When I was a KTRU DJ in the spring of 1979, I was playing the first album by The Roches and one of my favorite songs was Quitting Time. Even then, I knew I’d be thinking of that song when I retired. Now, 45 years later, it is time.

That song leads my retirement playlist, Rehearsals for Regirement. The name is taken from a Phil Ochs song, but that song is too sad for this occasion. Still worth checking out.

What will I be doing in retirement? The categories in the sidebar here are a good guide—cooking, Scouts, amateur radio, volunteer emergency communication, hiking and backpacking, reading, also going on vacations with Tina, fixing things around the house, doing laundry, etc. And blogging more often.

Probably catch up on some movie watching. I’ve seen the first two films in Yasujirō Ozu’s Noriko trilogy, time for Tokyo Story.

I’m thinking of doing a multi-day backpacking trip each year, maybe the Lost Coast Trail, Ohlone Wilderness Trail, sections of the Tahoe Rim Trail, we’ll see.

A few things I’ve learned while preparing for retirement:

• Do the financial planning. We talked to Fidelity because that was part of Tina’s benefits.
• Leave a job at the beginning of the month because your benefits run to the end of the month. That gives you more runway to get new coverage.
• Back up the personal stuff on your work computers in a way that you can reload it.
• Start volunteering and building a non-work life before you retire.
• Just do it.

If you happen to have a chunk of money in a few appreciated stocks, there is a hack to diversify those without selling them. You buy into an “exchange fund” with other people in the same situation, then don’t touch it for seven years. At the end of that, you get a diversified bucket of all the shares in that fund. Yes, that is a long time, so you might want to get a head start. Most funds have high minimums ($1 million) and high fees (1.5% to 2%). The startup Cache Advisors has a $100k minimum and highest fee is 0.8%. Cache is super-new, their first fund was in April 2024. Still, worth a look and I am not a financial advisor.

For those of you still working, here is some advice from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.