#140 | Maggie’s early retirement “bucket list” plans (part 4 of 5)

March 14, 2022

Episode Summary:

 

In this week’s episode, Maggie shares a glimpse into how she plans to spend her retirement, or as she describes it, what’s on her early retirement bucket list.  She introduces the concept of her Freedom Five and walks through each of her top five focus areas of how she plans to spend her time in early retirement.  The Freedom Five includes slowing down and being more present, focusing on health and fitness, learning new things, helping people and causes she cares about, and incorporating more adventures and travel into her life.  

 

Episode Notes:

 

When Maggie tells people she’s retiring, the most common question she gets is about medical insurance, and the second question is what she’s going to do with her time and if she will get bored. Of course, she will not get bored.  She has a lot of plans and goals!

Why she is using the term bucket list:

  • The formal definition of a “bucket list” is “a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime.”
  • The term bucket list has been around forever, and it often has connotations of things you want to do when you find out you’re dying or crazy big-time adventurous goals you want to get to someday.  
  • Maggie got the idea to use the term “bucket list” around my early retirement plans from Chris and Deb with Go Bucket Yourself.  We had them on the podcast on episode 131 – An unconventional and extraordinary life with Chris and Deb.

 

What’s on Maggie’s bucket list?

 

Maggie has defined her Freedom Five for how she plans to spend her early retirement intentionally:

  1. SLOW down and be present.  Meditate daily.  Single-task.  Finish things.  Be more present when doing things.  Slow down.  Spend more quality time with kids, husband, family, and friends.  Organize and minimize!  Learn how to relax.
  2. HEALTH and fitness.  Eat well, more natural and home-cooked food and less processed food.  Take vitamins.  Workout more often and with more variety, like building strength through push-ups and pull-ups.  Strengthen core to prevent future back issues and other injuries.  Take daily walks. 
  3. LEARN things.  Explore ideas and curiosities.  Build furniture.  Learn to make things vs. buying them (soap, candles, bread, etc.).  Do more DIY projects.  Learn to quilt from mom.  Learn aikido.  Read more books + listen to more podcasts.
  4. HELP people and causes.  This is a mix of everything from helping within her community at her kid’s schools to helping friends and family to helping people halfway around the world.  Friends on FIRE podcast is right at the top of this category!  Make other people’s lives easier.  Volunteer.   
  5. ADVENTURES and travel.  Be more adventurous and experience-driven, large and small.  Spend more time finding great travel deals.  Travel the world, with and without the kids.  Plan family adventures and teach kids the value of experiences and travel.  

 

Maggie also shared a glimpse into her husband Greg’s plans and goals.  His retirement plans are a bit less to-do focused than Maggie’s. Instead, he plans to focus more on building strong habits and intentions.  

 

We close out this episode with Maggie sharing a feelings update now that she’s about 30 working days away from her early retirement.  

 

Top 3 Takeaways:

  1. The concept of a bucket list is fun.  It’s a new take on a “to-do” list of sorts. 
  2. There’s value in spending time thinking about how you want to spend your “early retirement.”  If you can’t think of anything, you might want to rethink your actual plan and approach. 
  3. You can have a bucket list without retiring!  Dream big and small!  Simple things can have a significant impact on your day-to-day happiness.  

 

References:

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