Retirement

Wow, does that word bring many different emotions all flooding in at the same time.

I've both looked forward to and feared retirement since I started working at 15 years old. In those days,
it meant having plenty of time (and money) to go to the beach and hang around the amusement park.

As I grew older, I became more concerned with financing retirement. I heard stories of people making choices
between buying their prescribed medicine or eating cat food. At the time, I was raising a family and working all of the time.

I saw stories on tv of the sports people and actors with lives of excess and no cares what-so-ever. Often they were my age or younger. It was discouraging. They had semi-retired in their 20's.

Striving to retire before I turned 66 (the age I could collect social security) I made a lot of sacrifices.
In addition to working full time, I invested in low income apartments. I spent many nights and weekends, fixing them up.

And I saved my money - fanatically. I drove an old van. I drove my family on vacations - instead of flying.

While travelling, we ate from take out boxes from the local deli. (Yeah, I'm that family you used to see eating in the Piggly Wigglie parking lot, that you thought was a homeless family.)

We camped in the van in the Florida Keys every year.

But we did manage to save some money.
Mini crises dotted our lives, we got through them.

A lot of my co-workers and friends who had much newer cars, took expensive vacations and worked as little as they had to, asked to borrow from me.

Feeling guilty that I had excess, I lent it. Rarely did I see a return - costing me friends.

Finally, after saving and working a lot of hours - I got the chance to retire from my day job.

I was so happy, and not yet 55. I also sold my apartments. I was in good shape. I never expected what happened next.

I liked work so much that I found a job working on the internet. So I was earning more than I had with both the jobs and the apartments.