I was lucky to have worked for a company that paid for my health insurance until Medicare kicked in, so that was not a problem. I retired early, so my only income was from my pension. However, we had a very nice bonus deal from the company that provided a very nice nest egg. My wife and I both converted all of our 401K and other investments to IRA's.
Initially, we learned to live on the pension alone and didn't rely on anything else. When we both became eligible for SS, we elected to take the benefits starting at age 62. My pension and our SS benefits allows us to live very comfortably. I will admit, though, that for the past few years, we have augmented our income by using some of what our IRA's produce.
This is where is gets dicey; our investment adviser told us to start spending money. I told him we are doing very well and didn't really want to just start blowing it. With the economy and government being what it is, one can never know what is around the corner, so my theory is that as long as we're doing well, why not let it ride. My wife is a little more into making "investments"; she's into gold (rings, bracelets, watches necklaces) and diamonds and all sorts of, other crap. I think she's trying to catch up with my gun collection. Who knows, maybe all of the stuff we've collected will be worth more than money the way things are going these days.
The really important thing is to take it a day at a time, stay as healthy as possible and enjoy it while you can. Retiring early was the best thing I've ever done and the truth is that I cannot believe I ever had the time to work. There is just so much to do besides work.
