Too Old To Retire "Young"

Where are you and where are you going?
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Alphaville
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by Alphaville »

i just used my detective mojo and... i think she’s ok? found some recent signs of life in other interwebs.

rube
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by rube »

@EK, people are awaiting an update, it might almost look like work. But here we listen to you.

IlliniDave
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by IlliniDave »

Agree. Worrisome. Hope all is well.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by EdithKeeler »

Well, hey everyone!! Thanks for your concern!! I’m sorry if my hiatus worried you!! It’s nice to know I was missed!

Yes, alive and well, me and mine remain Covid-19 free (knock wood) and I’ve been hunkered down at home. Working at home. Eating at home. Doing chores at home. Working on the yard at home. Watching the Netflix at home. So, yeah, lots of home time.....

My hiatus hasn’t really been intentional. Just so much computer time for work (at home, sigh) that in my free time I’ve been trying to avoid a lot of computer stuff. And I kept reading the coronavirus threads here, and was just feeling virus overloaded.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain about working from home right now—feeling happy to have a job and a home at the moment, especially at a time when a lot of people have a lot of uncertainty. My tenant keeps paying his rent, work is plugging along, and I’m saving a shit-ton of money since the virus has forced me to deal with the big budget buster I’m always moaning about here—eating out. I think I’ve gotten take out maybe 3x in 10 weeks, which has got to be a record for me.

I will tell you, though, that this lockdown time has really had me thinking about what retirement will look like when I do quit my job. My work is a huge social outlet for me, and while I’ve actually really enjoyed having some down time and having the at-home time, it’s really underscored the need for me to have other communities and activities outside of work.

Anyway.... more later. Thanks for worrying about me and thank you for being my community in this realm!!

IlliniDave
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by IlliniDave »

Happy to see you're okay EK. Although I'm a little less homebound, I'm going through a similar reappraisal process re retirement. I'm working from home about half time, and when I'm in the office the attendance rate is probably below 25%, people are more physically spread out than normal, and meetings/communications are largely via skype/IM/email. It really does give a person a more vivid understanding of the impact of shedding the workplace environment from the buffet of life. It's more difficult than I thought, with the caveat that the world is biased towards obstacles to cultivating new social interaction at this time.

Jason

Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by Jason »

Thank God. I was going to put $50 in the death pool.

rube
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by rube »

Sometimes I am looking for the thumbs up button, just to let the other person know it is appreciated or say thank you.
But since this button is not here I am cluttering your journal EK, but: thank you and glad to read you are doing well.

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Sclass
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by Sclass »

:) good to,hear you’re ok.

I’m saving a lot staying home too. My credit card bill is less than half of what it was pre crisis. I have to rethink my lifestyle. Also my hypertension has all but gone away. I can only think it was my high sodium intake from restaurant food.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by EdithKeeler »

So here we are, in day 97,345 of coronavirus "lockdown."

<Deleted relationship angst>

For a while now I've been picturing myself returning to the general area where i grew up--east coast beach area. I love being near the water, and while I was willing to compromise and make it the Gulf Coast maybe, east coast is really where it's at for me. I've been idly looking at properties online, and I actually have found the perfect place--too bad I can't go now! I'd buy that house in a minute---it's a fixer, a little bit out in the country, walkable beach access, reasonably close proximity to other places where I would want to go, including urban areas and international airports. Man, I can just see myself buying that place and blogging about the fix up and my quiet, beachy life there.

But of course the time is not right. I need to continue working for the moment. I'm still providing a lot of help to my mom and brother. My mom remains in the nursing home, but she insists that she's coming home. I'm not sure how realistic that is, and part of me is scared to death that they (Medicaid, doctors) will allow her to be home (with some help). Medicaid provides some in-home help, but in my opinion, not as much as she needs, and also in my opinion, it's not safe for her to be in the house alone when she can't get in and out of the house on her own, even in a wheelchair. She insists she can... but can't get in and out of bed by herself, can't go to the toilet by herself, can't take a shower by herself, can't get in and out of her wheelchair by herself. "But it'll be fine." What "fine" means is that either something bad will happen, or EdithKeeler gets calls constantly for help with this, that and the other. Which is also bad.

