Thursday, February 17, 2011

Golden Years

The "golden years" are those after you retire and before your health fails.  And they are precious few.

What I say is:  Retire as soon as you reasonably can.  Don't wait to accumnulate a big hoard, just enough to be sufficiently provided for with a little left over, if you can, to have a some fun while you can and compensate for modest cost-of-living increases after that.

Too many people make the mistake of waiting too long; they retire one day and have a heart attack the next.

2 comments:

Anam Cara said...

AMEN!

My Aunt Madeline taught us that. She said that she and Uncle Bill (an British soldier who she met when he was stationed in our home town in SC during WW1) always said that when he retired they would travel. He retired, they took one trip to England to visit his relatives, and then he died.

We have tried to keep that in mind as we go through life - carpe diem!

My husband and I just returned from a cruise. We decided we better do all those trips we want to do before we need scooter chairs, etc. like so many of our fellow ship mates.

My husband hasn't retired yet, but he can get enough time off for us to do things like that and as long as he can do that, we can pay for some of these "extravagant" trips while we are physically able to enjoy them.

I have been fretting about money since we have our daughter's wedding in April, needed to replace a couple kitchen appliances that died, want to take a LONG cruise in late summer - don't know how we can do it all without dipping too much into our "stash." I suggested that we post pone the trip. My husband said I was thinking financially the same way Aunt Madeline and Uncle Bill thought about time. We have the money - as long as he has his job - go for it!

GretchenJoanna said...

Thanks for a good and simple word...I think about this a lot. I am enjoying a life in retirement, so to speak, but my husband is reluctant to retire from his very stressful job.