For years I though ‘re-tire-ment’ just meant putting new rubber on the work truck’s wheels 🙂!!
Karen retired after 41 years of teaching, and my plan to go another ten years turned into:
“ Wait, we can travel any time we want?!? F-that work stuff”.
I worked 52 years, from when I was 13 years old, hired by a local bicycle shop until I did not renew my business license and canceled my insurance this past December 31st.
I still do occasional crane days with David. But that’s more for the fun of working with a great group of folks.
Aging issues make it harder to bust ass for a solid 8 to 10 hour day. Glad I don’t need to do that five days a week.
I still keep my nursing license current by doing pro-bono home health care with the elderly. That way if the doomsayers are correct and everything collapses I can still get work at an ICU or ER. When our youngest sustained a serious burn over the holidays the attending MD at the local ER asked me to consider coming back as staffing is absurdly deficient.
Our retirement funds took a big dive in value with Covid, but have rebounded these past two years. Still, we decided to sell our former home that we had been renting out (to avoid the capital gains tax) and live frugally on that money for four to five years and not draw any from the retirement nest egg while it is recovering.
Electricity is our biggest expense as the mortgage is paid off. We plan to add solar this year to defray that cost (well, trade paying the municipality for payments on the system!).
We spent years eating rice and beans and tofu and growing our veggies, and with Celiac Disease we rarely ever eat out, so our
food expenses are quite low.
We’ll hold off on taking social security for three years when we’re both 70 to maximize the amount we’ll get.
Okay, it’s time to ‘retire’ to the wood shop. Been building cabinets for organizing my tools.
I doubt I'll be welding that late in the game but I'll still be working.