So again--all that has to do with ERE is that I can't do anything, realistically, until stuff is resolved with my mom and brother. My brother is currently on partial disability, so I'm helping to pay the house payment (my mom's house) so that he can continue to live there. His car also died this month and I "lent" him money for a new (used) one, and realistically I know I'll be lucky to see half of that loan back. Fortunately (??), though, I insisted he buy the aftermarket warranty, which because of a huge problem has pretty much paid for itself the first week. My brother, bless his heart, is the perfect example of a low wage earner with no a lot of prospects to earn more, with some expensive vices (smoking), with not a lot of skill around money, and he's pretty much destined to be super poor his entire life. He's lucky to have me to help him, and I will--I don't want to see him homeless or something--but I do question sometimes (often!) what we realistically owe to our family members. I would not want to be so estranged from my entire family like on-again-off-again-DBF---but sometimes I'd like to be, you know? But that's not me--I have to look at myself in the mirror when I brush my teeth, and I couldn't do that if they were living in a refrigerator box under the bridge.

Basically, then, life continues on as it has been! Covid-19 has actually, other than creating a situation of CRUSHING LONELINESS for me, has actually been overall pretty good for me. Work has calmed down (because other people aren't working), I've been working from home, saving a ton of money by not commuting, not buying food out much at all, no business travel resulting in dog boarding fees, etc. that don't get reimbursed, and no running around to my mom's nursing home. I've been taking stock of my money situation, and unless something terrible happens, I'm getting close to the point where I can quit when I want to (family obligations aside...). I actually received a surprisingly generous bonus in April, and I pretty much socked that away. I've been saving up for a new car for when i need one, and I'm to my goal number for the car I want. I'll continue to drive my car until I can't drive it anymore--it's 10 years old, and it's got a problem that's was fixed with essentially a band-aid a couple years ago, but so far the band-aid is holding. As long as it holds, I'll continue to drive it... but the other shoe will eventually drop.

I'm still putting the max into my 401(k), and some into a Roth, but for right now, I think I've decided to concentrate on paying my rental house off. I've gone back and forth on this--right now, it's a nice hedge on my taxes--but I want to be ready when I do decide to pull the plug to have the rental house paid off so that the income from that pays my current house payment (recently refinanced to save almost $300 a month--yeah!) and then some, so I'll effectively accelerate the payoff on the current house, too. I thought about paying off my current house, but I'm just not sure that it will appreciate that much or be as liquid when I get ready to sell. While I LOVE the house I bought, as well as the immediate neighborhood, the surrounding neighborhood is not so great. There's some problematic apartments and I'm occasionally hearing gunshots. I'll probably change my mind a dozen times.

The longer I stay in my job, the more money I can sock away and the more pension money I'll be entitled to. That's the "trap," I think--and the subject of Jacob's "one more year" post, I guess. But it's easy to see. I mean, right now I do have some legit reasons to not quit ("too legit to not quit!") but if those weren't in my way, I wonder, would I quit yet? I'd like to say, yes, I'd totally walk away, but if I'm truly honest, I'm really not sure I would. I've written about this before, but walking away from paid work is a bit scary, because you're not just walking away from the work, but also the people in the office, a social group, a comfort zone (I KNOW what I'm supposed to be doing at work...), the paychecks, the 401K match, the pension.... That's a lot of structure and a lot of routine that we've conformed to for years. Especially me, as an older person, it's probably harder than someone who's only been working for a few years. I'll do it, when it's time, but the "golden handcuffs" are real and I think harder to break free of, for some of us.

That's all a lot of words to say: nothing much has changed since my last update!

EdithKeeler
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The Time of the Pestilence

Post by EdithKeeler »

Just checking in, because I'm bored.... but my update will be boring. Still working at home, kind of sick of it. But while it's tempting to complain about my job, right now I feel fortunate to have one when some many people don't. I just don't SEE anyone in person; I saw my brother for about 5 minutes yesterday when he came by to pick something up, and saw the woman who came in to clean my carpet earlier this month, and saw the guy who put my groceries in the trunk at Kroger... and that's it for the last three weeks. I am meeting a friend for a drink tomorrow, and part of me feels like it's stupid to go out and risk exposure to the virus, the other part says "Good God, you need to see another human being!!" I am planning a week's vacation at the beach in three weeks--just finalized the plans today--but even as I clicked the final reservation button, I had.... well, reservations. On-again-off-again DBF and I are supposed to meet up at the beach, but I keep thinking it's not smart. While I've finally convinced him to wear a mask, I don't think he's super careful with the social distancing and stuff--he loves to eat out and sit in bars--and 1) I'm a little concerned that he could be exposed and infect me (seems like less likely that I will infect him, though I do worry about that) and 2) while we're vacationing, I know he's going to want to eat out a lot and I'm perfectly happy eating outside or in the hotel room. I dunno.... there's a good chance that i may cancel.

