You don't know how good it makes me feel that I am the only retired person doing anything! lol!
I find many people have problems saying anything about themselves. Personally, I don't give a $hit.
I am what I am and people will think what they want to think.
Dr. Suess had it right: "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
As far as retirement, any financial planner looking at what the wife and I have, would say that there is no way I could retire. Ha ha. I've been hearing "you can't do that" all my life. You just have to have a plan. Something most people are loath to do. At least for something like retirement, which they see as a long way off, until it is upon them.
Now, their weeks vacation they can find plenty of time to plan for.
As far as those financial planners I would have to quote the good Dr. again:
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
I like the simple life. Gardening, playing with my dogs, mowing the grass. Six acres, enough to keep me busy sometimes.
Strangely, since opposites are supposed to attract, the wife likes things simple too. There is nothing she would rather do than bake. Cookies, cakes, brownies, pies, you name it. Loves planting flowers and keeping up with and trying new perennials. Taking older relatives out to lunch is another favorite thing for her.
We have no debt and last year spent less that a first year teachers salary here in Pa. Financial planners would probably tell me that nobody can possibly live on that. Her pension when she retires in a year and a half will be over 66% of what we spent last year. We will have a CD coming due each year from when she retires until we are 62 1/2 and eligible for social security. Each CD will make up roughly 55% of what we spent last year. So without touching any stocks or my IRA we will have 121% of what we spent last year coming in. I figure that by the time she retires we will have enough cash, currently in a checking account, to pay for our insurance for the first four years. By that time I am 59 1/2 and can use dividends from my IRA to pay insurance from there on out.
So I see us getting to social security time without spending any principle from IRAs or taxable accounts. If I am wrong I always have the dividends from our taxable account and if that isn't enough I can always sell a stock or two. At the current rates, with the wifes pension and what we would get from SS, we would have 50% more coming in at 62 1/2 than we spent last year.
Ah, the Dr. was smart:
"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go."
Well, since I can tell you are getting bored, let me tell you about how I love Cocaine.
Cocaine is the best thing that ever happened to me. I once laid a line on the kitchen table right in front of my wife. When she commented that she should just blow it off the table, I replied that if she did I would kill her. ( in case you didn't know, my wife is a saint ) I like the rush, I like the taste in my mouth and when it drains from the sinuses down my throat.
When I was young I hated drugs and the people who used them. What asses. I would just drink my beer. And drink my beer. And drink my beer, until they wanted to close the place and I had to go home. I didn't have to drink every day, although working construction and beer drinking seem to go hand in hand. Problem was that when I had one, I wanted them all. Some weeks I didn't make dinner five nights in a row. Always made it to work the next day though.
Four accidents, including one on a motorcycle requiring stitches in my chin couldn't convince me I had a problem.
Anyway, coming home from two weeks working in Vermont, and going through a period where I wasn't enamored with life, a buddy and I stopped at our favorite bar and before you know it he had me trying it.
At the time I thought it was great, but later knew it was stupid. The next time I got drunk, it happened again. Again it was great at the time, but later I thought surely a persons heart couldn't take that. Four more times I awoke in the morning, after telling myself that it wouldn't happen again, wondering how it HAD happened again. Seriously, it scared me. I wasn't being careful when I was on it. I was also drunk at the time, and could see my next accident coming. And I was pretty sure the next time my heart would just blow.
Cocaine did something my wife hadn't been able to do in all the years of my drinking. Cocaine ruined my drinking and I love it for that! It's been over twenty one great years since it scared me into Mountain Manor.
mactn.vcu.edu
Found out much later from some of my coworkers that they all, to a man, gave me zero chance of keeping clean and sober for even a month. "you can't do that" I've heard that before. lol!!
I've thought about stopping in at Mountain Manor as they are always looking for speakers. What has kept me from going is that I know at any time well over 50% of those in rehab are only there to impress the judge at their trial. And I figure the crackheads, heroine and meth addicts will figure I don't know what "real" addiction is. In reality, on some level it is all the same. Something controls you instead of the other way around. I should go just for the ones that are there for themselves.
"There`s no happy ending to cocaine. You either die, you go to jail, or else you run out."
Author: Sam Kinison |
