Retirement can seem great until day two. Then what?
"You have to have a backup plan and even a third plan. Because what you find is that after six months, you get bored at one thing," Abe Grungold said.
Thousands of federal employees will retire come the end of the month. Good retirement planning covers your finances, your healthcare, but what about your life and what you’ll do day-to-day? The dream can turn to boredom real fast. With some advice to get your backside in gear, happy and fulfilled federal retiree Abe Grungold of AG Financial Services joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin You have not wanted for things to do, have you, Abe?
Abe Grungold Tom, I am in my third year as a federal retiree and I am just enjoying every minute of it. I’m keeping busy working on my business, playing sports, traveling, doing all the things that you would want to do in a retirement. But you cannot play pickleball or golf seven days a week. You have to have a plan. You have to have a backup plan and even a third plan. Because what you find is that after six months, you get bored at one thing. You try something else, you get bored with something else. And I have a lot of clients, friends and former coworkers. They’re doing one of three things and even a combination of three things and retirement. And those things are working, volunteering, traveling and remodeling their home. And this is really what individuals need to think about before they walk out the door on December 31st.
Tom Temin Well, especially that first thing. I mean, if you want to work, you can always work. But if you’re retired and want to do something fulfilling, I think volunteering really fits the bill, if you find the right organization where you can make a meaningful contribution to something that matters.
Abe Grungold Yeah, certainly. I had friends of mine, coworkers of mine who were managers, and they wanted to do something fun in retirement. They would work at Home Depot or they wanted to do floral displays. And I have a former coworker of mine. I mentioned him before. He has a farm. He has farm animals. He has farming equipment. And this is what his passion is going to be in retirement. And these people do exist, Tom. It’s amazing. And I have another friend who is a federal contractor. I can’t even keep up with what this guy does in a week. He’s in the gym several hours a day, weightlifting. He works with handicapped children, volunteering to help them learn weight lifting and weight lifting programs. He works in a food bank and he conducts religious prayer services for people who are in nursing homes. And I can’t even — I’m exhausted when I listen to his weekly activities. It’s just amazing. There’s never enough hours of the day for this guy.
Tom Temin And none of that brings in income, but it all brings in, I would think, from the way you describe it, fulfillment and a sense of identity.
Abe Grungold Absolutely. There’s an old story that I’ve heard before that there was a retired FBI agent. He’s a school bus driver. And he wanted to make sure that the kids were getting to school safely every day. And I’m sure he’s not doing it for the money, but certainly the intrinsic value of it. And really, this is what retirement is all about. A lot of people always say the same thing. They want to stay busy, but they want to give back. They want to give back to the community somehow, whether it’s volunteering somehow or something else. And I find that I have a lot of friends who are traveling. Now, I have a former boss of mine. He’s traveling to these exotic places with his girlfriend. He’s going to Machu Picchu and traveling in the Chilean mountains.
Tom Temin Well, let me ask you this. What’s his wife doing while he’s going around with a girlfriend?
Abe Grungold Yeah. Yeah, no.
Tom Temin Just kidding.
Abe Grungold He’s divorced. But he has a wonderful girlfriend, and they are traveling to some truly exotic places. Now, I have another friend of mine, a former coworker of mine who just retired, and he’s traveling to soccer games, concerts, not just in the United States. He’s going abroad. And the amazing thing is he’s doing this with friends of his. I don’t understand how he can coordinate such a trip with three or four other people. And he’s able to do this. And it’s just amazing.
Tom Temin We’re speaking with retired federal manager Abe Grunfeld of AG Financial Services. And that idea of travel, I mean, it doesn’t have to be expensive flights to expensive places doing exotic things. I mean, there’s some exotic places in the United States I’ve never been, like the desert in Nevada or North Dakota.
Abe Grungold It’s funny that you say that. I have a friend. He only travels on two trips a year, and wherever he goes, he always stays for an extended period of time. Like he’ll go to the Cape, Cape Cod. He’ll stay for two or three weeks and then he’ll travel, he told me he traveled to Maryland for the Thanksgiving holiday. Or he travels somewhere else. And he only really goes on two trips a year because he’s living on a budget. So he tries to extend these trips where he’s really taking in what the area has to offer, not just the touristic thing.
Tom Temin There’s something in between going to the Ritz and staying in the suite and couch surfing.
Abe Grungold Exactly. Exactly. He goes to these little places and it’s really funny. He’ll go to New Orleans and stay several weeks and he goes to these very interesting places. And sometimes when I follow him on Facebook, I really think he’s living there. And it’s kind of strange, but for him, he enjoys it and I really admire him for doing it. And then the other thing that a lot of people are doing, Tom, is remodeling their home. And I have a former coworker of mine and a client, he is remodeling his home. And this is the second home that he has remodeled. And now he’s talking about buying a vacation home and remodeling that one. And he also does some very exotic traveling. And it’s funny that he has the time to do all of these things. Remodeling a home takes a lot of effort. And he’ll go out on these beautiful, exotic vacations as well. And if he’s not posting a picture from his trip, he’s posting a picture on some remodeling project that he’s work on. But I have another friend that he’s really an interesting story. He’s semi-retired and he’s remodeling his mother’s house from the roof down to the flooring. He is basically doing most of it himself, and he goes in twice a week to his mom’s house and he works on something, a bathroom painting, whatever. And he’s there five or six hours a day. Now, I asked him, why aren’t you hiring someone to do this? He says, absolutely not. He says, I look at it as a form of exercise. I will exercise five to six hours a day remodeling this home. And I get the satisfaction of doing it. And it’s really an interesting story. He has no interest in hurrying the project. If it takes him several years, that’s fine. But in order to do all of these things, Tom, a federal employee has to be living on a budget. They have to have a budget. Your TSP is not going to be an ATM machine. You have to budget everything that you’re doing: eating out with friends, traveling, remodeling your home. You have to have a budget, otherwise you’re going to find yourself depleting your retirement assets.
Tom Temin There’s nothing inherently evil about having a budget as long as you know what you want to do and you budget for it, then nobody spends unlimited. I mean, you don’t have to go out and buy a Rolls-Royce Cullinan to enjoy a retirement.
Abe Grungold It’s funny. I bring up the word budget to my wife and she just stares at me. She says, Really? We’re living on a budget at this stage of our lives? I said, yes, we need to at least project what we’re going to spend for the year and make sure that we have the sufficient assets on hand to do whatever it is that we want to do this year. So you have to have some sort of ongoing budget.
Tom Temin And from the way you describe these people and some of the things you’re doing, you need to make that part of your retirement planning just as surely as you do plan for the finances and the health care and and those aspects.
Abe Grungold Absolutely. When you are thinking about retiring and your last few years of employment, you need to evaluate your FERS annuity. You need to evaluate whether you’re going to be taking Social Security or deferring it. You need to evaluate if you’re going to work full time or part time. Some people need to work. They get some sort of pride and joy in working. Now, whether you’re working full time or part time, that’s up to you. But you need to evaluate where is going to be your stream of retirement income coming from and how much are you going to tap into your TSP? If you’re going to do that.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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