And it's weird. I'm not someone who's generally worried about getting sick. But given the media attention, it's hard not to think about it. I know two people personally who've gotten the virus, and of course, several people in my mom's nursing home have died. I worry about getting it and infecting my mom (though of course, right now I still can't visit), and I'm an older, fatter higher risk person, and I just am not ready to get really sick, let alone die right now. I feel like i'm just buying time because we're all going to get it.... I just hope I get it once we have some good treatments, which it looks like we are getting some better treatments.

I was thinking the other day that my generation is sort of bookended by disease: I was born in 1964 and i actually remember polio still being a subject of conversation when I was a kid, thought of course i was vaccinated as soon as I could be, but kids only 10 years older than me were among the first to be vaccinated, and there were a few older kids in my neighborhood when I was a kid who suffered from the aftereffects of polio. Smallpox was still around in the world when I was a kid, though not in the United States--it was declared officially eradicated in 1980, when I was still in high school. So this early history of success in fighting disease.... but then here comes AIDS. I've always said AIDS had an impact on my sexual activity---there's nothing like the fact that right around the time you're becoming sexually active that word of a killer disease that is spread thru sex. And of course The Herp. Then we find out about Ebola--bleeding from the eyes? Jesus. And of course i've always been good about flu vaccines. Then I was just finally getting used to the idea that i'm getting older and it's time for a shingles vaccine and a pneumonia vaccine.... and along comes Covid-19, another killer disease.

Ok, I'm being little melodramatic--I promise you I'm not running around wringing my hands over disease and worrying about what can kill me, but I will say that, as an avid reader of science fiction over the years, I really thought we'd be doing better with respect to all this shit by now.

So I may or may not go on vacation.

In other news, still cooking at home a lot and saving a good bit of money. And despite the gloom and doom of pestilence and war, my net worth continues to increase. Sometimes I think it's absolutely ridiculous to continue to work with $700K+ available in retirement funds, but I really don't want to quit until my rental house is paid off. I'm accelerating those payments. My mortgage company allows me to pay extra on my principle in any amounts, and I suspect they get annoyed by all the little $100 and $150 payments I send them. But I have to say, it's amazing how quickly those little payments accumulate to bring the amount owed down. Oh, the things I wish I'd thought more about when i was younger!! i think I've said it before, but given my family background (a family that's never had 2 nickels to rub together) the amount of money in my personal net worth, as shown on my spreadsheet, seems amazing and it seems like a sum of money that could just make you walk away. Other times, it feels like there's no sum of money I could ever amass that would make me feel financially secure enough to walk away. So yeah: financial schizophrenia. It's a thing.

My "garden" is doing ok this summer: i just picked my first tomato, and I'm going to have a bumper crop of zucchini. That's the extent of my garden this year: tomatoes and zucchini. I lost tree in my yard last month, so I now have nice sunny spot for a real garden so next year, I'm going to expand.

AND: I won yard of the month in my subdivision! That was fun--I just opened the door one morning and the sign was there. I feel I've truly achieved the ultimately middle class milestone. Yard of the month!! I can die happy.
Last edited by EdithKeeler on Wed Jul 15, 2020 11:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by Kriegsspiel »

"AND: I won yard of the month in my subdivision! That was fun--I just opened the door one morning and the sign was there."

Well, it's all downhill from here.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by EdithKeeler »

Checking in.... I feel like I'm bored and boring during the virus period. Still working at home, and also finishing up the last day of my "staycation." DBF came in from out of town--we got out and about a little bit, ate out some, and felt reasonably safe with the social distancing precautions being taken in restaurants, required face masks, etc. You have to sign in everywhere right now, so I hope I don't get a contact tracing call in the next two weeks... but it seems unlikely as I haven't really gotten close to anyone.

Virus has been good to me financially, I have to say. I just am not spending any money, except for the occasional movie rental and meal delivery. Still cooking at home a lot which is saving me a ton, and no business travel, which is saving me a FUCK-TON in dog boarding, etc. Decided to grow my hair out since I wear a pony tail at home all the time anyway, so no money spent there, nor on new work clothes.

