About Us
Creating Joy in Retirement
Like many of you, we dreamed of retirement, but were uncertain of the exact conditions necessary to actually take the leap of faith to non-salaried living. I frequently updated our spreadsheets with portfolio growth projections to help us determine when we would have “enough.” Some days I’d project how much it would grow if we worked ten more years and other days I’d wonder how little we could live on if we only worked 10 more months. I looked up cost-of-living calculators to see where we could live much more cheaply than our current home in Los Angeles. We considered a few different ex-pat options before we realized Florida could be as inexpensive as living abroad. After consulting with our financial advisor, we became occupation-free at age 56 and headed across the country to our new retirement community.
Transitioning to retirement is invariably complex. It brings a mix of emotions, new activities and potential worries, possibly a new home and community, and, most likely, a total change from the life you were living when you went to work each day.
Some retirees struggle with how to fill the time, how to find meaning, or getting mired down in the same ‘busy-ness’ that characterized working life. We were determined to avoid becoming overcommitted and overextended in any way. That meant taking things slowly, declining regularly occurring commitments (e.g. regular golf groups, volunteer positions, part-time work), and spending time observing before deciding on commitments. With this approach, we gave ourselves time to decide how we really wanted to spend time in these early retirement years. This freedom from commitment gave us the mental space to realize that we could make our purpose, our daily life all about something that we are both passionate about...traveling through Europe!
The purpose of this site is to share the adventures that we are creating and, hopefully, help you imagine what you might create to bring you joy in your retirement.
Be well,
Brian and Linda Garavalia
