Retirement is an important time in life. After many years of work, the goal is to enjoy your later years in comfort. It’s part of the American dream, achievable with careful planning and saving. A bit of luck is also needed for everything to align for a successful retirement.

Since I retired nineteen years ago, I will share how I managed my finances for a comfortable retirement. First, I paid off all my credit cards, ensuring I only had monthly expenses that were paid off completely. I checked my social security benefits and the small pension we would receive. I assessed the condition of our vehicles to determine when they would need replacing. Then, I created a budget to see if our retirement income could cover our monthly expenses, with entertainment costs coming from our savings. We decided to retire, hoping our finances would last as long as we did.

Everything was going well until the financial crash of 2008, which caused our portfolio to show losses over half its value. We had to decide whether to sell the stocks and realize those losses. Since I didn’t need the money, I chose to keep the stocks until they returned to their purchase price before selling. We didn’t earn any money, but we also didn’t lose anything. It took about seven years to recover our original investments. These were challenging times, and I decided to withdraw from the stock market entirely and invest only in secure options because I was too old to handle the stress. Since then, we have been financially stable.

As we age, health problems can affect our retirement plans, often putting vacations and trips on hold. We have enjoyed over nineteen years of a comfortable retirement and feel lucky to have had this time. We hope for many more years ahead.