, so it was very close to Asheville it feels like they do that kind of stuff. They do that kind of stuff. They do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:They do that kind of stuff. They do that kind of fiber Fiber work, and not just the kind for your gut, exactly.
Speaker 1:They do that yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's part of it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and I think you should have all that in mind and stuff, like I think what you said, weather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, do you want to be in? All that Weather's on my list.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, do you want to be in? All that Weather's on my list? Yeah, usually weather is on people's list and some people want to be by, some people want to be here where it's super humid. They love it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Although if my daughter wants to live on the East Coast, great, going to suffer through the weather. Some of what I think just to step in for a second, like where I find my and we've talked about this before like I starting something, you know, like community, but like I've talked about starting a book group and just I know I told everybody I was going to start one and I brought it to a community organization I'm a part of and it didn't quite. They kind of had that kind of programming going on. So now I need to go out to people and bring it there.
Speaker 2:But another thing that I think about is or two things like you know, my former career was in music and I I had a radio show, uh, for four or five years and I thought I could do that. I could do a radio show. Now I could do an internet radio show. I mean, we have the podcast, but it's music, right, it would be music and that would be super fun and good for my brain, right, because I'd have to find stuff and talk about stuff. But another thing that I thought about is that there's a club here in Los Angeles called the Record Club and they do this in New York also, where they you go to. It's held at a bar or space and you know, you pay an entrance and once a month they play a record of their choosing. They, they curate the year and you sit there in quiet, no phones, no talking, and you're listening to music, using it's in a different sensory way.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I love that. So are you saying you're going to build something like this and do this in retirement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think, like you know something like that at my coffee shop everybody we could have a night where we did that I lo.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're gonna open up a coffee shop in retirement so now we just have to find where, yeah, yeah that's going to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that those are some of the things that I think of when I think of, I guess, hobbies, you know. Yeah, I'd like to get back to the fiber arts. I've never learned how to crochet. I could knit, but I don't know. I just got.
Speaker 1:I only you know, I only got so far so I think you're not too far off from like even what I'm saying. You just have to find like what maybe weather or topography suits you, right, but because it sounds like you want to have these sorts of places available to you where you can try all these things and do there's some creativity around you and a community where you can share all this, these activities, with people that you that are like-minded, yeah, and then it sounds like you have some homework to do with hubby and just kind of financially, just see, and that's, I think, for all of us, right. Like so what is our number? What's going to carry us? Like if we paid this nugget every month, like this is where we'll be comfortable living at this amount, dollar amount, and can we? Is that feasible? Can we save that within?
Speaker 1:yeah, here until then yeah, and then you know if you're gonna continue working while paying for college while paying for college, so fun, um, and then I think it's start to play with future. You right like and start to whittle things down. Like I was saying, are you a monk or a rock star or a monkey rock star, rock starry monk living in the mountains or by the ocean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always thought I was a mountain person, I don't know. Yeah, it's a lot to chew on, but good timing for me this week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm working on my living trust, so this is perfect timing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, yeah, okay. So at the end of every podcast we always say we're coming back to tell you guys how we're doing and that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again we're going to let you know. We'll let you know next time what I came up with. We'll do some preliminary sketching. It's going to take a few days for my partner, to you know, get over his jet lag, yes, and then we'll talk, and then you'll talk, and I'll come back with the news, with the tea, as they say, oh gosh, beth T, I know so hipster-y of me.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to get off now before she keeps going. Okay, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next time. Yeah, bye.
Speaker 2:See ya. Bye Susie, bye Beth.