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!

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!