Countdown to retirement

That’s good. I’ve not lost a minute of sleeping worrying about money since I retired.

As for my kids, one has saved enough to be able to basically retire at 40 (we’ll see how it goes) and the other is okay. I wouldn’t want to give money to one and not the other. Now, if either of them needed it, I’d be happy to help. And we plan to pay a lot for our grandkids colleges. I had almost no student debt (back when I went to college it was a lot cheaper) and we paid for our kids. Not graduating with college debt is the best thing we can give them. We’ve put money in college accounts already.

I snipped that part out.
This is one of the reasons my wife and I like chess and cribbage. Played three games of chess last night.

I’ve said before that while I don’t have a fundamental problem with CG taxes, it’s really frustrating that with a regular investment account becoming the primary vehicle for my retirement savings (I have a bit of an odd situation and no access to things like 401k), any rebalancing or risk management makes me take a tax hit. It really drives me nuts.

I am definitely going to have to find a social group to spend my time with. I’ve been coasting on work and chores to fill my time since my friends all moved out of state.. Once that’s gone, I will turn into a fat vegetable if I don’t’ start doing something like getting back into gaming or some such. The local game stores might start seeing me a lot.

That’s why I joined the Dope!

My local Senior Center features board games and card games, if that interests you.

I walk through my neighborhood every day. I’m 61 and I’ve lived here since I was 29. There’s a very nice retirement community a few blocks from my house and sometimes I walk through it. The other day one of the employees drove by on a golf cart and asked if I needed a ride to the dining hall. I was offended at first until I realized that you need to be at least 55 to live there.

Well, even those of us who don’t “need” it, sure do appreciate a little more. We have a couple of kids who are doing fine, but sending them a check once a year takes some pressure off.

No, but they might enjoy it in the short run.

I was a regular on the San Jose State University campus for about six months getting a tech writer certificate at age forty-five and I felt ancient then.

The one thing I’d worry about with this is - what if that rescue closes up shop before you find yourself needing them (if you do end up needing them)? If they’re a non-profit, you can of course look at their financials to see how they are doing now, but 10-20-30 years down the road might be a different story, and of course they can close for other reasons as well.

You can create a trust for your nephews and nieces, and for the ones who aren’t so good with money, limit how much they get and/or what they can do with it. Look up ‘spendthrift trust’ to see what I mean about the latter.