LaBella Gift Baskets

Although I stopped being part of the Labella "family" I have not stopped forever! I plan on being back, only my plate has been overloaded with demands of family. My personal life is not anything to write a book about but it is demanding at times. My autistic son is my primary responsibility and I take on that responsibility with both a heavy heart and without doubt I am the best person for the job.
He is a challenge at times. Today I received his seventh cell phone via UPS for him and now hope he comes to get it before we leave for South Dakota for the New Year. I am in charge of his spending habits with the little money he does receive. I know I can't just help him by giving him extra money because like his cell phone, it can easily be lost or broken or dropped somewhere it can never be retrieved from. So I go shopping with him and give him extra things for the holidays.
Then there are our other two sons whom we can't leave out just because one needs so much of our attention. One day we will be relocated and won't be able to take care of our autistic son and will need something to take up my time, even in retirement.

Retirement is only for the very young

When does retirement really start? Only in your head! Face it, you may not hold a paying job, you may be receiving money from the money you put away, but retire? How many people go into retirement with a set game plan on what they are going to do with it? Almost everyone is doing anything other than retire to their easy chair in the living room in front of the television! "80 is the new 60, 70 is the new 50, whatever. So, left with all this health, energy and creativity what are we doing with it? designing new gardens, redecorating, a lot more travel, and joining new groups and their functions. Who really retires?
What it means is you don't have to answer to anyone's bell. You are responsible for your schedule or lack of one. Many take on a new venture tailored only for them. Retirement jokes are passe'. How you spend your time and peoples view of you is not the same as your parents retirement, or is it? My parents retired to travel and visiting family. Fishing, hunting, gardening and continued support of the families church. Call that retirement? No easy chairs and television for them! I have this feeling the same will be said for me and for my husband. How do you go from 100 miles an hour to zero? You don't. You hit the ground running just like any other day you've lived. Nothing but the physical and mental capacity God gives you to the end will stop you. I don't know how long I'll live but, I will live it well!

LaBella Gift Baskets

I've been watching LaBella Gift Baskets in blogs across the internet for about a year now. I got in and set up my business for $1.95?!
In preparation for that big day of "rest" we are supposed to get on some unknown date in some unknown year you know I've been I've been looking at every aspect of who I will be and what will make me happy once that day comes. I've found the best his to find this out is by getting to know the people who've already retired. I don't ask them how they like it, I observe. Several people I've gotten to know well enough I can see what they do when at home, behind the scenes. The happiest women have the money to spend on travel and shopping. Men are content with puttering in the garden and maybe traveling sometimes. The others that are happiest, volunteer and spend a eat more time at church. The retired folks that seem to just plant the face of contentment busy themselves with baking bread or taking up a hobby. The happiest have some kind of mission in life. That usually consists with earning or playing with their investments. Guess what my goal is going to be.
I loved managing other peoples money when I was in the work world. I was always told in school to stay away from mathematical fields. Put a dollar $ign in front of the number boys and girls! I often wonder what those teachers would say if they saw me fly through a spread sheet!
So right now I am engrossed with this online busine$$ opportunity.

Grandparent scam!

Recently, well maybe about two years ago I met a couple who got ripped off by this scam. Sorry that this post is so negative today but the gravity of it is so scary it is worth the space to hopefully help someone who may ever encounter this one.
These people were always the sweetest couple coming into the bank. They retired and truly enjoyed their time by flying around the country visiting their children and grandchildren. They were patient, loved people, and proud of their offspring. Five of their grandchildren were in college and doing very well. They made very little income for the time being, students usually are. This is the grandparents story:
Late one night the phone rang, a young man was on the other end, sobbing. In the background was a bunch of traffic noise and it sounded like it was raining. He said "this is your grandson John. I'm on my way back to school and I was in an accident. Mom and Dad aren't home and I need help." You could only imagine the fright this put into their minds! He said he was fine, but his car was totaled and needed to get back to school about 100 miles away. He said he was told by a cop on the scene there was a Western Union Office just down the road and the cop would bring him there. He said about $2000 would help a lot till mom and dad got home.
You guessed it, the money is gone, grandson never called and they didn't call their son first. These are intelligent people who ran a lucrative construction company until their son took it over 10 years ago. They were ashamed they were fooled. However I reassured them they weren't the only ones taken by this scam which only made them cry! They teared up, fighting back tears they said they felt really bad for all those taken advantage of!
That's the way these people are! They live very comfortably in a very nice home in a wealthy neighborhood. They have a house keeper and a handy man that comes to their home. They have a summer getaway and a winter retreat home. They travel twice a year abroad.
I asked them if it would make them feel better if I try to get the word out to the world about their story leaving all personal details out. Of course they emphatically said yes. So now that I don't work for that or any other financial institution here it is for your consideration.
 Next time I'll tell you about the scam involving my own mother. She of course had me as her guidance and I stopped it from creating a nightmare for her.
See you next time and stay safe!

