Financially speaking we will likely never have a fortune. Family wise we have a fortune and have lost a fortune. It's a mixed bag with people, isn't it usually?
We do love to imagine what if, you know that game I'm sure. If we ever find ourselves with a million or more buckeroonies, what would we do?
We'd pay off anything that we might owe. We'd buy a new truck and a new car and a motor home. We'd put most of it away safely because we lost a ton of money after 9-11 and now have a healthy and strong fear of losing our security again. No stock market or mutual funds for us.
We'd pay off our kids homes. No reason for them to have mortgages. Otherwise, their bills are their bills. We would invite all of them on another family vacation. We took one a few years back and I would love to do that again except this time the grand kids would be going also. Disneyland or Disney World, their choice, I suppose. We wouldn't want to completely remove all of their financial obligations because we feel our children should handle their own lives. Handing out that kind of help would not really be the best thing for any of them. They would expect it again even if they didn't think they would. When we are both gone, they would get it anyway and could then do whatever they chose. Waiting would be a good thing. Being given too much too soon can be devastating to ones life. I watched those reports about the lottery winners lives being ruined by the money and their choices so I don't wanna set my kiddos up for such horrid happenings.
Ya know, being a parent can be a really tough job even long after your babies have flown the coop and have babies of their, one of whom has also flown the coop!
But money of the fortune variety is the root of all pain and suffering according to that TV show, so we have planned ahead to avoid most if not all of the possible disasters to which others have fallen victim.
So no huge charitable donations. Just modest ones, often anonymously. No handouts to friends. No lavish life style changes. We wouldn't be happy with that anyway.
Just a debt free retirement with a motor home, 2 new vehicles and the security of knowing our kids have a home for as long as they want them. That would be a good thing.
An old couple has to have something to dream about when all their other dreams have already come true. ♥
Jo
Showing posts with label retirement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retirement. Show all posts
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
One Year Ago
Please leave your thoughts...I love when you do that!
One year ago...this weeks word prompt on GBE2...jeesh. Okay, I can do this.
I spend very little time looking back or thinking back to even a week ago, let alone a year ago. I am challenged to even remember what was going on in my life, never mind my mind in September of 2010.
My oldest granddaughter was getting married that month and I remember thinking that 22 years flew by because try as I did at that time, I could not account for even half of those years. The main events of my life in the years since her birth seemed to all run together. I could remember high lights, of course, but not in chronological order. The births of the rest of the grandchildren and the marriages of the other kids fell in place in order, but otherwise, the vacations, the special dates with Mike, special times with Mom and my sister or my best friend, the divorces of two of our kids, those all seemed just to have happened at sometime in that span of time. I'm really not good at looking back!
I do know that I am not the same person I was then. I am sure that I have evolved in some small way because that is what aging really is. As each year passes, we become a little 'more' than we were. I, for example, am a little grayer than I was last September. I am a little lazier. I, absolutely, am happier in my life choices since retirement happened since then. I am more free. I am also more melancholy. When I try to think back, I find I get just a bit sad. Time goes way too fast and our lives are just whizzing by while we either run to keep up or sit and watch it pass. I do a bit of both. I am currently in ... oops, this is about last year. Sorry.
I celebrated by husband's birthday, my son's birthday and the aforementioned granddaughter's birthday in September of 2010, much as I have every September since each of them came along.
I am certain that I was beginning my annual fall depression. I am deeply involved in that right now. I get to pretend on the warm and sun filled days that it isn't happening and I can be happy and productive on those days. But the overcast or cooler days, the rainy days and the changing of the leaves and dying of my beautiful summer flowers...all that sends me inside of myself. I am not very good company even for myself on those days. I am sure I was there a year ago and I don't want to remember that.
One year ago I did not have time to paint my house which needed every single room refreshed. It is now done. I did not have any idea how we would manage to get a new winter cover for the pool because the cost was much higher than I had guessed. We want the automatic cover that works as a solar cover, safety cover and winter cover. It is key operated and we will be able to open and close our pool seasonally without having to pay someone to do that for us. That has now been ordered and should be installed within the month.
I did not know that I would have a new grandchild this year...come November, I shall have that!
A year ago I was deciding my future. I began to think about retiring and I began to worry that we would outlive our money, as old people are apt to do. The worrying part, not the outliving part. I wondered if I would be sorry. Wondered if I would be broke in a year. I'm neither.
This is just too depressing...I'm back to living now. This reflection is not healthy for someone my age in my general state of mind with limited resources available. I am beginning to think I did nothing for an entire year and I swear to you, I did some stuff. I lived every single day and I even enjoyed most of them. I just don't have a clue doing what!
*sigh* A year ago was 12 months ago and everything I did then and until this moment in time has changed me somehow in some way and added to the total being I am today.
Not sure it's a good thing, but it's true enough.
Jo
One year ago...this weeks word prompt on GBE2...jeesh. Okay, I can do this.
I spend very little time looking back or thinking back to even a week ago, let alone a year ago. I am challenged to even remember what was going on in my life, never mind my mind in September of 2010.
My oldest granddaughter was getting married that month and I remember thinking that 22 years flew by because try as I did at that time, I could not account for even half of those years. The main events of my life in the years since her birth seemed to all run together. I could remember high lights, of course, but not in chronological order. The births of the rest of the grandchildren and the marriages of the other kids fell in place in order, but otherwise, the vacations, the special dates with Mike, special times with Mom and my sister or my best friend, the divorces of two of our kids, those all seemed just to have happened at sometime in that span of time. I'm really not good at looking back!
I do know that I am not the same person I was then. I am sure that I have evolved in some small way because that is what aging really is. As each year passes, we become a little 'more' than we were. I, for example, am a little grayer than I was last September. I am a little lazier. I, absolutely, am happier in my life choices since retirement happened since then. I am more free. I am also more melancholy. When I try to think back, I find I get just a bit sad. Time goes way too fast and our lives are just whizzing by while we either run to keep up or sit and watch it pass. I do a bit of both. I am currently in ... oops, this is about last year. Sorry.
I celebrated by husband's birthday, my son's birthday and the aforementioned granddaughter's birthday in September of 2010, much as I have every September since each of them came along.
I am certain that I was beginning my annual fall depression. I am deeply involved in that right now. I get to pretend on the warm and sun filled days that it isn't happening and I can be happy and productive on those days. But the overcast or cooler days, the rainy days and the changing of the leaves and dying of my beautiful summer flowers...all that sends me inside of myself. I am not very good company even for myself on those days. I am sure I was there a year ago and I don't want to remember that.
One year ago I did not have time to paint my house which needed every single room refreshed. It is now done. I did not have any idea how we would manage to get a new winter cover for the pool because the cost was much higher than I had guessed. We want the automatic cover that works as a solar cover, safety cover and winter cover. It is key operated and we will be able to open and close our pool seasonally without having to pay someone to do that for us. That has now been ordered and should be installed within the month.
I did not know that I would have a new grandchild this year...come November, I shall have that!
A year ago I was deciding my future. I began to think about retiring and I began to worry that we would outlive our money, as old people are apt to do. The worrying part, not the outliving part. I wondered if I would be sorry. Wondered if I would be broke in a year. I'm neither.
This is just too depressing...I'm back to living now. This reflection is not healthy for someone my age in my general state of mind with limited resources available. I am beginning to think I did nothing for an entire year and I swear to you, I did some stuff. I lived every single day and I even enjoyed most of them. I just don't have a clue doing what!
*sigh* A year ago was 12 months ago and everything I did then and until this moment in time has changed me somehow in some way and added to the total being I am today.
Not sure it's a good thing, but it's true enough.
Jo
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