Today marks the tenth year milestone since I began my retirement from the Aerospace Mill for which I worked many years. I must say that those daily routines of getting up out of bed, commuting to the office, participating in whatever the plan of the day might have been, finishing up for the day, commuting back home and attending to home matters were comfortable for me right up until the last day. Now, however, at a decade down the road, I must also state that I don’t miss the old ways a bit.
During the last decade before retirement (starting 20 years ago), Verna and I spent a lot of time planning for the retirement we were to have. It turned out that by the grace of God and our own foresight, we managed to get our basic plan together. Thankfully, my employer had good a retirement plan and an incentivized 401(k) savings plan, both of which we participated in. Upon retirement, we exercised our choice to roll the 401(k) into a managed payout mutual fund designed just for retirees. We opted for the retirement pension payout as well. Bottom line: we’re doing OK.
Sure, there were still some unknowns and other events post-retirement that would shape our destiny, but the foundation for our sustenance was set by the time we were out of there. We weren’t prepared to lose our California house to flooding, for example, but our insurance payout and a fortunate find of a “flipper” to take that property off of our hands made it a sweet departure from home ownership in California. Otherwise, we would have had to do the fixing up and “flipping” ourselves for which we weren’t exactly prepared. Between that example and a couple of other post-retirement glitches, we have managed to stay afloat.
Pardon all the metaphors, but it seems that we’re set for smooth sailing for the next decade of our retirement, God willing.
Verna and I have been blessed with new generations in our family; our granddaughter gave us a great grandson, Alex, and our daughter-in-law presented us with a grandson, Jerry. Both have been born within the last two years. We decided it would be a good idea to start an investment/savings plan for each of them.
Actually, I filed our tax returns electronically last week. Today is the day that the small amounts we owe to the Franchise Tax Board and the U.S. Treasury get debited from the checking account. This year, filing the taxes electronically automatically initiates the pending tax rebates which will automatically be credited to the checking account next month. 