Retirement Dreams

Retirement means many different things to many different people. It could be a time of strife. We hope for a time of comfort. Some will be content with the comfortable surroundings in their long time neighborhood. Others will want to travel. Still others will make their goal to live as grandly as possible with limited funds. It was while I was doing research on this very subject I ran into this little gem:

Family Association Campgrounds

Don’t laugh at this idea! These are great, inexpensive alternatives to paying out hotel bills and handing over money to rent a place to relax at.

The intro:

These places are built with the idea to have people purchase a small piece of property therefore being part of an association to make sure it continues to run well into the future. The small pieces of privately owned land are equipped with water, electricity and telephone land lines. Each property has space for a shed to store things in, parking for at least two cars, plus room for a fire pit, a large amount of fire wood, charcoal grill and space still to move around and plenty of seating. People will put anything from a tent, to RVs that stay year round on it with a good sized deck and some use their space to get off the road with their RV buses.

The cost is usually less than buying a new car. Many of the lot owners with RVs put in central air, large sanitary sewer holding tanks and large, free standing LP tanks so they don’t have to frequently run and get more. No reservations necessary as you are the owner of your place. You can have all the comforts of home, only away from home and most are smaller. The refrigerator and stove are usually smaller while some RVs are now built with room in the bedroom for a real queen sized bed and a full sized bathroom.

Your association fees, property tax, most services and upkeep is very low in cost. The association fees usually cover the cost of community amenities such as: pool upkeep, hot tub, electricity, water and upkeep of roads, club house and other community owned property. Local firewood suppliers, holding tank pumpers, tree trimmers, etc. charge very little for their services because so many of your neighbors in a small area have the same needs you do. That’s why you’ll never see a “truck charge” on your bill. They’re already there performing the same service for your neighbors.

Property taxes are low because:

You don’t have a very large piece of property and there are no permanent buildings or foundations you therefore aren’t taxed like you would be for a cabin. People use this little getaway for anything from tent camping to parking their big RV bus. You could be a tent camper, but if you’re located near the wealthy guy down the way with the big flat screen television mounted to the side of his RV bus, you’ve got an instant byob sports bar to visit.

The drawbacks are few and for those who don’t mind “roughing it” will have even less drawbacks. The colder the climate is, the shorter the season.  As the temperature drops toward freezing at night the water is shut off. Up here in Minnesota there are some pretty adventurous folks who can get beyond the frigid winter temperatures, like snow mobile owners, hunters and ice fishing folks. They can “get by” without a few conveniences. We’ve even had a few weekends we’ve spent at our little “get away” when we had to start the furnace.  You have to think a little “out of the box”.  The food you bring won’t need a cooler because of the outside temperature. The first time we went during winter I put the frozen food in the refrigerator. My husband wondered why I didn’t put it in the freezer. I simply stated, “Because the refrigerator IS a freezer right now”. The outdoor temperature was 10 degrees at the time and even if we started the furnace it’s insulated enough to keep that interior temperature till the next afternoon when we planned on leaving.

To sum it up the idea is to have someplace to go you can call your own. The kids can run when they want, where they want and get the kind of amenities they’d love to have in their back yard and in their neighborhood. Children over 16 can go to the pool on their own. Because it’s a gated community all the kids can run around and be safe or ride their bikes to the club house and know their bikes won’t be stolen. During summer it reminds me of the kind of neighborhood we grew up in during the 60s and 70s. Everyone is looking out for each other.

People who are ready to retire as well as retired people enjoy the environment. Many men in the community enjoy working in the out-of-doors so much their wives joke about “keeping an eye” on their husbands activities that way. Any way you look at it, it’s truly a great idea someone had long ago. If you’re interested at all go to Coast to Coast Resorts. You don’t have to own a big 40’ RV to become a member and you don’t have to be a member to discover camp grounds and RV parks across America in their system. You can also go into their forum where anything and I mean anything associated with camping is discussed among people who travel.  I found one discussion about coolers and another about cooking over the open campfire.  Just an idea.

Retire In Comfort

No matter what the retirement age will be that social security tells us we can retire at, planning is everything. We know retirement money from social security will be tight. I think retirement services should be free, but I dream of a perfect world. My husband and I are actually scoping out useful retailers that think about things before we do. Let’s face it, the older we get the more that goes wrong physically. I’m one of those people who’s all about statistics and spreadsheets. We tend to see our hearing and eyesight diminish. We will have a tendency toward diabetes, arthritis, plantar fasciitis, and thinning and graying hair. None of this is new news! I figure why not get a jump on it? We have one good thing going for us; we are not entering new territory! Billions of people came before us! The beginning of the baby boom is now on the verge of entering the retirement zone. Our biggest concern is retirement money. Our next big concern will be how we will be able to downsize comfortably.

As I have since I was a kid I pay attention to other people’s life style, how they do it and what seems to make them happy. The unfortunate thing is few like to share what they did before they got there and how they changed their way of living after. All I can do is observe! And I do observe. I’ve heard from a couple of women that their husbands retired at least 6 years before they did and their husbands never touched a vacuum during their entire married life. This would be a definite stress factor for me. I would insist on all those cleaning robots and give the china and crystal to my kids. We’d be using a lot of paper plates but the laundry would always be waiting for me! “Sorry honey but a cleaning woman will be here once a week. Are you cooking tonight? It would not be pretty!