I am, however, going to need a new car soon. I DREAD the thought of car shopping, though I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to buy. I thought I was going to go Subaru or Toyota (historically, I have owned several Toyotas, and they've never done me wrong...), but I think I may break with tradition and go Hyundai. More bells and whistles, a little bigger (Santa Fe vs. Rav4) and longer warranty, and surprisingly, a very slightly better safety rating. Since it's the end of the model year, I'm hoping to get a good deal. I've had my current car for 11 years, and while it's only got 148K miles on it (practically new for a Toyota!! Actually a Scion, but made by Toyota), it's got a wiring harness issue that the dealer jury-rigged a few years ago. So far it's holding, but lately the AC has been iffy (it'll stop working until I hit a pothole. Fortunately, there's a lot of potholes in Memphis...) and some other small problems. I'm just reluctant to spend any money on it, knowing that the wiring harness fix could go at any minute, and that will be a significantly expensive repair. Car's worth maybe 3K in trade, if I'm lucky. It's time to say goodbye--it's been a good car, but I really don't want to be left sitting someplace.

Still sick of my job, still waiting for the moment when I decide to say goodbye to it, but right now, still grateful to have a job. I guess. Very grateful my renter continues to pay his rent.

Anyway... life is good. Boring, but good.

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jennypenny
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by jennypenny »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:01 pm
Anyway... life is good. Boring, but good.
I was talking to someone recently about that. I said I was glad we drove out to SD so I had something to talk about. Life is so boring but I feel guilty complaining about it. I can't imagine how bored we'll be if this continues through the winter.

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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by jacob »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:01 pm
I am, however, going to need a new car soon. I DREAD the thought of car shopping, though I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to buy.
If you're willing to spend more to avoid the searching, upselling, negotiating, waiting in the lot/room for 4-6 hours, I've seen good things about these guys: https://www.carvana.com/ ... you have to know exactly what you want though.

Jason

Re: The Time of the Pestilence

Post by Jason »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 10:43 pm
AND: I won yard of the month in my subdivision!
Congratulations. Now bring home that bingo trophy.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I am envious of your award.

Jason

Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by Jason »

I would think at the sub-division's annual award ceremony where the 12 yard of the month winners are feted, a hierarchy is assumed, placing those who won the months having 31 days being superior yarders to those who won during months's with only 30 days. The person who won in February being some type of charity case not only because they had the award for at most 29 days, but it was during the winter when the yards are barely visible. I think the fact that Edith won the month of August makes it even more special.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

There is an art to contouring shrubbery and arranging statuary so that it looks well under cover of snow, and August in Edith’s region might be tricky. Leads one to suspect that she may have indulged in a few midnight lawn hosings.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by EdithKeeler »

Bought the car today; it was surprisingly painless. I knew exactly what I wanted--I did buy brand-spankin' new (11 miles on the odometer...it's like a virgin car....). I did not pay cash but will likely pay it off pretty quickly. I did go back and forth some over new versus used, but ultimately opted for new because of the amazing warranty--warranty on the whole car for 5 years/60K miles; powertrain warranty from the manufacturer for 10 years, plust the dealership gives a LIFETIME warranty on top of that. I'm sure they figure no one will keep the vehicle that long, but of course, I'll take that as a personal challenge. (I had my last car for 11 years). It also came with 3 years of free maintenance--oil changes, tire rotations, etc. Anyway--I came out of the dealership not feeling like I'd just been reamed up the butt, so I either got a good deal or they were very skillful in giving me a poor one and a good butt reaming! (2020 Hyundai Santa Fe. Ubiquitous, looks like every other SUV on the road, but I like it. Amazing the bells and whistles on a fairly base model car now compared to 11 years ago, the last time I bought a new one).

Laugh if you want: I'm very proud of my yard of the month. I'm fully suburbanized; Yard of the Month, spending hours and a fortune keeping the grass looking like a putting green, and now I have the quintessential suburban mom car to boot. Next think you know I'll be joining a bridge club and having the ladies over for lunch.

Kipling
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Re: Too Old To Retire "Young"

Post by Kipling »

I hear you on the pleasure of the new-car-bells-and-whistles if you don't buy frequently. My parents have since 1970 owned nine cars cars in total- and it should be borne in mind that we were a two-car family for quite a lot of this period. Triumph Vitesse Mark 2; Daf 55; Daf 66; Morris Marina; Austin 1300; Rover Metro; Rover Metro; Nissan Micra Series 2; Nissan Micra Series 3. The sheer joy on moving from one generation of cars to the next with none of the intermediate steps (e.g. moving from wind-up windows that rusted up and fell down at inconvenient moments, to electric windows that worked reliably- in one swoop!)- almost outweighed the fact that I spent much of my childhood push-starting recalcitrant British Leyland engines.

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