retirement

Retirement Ramblings

Retirement is a highlight in one’s life. You work many years, and the goal is to retire in comfort and enjoy your remaining years. Retirement is one of the American dreams that can come true. It takes some planning and saving to reach the goal. Also, it takes a little luck for all the cards to fall in place so that Retirement can happen.

Since I retired eighteen years ago, I will share what I did to help me live comfortable in retirement. First, I made sure all my credit cards were paid off. The only balances I had in credit cards were monthly expenses and they were paid off totally every month. I inquired what my social security monthly amount would be, and the small pension amounts we would receive after retirement. Reviewed the condition of the vehicles seeing how many years they would last before replacement. Then, made a tentative budget seeing if our retirement income would cover the necessary expenses every month. Entertainment items such as trips and vacations would come out of savings. The decision was made to retire and hope our finances would last longer than us.

Everything was doing ok until the financial crash of 2008. At that time our portfolio showed unrealized losses to be over one half of our portfolio. The decision had to be made to sell the stocks and change the unrealized losses to realized losses. Since I didn’t need the money, I elected keep the stock until the value of the investment returned to the purchase price and then sell. We didn’t make any money, but we didn’t lose any either. It took about seven years to finally regain all our original investments. These were scary times, and the decision were made to pull out the stock market completely and just invest in secure investments. I was just becoming too old to live with that stress and insecurity. We have been ok financially since.

As you become older health issues tend to hamper retirement plans. The vacations and trips appear to be shelved because of health issues. We have had over eighteen years of comfortable retirement and feel very fortunate to have these years. Hopefully we will have many more.

Daily writing prompt
How do you want to retire?
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A Life of Work

This was not a job but is what I did to earn some extra money. During the summer when I was in middle school, I caught and sold nightcrawlers for the local sporting goods store. The owner told me he would take all I could catch. He paid me a buck a hundred and then sold it for two bucks. I would drop off the nightcrawlers on Thursday and the anglers would buy them for the weekend. I would average about a thousand a week and that was ten bucks a week. The only expense I had was flashlight batteries. If I remember correctly, I would earn about two to three hundred dollars for the summer. That was a lot of money in the fifties.

My next job was parttime at the public library while going to high school. I was a library page, which is code for a do whatever was necessary. The most interesting job was running the elevator on Saturdays. The elevator was automatic, but the crowds were large, and they overwhelmed the automatic system. Another job was they had a basement and sub-basement where books were stored. They would receive an order and they had pages in the basement where they would retrieve the books and put them on a lift that carried them up to the upper floors.

After graduating I started working for a government contractor that was building the Titan I ICBM for the government. I was a teletype operator in the purchasing department. Unfortunately, the job was on the swing shift. So much for my night life.

Three and a half years later I received the letter stating, “your friends and neighbors have selected you to become a member of the United States military.” For the next two years I was in the army. I was fortunate enough to go to Germany instead of Viet Nam. I then had two years of active reserve and then two years of inactive reserve. Then my military obligation was over.

After my two years of active duty, I returned to the aerospace contractor because there was a law that they had to hire me back since returning from military service. A year later I was laid off. They just hired me back to fulfill their legal obligation to have a job for me after military service.

I then started working for a large electronics manufacturer in the consumer electronics industry. First, I was an assistant buyer, then a buyer and then became a department manager. This career lasted for over twenty years and was the highest paying position in my working period. After a purchase of the company a year later the company buyer decided to close thirteen distribution warehouses across the nation and here, I was forty-six years of age and without a job. During that time the unemployment rate was eight percent. Try to tell me there is not age discrimination happening.

Working in part time and temporary positions for four years I finally get a full-time job in a high-tech position where lasers were used to cut close tolerance components used in the solid-state electronics field. This was a field that was totally new to me. I started as a temp, and it worked into a full-time position. Tell me a positive attitude and hard work is not the way to go. This continued for thirteen years and then I decided it was time to retire and have been retired now over fifteen years. Now, “Every Day is Saturday!“

After retiring I decided to give writing a try and this is where I am now. I have posted over two hundred articles on WordPress and having fun doing it. Most of my articles are about experiences in my life. I am not doing this for money, I am just doing it because I enjoy reminiscing and sharing events in my life.

https://tomt2.com/ Stop by and make me feel good. I like to see a lot of viewing numbers, likes, and comments.

Daily writing prompt
What jobs have you had?
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Retirement Years

 

The big day came in September of 2006. That big day was retirement. I had good thought and bad thoughts. For example, the absence of the stress of a responsible job will be good. I won’t have to get up or be at work at a specified time. I can plan and do things that I never took time to do when I was working. I could go on and on about the benefits of reaching and being able to enjoy retirement. 

On the other hand, I had reservations about retirement. Will my financial planning be adequate? Will I fall into the rut of being bored and not have enough interest in my idle times? I also thought about that I am now on the downside of my life and the inevitable will happen sooner than later. Also, will my health remain to be good? 