Trophy fishing in retirement

Minnesota’s fishing season for walleye and northern opens soon. Two hours north of me is the ”Walleye  Factory”, Mile Lacs lake. Around that lake is a whole bunch of littler lakes that are great to fish for anything else. They are also great to fish in windy or unstable weather. No one want’s to be caught out in the middle of Mile Lacs if a storm pops up.
Any way I anticipate we will be doing a lot of fishing when both of us have a lot of time on our hands. We’ve been fishing together and with our children for over 30yrs. I caught my first trophy walleye when I was 8 and my first trophy northern pike a few minutes later. Again, I was lucky, my father brought me everywhere fishing. We went on three Canadian Fishing trips together. Thanks DAD! In the mean time I’ve learned a few of the lake fishing rules, not river fishing, that’s something entirely different.
These three rules never change no matter what Country or state you are fishing in: 1 Go where the fish are, 2 Go where the bait fish are, 3. Use the right tackle and bait for the species.
Fish like a certain kind of habitat within a lake. The DNR will tell you specifically what is in a particular lake. Near us is a lake that has mostly pan fish. We aren’t going to try to go for walleye or northern in that lake! The DNR will also tell how and where to catch them.
Watch where the wind blows. Lots of people believe the wind blows the bait fish to the far side of a lake, opposite from where the wind is coming from. So northern winds blows food to the south end of the lake. But when you look at what fish bite on you really have to wonder. Walleye feed on both minnows and mayflies’ hatching. Minnows like rocky shores on any side of a lake. Mayflies are out deep in a lake. Northern like to bite on red and white Daredevils along weed lines and deep holes. Bass hang out under docks, on any side of a lake. There, I’ve said it. Disagree if you will but I catch fish just fine thank you. One thing is for sure, the fish are where their food is. They aren’t swimming with their food, they are nearby. They swim where they are most comfortable near their food, usually swimming deeper, coming up once in a while to feed.
I’ve got two rods only. One is for northern; the other is for the little stuff like bass and the skittish walleye. Nothern run bigger, hit or bite harder, and fight something fierce. This calls for a strong, stiff rod, a real that can pull them in and line strong enough not to break. I use 45 lb test line at least, I’ve got an 18 inch steel leader as well. I always use a Dare Devil, red and white on one side and silver on the other. Walleye on the other hand are skittish and particular. My rod is light and very flexible. I had an Ugly Stick for a while but switched to something lighter. It’s loaded with 5lb test line and I even leave the bail open, feeling any activity with my fingers. Here in Minnesota Lindy Rigs are the order of the day, 14 ft long Lindy Rigs! Minnows are the bait.
My husband likes to bass fish. During that time I read. He casts a minnow under every protruding thing along the shore line. Anything that has a shadow.
Just following these simple rules increases your chances to catch fish. Many believe our success is affected by phases of the moon. Change in the angle of the light and unstable weather I do believe has an effect on when fish will bite more I do believe. I do know that when the walleye fishers go out at midnight on opener they’ve had to wait until daylight started breaking before anything bit. I am not this excited about fishing.
On a final note we find much information on where to fish, how to fish a local lake by hanging out with the locals! These people by nature are protective of their knowledge, unless you go into a bar. Yup, a couple of drinks and you have something to take notes by! They’ll share advice right down to what colored beads to use and what order to have them in on your rig! One huge tip to take though, don’t ask a lot of questions, just act interested in what they say. Even if they talk about their dog in the mean time, just look interested.  Also, knowing someone who lives in the area who is open to giving up their secrets is huge. If you don’t have access to these resources hire a guide for half a day planning on going back on your own to practice what you’ve learned. Think of it as a half day of school and probably fish as well! Watch everything they do, they do everything for a reason. There is a guide up near the Canadian border who has a twitch in his finger suddenly fishing for walleye, jerking the line just a little with his bale open. It must work for him!
So keep your eye on the sky and your nose to the grind stone. The fish aren’t going to jump into your boat!

Earn Money Online For free no scams

I am thinking at this point in the recession you may be thinking of making an income, like me, after retirement age. I've been working long and hard to hopefully pave the path to earn online without spending any money. I've kept track of it all and put it in a blog. It's called, Earn on line income for free no scams. I invite you to check it out, tell me what you think. It full of advice I wish I would have had long ago. I encourage you to join some of the sites I recommend there. I'm looking forward to your input!

Retirment fun

Those two words in the search bar doesn't come up with much. How to plan a fun retirement party, etc. So I went hunting! I ran into a Retirement Fun women's tank top?! When I'm 70 I can only hope people could stand looking at me in a tank top of all things! They have a used one?! And I found out I can retire Happy, Wild, and Free! I want to know why anyone would want a Supercharged one! More hunting tomarrow?