Retired people, in retrospect, what advice do you wish you could have been given (long) before you stopped working?

I can't think of any other than to save up some money before you do. Not a worry for me as I sold my shop and retired and have never been happier.

Start saving as early and as often as you can. Do you really need a new car every few years? No. I bought a new car over 18 years ago. I ordered it so it was exactly what I wanted. Then I maintained it. I also paid more on the car payments when I could. I paid it off early and haven't had a car payment in over 15 years. I took that money and put some aside for car maintenance and banked the rest. We did the same with my husband's SUV. He has had it for 15 years and we paid it off in two. We lived in a smaller house than what we could afford and banked that money. We don't carry credit card balances if we can avoid it. (Emergency vet bill in the thousands would be one that got carried.) Basically lived below our means and banked the money. We retired in our mid-50s, and life is good. We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. And we are buying a RV this year so we can travel and enjoy ourselves why we are still young enough and able enough to do so.

Don't use credit cards or line of credit. Save your money until you can afford to buy what you want. And put away some money in a separate account each month for emergencies. (roof starts leaking etc.)  Save money for retirement. Use a budget.

To answer your question...No regrets. Had I done so my teaching pension would have been substancialy lower as would my sick day buy-out. I couldn't "retire" from the Nay with less than 20 years.

That it's not all about money. Develop interests and relationships outside of the workplace so you'll have plenty to do. 

I lucked out.  You can't give someone advice that will help them prepare for that.  We both had government jobs and pensions.  When the recession hit, we were not affected.  Generation X could be on the cusp of an economic boom and it would be best to invest in or go into business.  Be true to yourself an follow your dream, that's the best advice I can think of. This post was edited by CallMeIshmael at December 13, 2016 6:43 PM MST

It would have been nice if somebody had told me, back in 1952 when I started training, that Morse code would be filtered out in Australia by 1959. Then I might have gone into a more lucrative field than telecommunications.

Can't think of any other advice I'd have needed.