In reality, I am enjoying retirement very well. over seventeen years since I retired and people ask me, “what do you do?’ I respond, “I am recuperating from the last forty-five years. Sure, I still have stress in my life and things don’t go as expected. I have had two medical issues in retirement. The first happened in 2018. I had an eleven-millimeter kidney stone in my right kidney and had to be removed by going up from the basement. I peed chocolate milk for twelve hours after the procedure. The next issue was a large pulmonary saddle embolism (blood clot) between my lungs. I thought I was going to breath my last breath during the removal. But I survived and it has been over a year now since that event with no long-term effects. (LINK TO MY BLOOD CLOT)

However, every day is Saturday and what I don’t get done today I can do tomorrow. My outlook remains to be good, and I pray that I retain this outlook as retirement and the later years of my life evolve. 

EVERYDAY IS SATURDAY

Audio file for listening, instead of reading.

The sky is blue, the sunsets are beautiful, and the roses smell terrific. I didn’t notice these luxuries before I retired. When I was working, and going through the challenges of life that are thrown at you. I didn’t take the time for the simple beauty of life. Seventeen years have passed since I retired in September. Do I enjoy retirement? Yes, I do! Retirement has been a blessing for me. This is part of the American dream, work most of your life and then enjoy the fruits of your labor. It feels good to see that Social Security and pension payments appear in your banking account every month. Yes, I am living the American dream! 

Since I have retired many people have asked me the question. “What do you do now that you are retired?” As if you are supposed to do something. My most often response is; “recuperating from the last forty-five years”. I was tired! The first 90 days (about 3 months) I did very little. No, I didn’t lie in bed all day, but I took it easy and started to adjust to a slower and more relaxed lifestyle. Now, what I don’t get done today, I can finish tomorrow.  

I retired in September and during our Thanksgiving gathering someone asked me, “Tom, what do you do all day?’ I responded, “every day is Saturday.” That means I don’t have anything I have to do or any place I must be. That phrase stuck and I still use it today.  

My typical morning starts around 6 to 7:00 a.m. No, I don’t sleep in. I try to keep regular hours. I usually go to bed around the same time and rise around the same time. When I get up at the above time this gives me time to get my cup of coffee and breakfast. When I first retired, I was an active stock market trader. I guess you could say I was a pattern trader. However, since the 2008 downslide the market has been too volatile for me, and I invest in stable and secure investments only.  

Retiring has given me many opportunities to do things I have been putting off either because I just didn’t have the time or just too tired to do them. what you don’t get done today; you can work on tomorrow, or the next day, or next week.  

Last fall I joined a small writer’s group at a church in Lakewood. I have always had an interest in writing; however, I never took the time or had the time to cultivate that desire. Now that I am retired, I have the time to cultivate that interest. This small writing group was the catalyst that prompted me to Yourhub.com. Yourhub.com was a bloggers site sponsored by a local newspaper. Once a week they had an insert with blogs they have selected. During this period, I was fortunate to have them select over seventy of my blogs. This was a perfect medium to get the word out and expose your efforts to an audience. The hard part is to get that audience to read your efforts. This does beat putting your efforts into a file cabinet or hard drive and no one ever reads them. After a period yourhub.com disappeared when the local newspaper went out of business. I didn’t write for a while and then I discovered Substack. I then started writing again. At least you have exposed your works to a live and alert audience. 

My retirement has had its downsides. One of the big downsides was winter’s unusually large snowfalls. It kept me inside more than I wanted to stay inside. I am an outdoors person, and the snowy weather has surely hampered my activities and I was getting a lot of cases of cabin fever.  However, spring comes, and I can get out into the sunshine and fresh air and my attitude turns around one hundred percent.  

The only thing that changed the entire environment of retirement is health. We have been very fortunate with health issues, and I attempt to live a healthy life by periodic health exams, eat in moderation and exercise regularly. Unfortunately, illness is part of the aging process. My wife has had a couple of mini strokes, fluid accumulating around her heart and a bout of unexplained dizziness that lasted over a year. I have had two cataracts removed. I suffered with an eleven-millimeter kidney stone that they had to go up through the basement to zap it with a laser and bust it up. I passed chocolate milk from my kidney for about twelve hours. I recently experienced a large blood clot between my lungs. I went through the removal procedure awake because that is what the doctor recommended. I survived the procedure. After the procedure was completed, the doctor was talking to me, and he said he thinks the right decision was made to stay awake because if I would have gone under anesthesia, he thought he may have lost me. Doctor Death was holding deaths door open, and I survived. I have recuperated and I am now well again.    

I try not to think about ill health. It is a part of life and when it strikes us, we will attempt to deal with it when it happens.  

In conclusion, do I have any recommendations for an active healthy retirement? Sure, I do. Keep your mind active. I enjoy puzzle books. These books keep the cobwebs out of my brain. I am a member of Silver Sneakers and go to Carmondy Recreation Center to walk my mile and bicycle my five miles at least three times a week. I feel better and sleep heavier since I have taken up this exercise program. Carmondy Recreation Center has many types of physical fitness equipment so you can design your own activity program. Keep up with a social life. We are social beings and social activity is very important for the well-being and happiness in your life.  

 Attempt to have a financial plan. If you are broke, retirement will not be fun. There are many other forms of entertainment other than television. Enjoy television as a last resort.  Finally, be positive, be active, and be happy.