That is an interesting comment and I think you are right.

We semi-retired when wife and I got to 55, We announced to our employees in a meeting that we were going 50% retirement and that the daily stuff was mostly going to be up to them. We already had a farm manager in place as well as an office/accountant person. So there was no drastic change but just doing more of what we had already been doing, traveling and such. I still did some farm work but mostly just fill in during the rush periods and tons of odds and ends like running the dozer cleaning up stuff I never had time before. By the time we reached 60 we considered ourselves 75% retired and I hardly ever set foot in a cab of anything other than the dozer, maybe scraper tractor, backhoe, utility tractors and once in a great while a combine. Odd jobs mostly. Last time I was in a combine combining beans I almost had to relearn how to operate it.

So when we turned 65 and decided our employees could all find a job within a week (they were the reason we kept the business open) and also decided we were keeping operating for the wrong reason and rolled it up. I did not consider myself under any stress. Sure, we had annual operating notes, a few machinery notes and some land still paying for. But things were pretty much on autopilot. WE were no longer a low cost producer because nearly all of our employees had been with us for quite a while and were not cheap to keep on board. But we were not in any in financial stress or anything. Just not the level of return on the amount of investment we had as good as it should have been or would have liked. But I did not feel at any time I was under stress or duress.

We sold about a third to half of our equipment by advertising it. Some of it here on AgTalk. That was enough to pay off any machinery debt left so no machinery debt left. It was fall and half of harvest had already been done so line of credit paid down to a dollar. So no operating debt. Still a little land debt but a guy wanted to buy a couple of farms we had bin storage and a farmstead on he would not leave me alone and we finally made a deal (and I did not really want to have to worry about maintenance, theft and repair of a farmstead twenty five miles from my house - one more potential headache gone). That was enough to take care of any land debt left (although we did keep the low note on one farm so I could continue to be a member of Farm Credit). So we are essentially out of debt pretty suddenly after 40 years of only knowing making payments and being in a significant amount of debt most of the time, including through the 80's.

Then we had the farm auction that next spring and suddenly there was a significant amount of money in the bank (and a big tax bill to match) with essentially no debt. I never felt like I was under stress during the last ten years of operation (we were basically living out our dream - we had made plans to retire at 50 but did not quite make it, LOL). But after the auction and finally done dealing with machinery dispersal and no employees to manage or think about, it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I would never have believed it because I didn't feel like I was stressed any time in the last ten years of operation, but something changed when it was all behind me. 

This long explanation is to agree with you that I have less stress. I did not feel it at the time but I must have had it because I felt it lifted when we finally got it wrapped up.

I also thrived on "the game". Nothing else I wanted to do since 5th grade. Couldn't wait to get out of high school (no way college for me) and start farming on my own. But I guess after 50+ years of it I had done it enough to satisfy me. I've had no regrets farming 50 years and I've had no regrets retiring. In fact we have been having a lot of fun since 55 when we semi-retired and continue to today.

To me there is one major key to retirement. That is having something a person can be engaged in and enjoys. What used to excite me about planting or harvesting corn no longer did. Riding a motorcycle across country or scuba diving still did. So where we semi-retired ten years before actual full retirement it was just a natural transition for me of doing more of what I was interested and less or none of what I had become less interested in.

I think for retirement if a person just cuts it off one day with no plans of what they are going to do with themselves in the future other than rock in a rocking chair it would be a disaster. For some guys farming at 90 IS their retirement. They are doing what they love. More power to them. The whole keys to retirement, in my opinion, are doing what a person wants and enjoys doing and being financially able to continue to do it without a financial anvil hanging over their head. That is retirement. We all have to be engaged ("work" so to speak) in retirement or we just waste away in a rocking chair. The only difference is some of us enjoy different "work" in retirement than others.

I "work" every day in retirement. I checked the catfish trap in our pond this morning and in about a half hour it will be my job to pick one of those motorcycles out of the shed, ride about 20 miles to a local diner and have my "birdy burger" for lunch (no bun of course - low carb!). And maybe take a long way journey back home. Sometimes it takes me another hundred miles just to get back home! LOL. I enjoy my "work". 

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