When I reached the age where I began thinking about retirement I saw myself as sort of a cross between Ozzie Nelson and Grandpa Walton, sitting in front of a roaring fireplace, smoking a pipe and wearing a cardigan sweater, maybe with snow falling softly outside, reading “The Wind in the Willows” to the grandchildren sitting on my knee. That was in between traveling with my old girl to exotic corners of the country in an RV like Charles Kuralt. Of course that was when I wasn't tending my acre and a half victory garden or painting folk art masterpieces or making one of a kind furniture in my New Yankee Workshop or raking in scads of money with my part time home-based consulting business. That's what I saw in my mind as I moved from my forties into my early fifties. Then I took advantage of an early retirement offer at the company I had worked for for nearly thirty years and ran headlong into reality.
So right up front I've got to say that my retirement hasn't matched my dream, and from conversations I have had with other folks in my age group, I think that's pretty typical. There are several reasons for that.
For one thing our grandkids are so busy with school and extracurricular activities that they rarely come over to Grandpa and Grandma's house these days. They're old enough now that, when they do come for a visit, they don't spend a lot of time interacting. They're more interested in texting their friends and watching old reruns of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on hulu. I'm not sure why I had that Grandpa Walton picture in my head because, now that I think of it, when I was a kid and my family visited my grandparents we kids were pretty bored and didn't spend too much time interacting with them. I think we spent most of our time there watching “The Cisco Kid” and “The Range Rider” because Grandpa was a big fan of westerns.
If you remember those TV shows then you've probably guessed that I'm in that pre-baby-boomer group of people that was born during World War II. We're not part of “The Greatest Generation” and we're not really baby boomers. We're sort of “the Cusp Generation”; the result of that last weekend in Paris, Texas before a quick train trip to the coast and an all expenses paid cruise to Omaha Beach courtesy of Uncle Sam. Most of us grew up with that 1950's “work at one company until you're used up and then collect your pension for a few years before you kickoff” mentality. As we all know, times have gotten hard, most companies have scrapped pensions for 401K's, and the bottom line is that most of us don't have the retirement income we thought we would have. Goodbye to the RV and New Yankee Workshop.
Following that “work until you're about ready to kick the bucket” logic, I had always planned to work until I was 65 or so, but when my company started offering buyouts to folks who took an early retirement leave of absence I jumped right on it. I applied for the buyout several times but was always turned down because I was a “critical” employee. Eventually the company altered the early retirement benefit so that it was much lower than the initial plan and then they decided that I wasn't critical anymore. So I was able to get out early, albeit with a lot less cash than I had expected and with no other source of income. Even when the pension eventually kicked in it wasn't enough to live on, so I went back to work four or five times before I finally retired for good a few years ago. At least I think I'm retired for good this time. From time to time I still get the urge to jump back into the job pool again, but then I sober up and the feeling passes.
All of the on again, off again retirement activity I've had in the last decade has allowed me to accumulate a lot of retirement and semi-retirement experience. I've put time in both the private and public sector. I've worked for large companies and startups founded by people younger than some of my clothes. Some of my retirement work experience was full-time and some was part-time. I worked some of that time from home and some at offices. During that time I've retired to the country and lived in the burbs. I've weathered a couple of economic cycles and made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot in the process.
Eventually it occurred to me that there are probably a lot of other folks out there who are thinking hard about retirement, or who are just beginning to deal with the reality of living on a fixed income, who might benefit from hearing about some of the things my wife and I have experienced. So that's really the main focus of this blog.
What I plan to do here is to deal with all of the things that I wish I had thought of before I retired as well as to offer some suggestions on what to do during retirement. I intend to address the problem of living on a fixed income, although I am by no means qualified to advise anyone on financial matters. I'll just detail things that my old girl and I and our retired friends are doing to stretch our budgets and enjoy life on a lot less income than we used to have. In addition, since I have a background in the high tech industry and I know from talking to friends of my age group that many of them have had a difficult time dealing with all the neat high tech gadgets and software that are available these days, I'll devote some space to that subject as well.
If these things don't interest you, there's no use reading any further. If you are interested in any of these things, well then, set a bookmark and watch this space.
