Ramblings of Retirement Life

Good morning!

It has been about six months since my husband retired....it has been an interesting six months...the first two months felt like we were just on an extended holiday....once September came around, reality started trickling in...some interesting facts about being retired...( well, my husband is but I’m not...BUT I am affected by it...some good, some not so good)

The good is that my husband is around most of the time....I’ve waited 46 years for him to not leave in the morning and return in the late afternoon....it’s rather pleasant!

Another thing is that he is available to do some of the appointments with our kids that up til now, have been completely left up to me! 

He’s also very determined to help me a lot more around the house....some chores that physically I’ve been struggling with in the last few years, he has declared that he will be doing from now on! 

We still can’t just up and go away for a few days or even an overnight, without making caregiver arrangements for our kids BUT we can go somewhere, on a whim....just for the afternoon..

IF, we want to sleep in a bit on a weekday morning, that option is now available!

So, those are some of the pros that I can think of, off the top of my head.....

The Cons-

Well, there is this whole living on a pension and not a regular pay cheque being deposited in the account every two weeks..and other than the obvious , it screws up a regular grocery shopping day ( because you used to do it when it was pay day) ...now, it’s usually..’oh we’re out of eggs, or bread or deodorant...we’d better go and get a few things’.....

You forget what day it is! Suddenly, in the middle of the week...you think it’s only Tuesday and our shocked to find out that it’s Thursday! ....and you don’t count the days til the weekend any more because weekends , except for going to church on Sunday...are the same as the other days....and the saddest part is....you don’t get excited over long, three day weekends anymore...in fact, you find yourself surprised when you realize that the upcoming weekend, IS A THREE DAY WEEKEND!!

Living on a pension is unsettling.....knowing that you have a set amount of money that has to last you the rest of your living days...is a little scary....and even though, your husband says that he’s budgeted for a few larger travelling trips in his pension budget and to relax because he wants to travel....you still feel somewhat apprehensive about spending the money on it!

Then there’s the gifts...you know birthday, Christmas..etc. For the last number of years, I’ve had a set amount....now, husband says...we have to cut back the amount...we’re on a pension, don’t ya know....I told him then he can be the one tell everyone that they’re going to be getting less! 

The other thing about a pension is this.....I’m used to saving for things...if I want to do some kind of home improvement or get a big ticket item...then I divide the cost by months and put aside the amount required each month, to meet that goal.....the other day, I said something about saving for something....husband looked at me with a ‘sad, it’ll be alright dear, look’ ...and informed me that there isn’t anymore saving...we just take it out of the pension.....WHAT.....NO MORE SAVING!! That’s impossible...there’s just no security in that! Totally uncomfortable with this concept!!

Another con , for my husband...IS....THAT HE IS HOME EVERYDAY! ...yes, I know I said that was in the pro column....but you see....he’s not used to being around the kids, all day, every day.....he gets irritated with them, he doesn’t understand why they do the things they do or don’t do.....that gives me a brand new occupation....mediator!

On the whole, when people say..’so, how’s retirement?’.....quite often I remind them that I’M not retired...I’m still doing all the same things that I’ve always had to do....BUT I do have the positive and negative affects of retirement....I think that’s as close as I’ll ever get....but retirement is a little more relaxing than life used to be....so, that’s a welcome change....do we sit around looking for things to do? No, we are still as busy as ever....but now we don’t ‘ necessarily have to get to a store to get a certain thing because it’s the only time we have to do it’ mentality anymore....the pressure is not as great...which is lovely.

I actually think we’re still getting used to figuring out this retirement thing...and that’s okay...

And I know it sounds sappy...but as long as we’re together in this new adventure than I’m content....

Retirement!

Retirement Day is coming up for my husband! He has officially worked at a full time job for 46 years....before that it was normal teenage jobs....camp counselor ( where we met) , catching chickens ( he lived in a very rural area) , picking up beer bottles along side of the country roads to turn in for deposit money and he worked in a grocery store.
His first full time job was working as a clerk in a Trust Company ( which is similar to a bank) when he was eighteen years old....we had just became engaged the month before..( my mother thought we were crazy, and my grandmother had said it wouldn’t last!)....he worked in his home town, where he had grown up...a little place called Listowel....we had plans to live there after we married....but the trust company had other plans and a few months before our Wedding....he was transferred to another little town called Meaford....our first apartment ended up being in a town close by named Owen Sound. We were married in the June of 1973, and by the September, he was transferred again....every time he got a promotion and a small raise, we were transferred...usually it was a two week notice! After that, our first child was born in the fall of 1974....we were living in the top half of a duplex....then...another transfer...this time to a city by the name of Chatham.....I became pregnant again but before our second child could be born...we moved again...a month after we moved to Sarnia , our second child was born!

We had been living in Sarnia for about six months when we realized that our first child was going to begin her school life and that we couldn’t be moving , every 18 months, at a drop of a hat with only two weeks notice....so my husband and I decided that he should find another employment and resign from the Trust Company.

This decision had us moving back to the general area where I grew up but unfortunately we couldn’t afford the exact area and lived in the city of Hamilton. We lived there for three years while Don worked in the office of a manufacturing company that made peanut butter and pickles!  I don’t remember the reason that he left that position but he did start a new job at another manufacturing company....this one made heavy iron patterns and things like manhole covers.....thirty three years ago, that company closed its doors for good and we were thrown into the panic mode of finding a new job....which he did.....at a place called Menasco Aerospace Company...sounds impressive right...they actually made landing gear and flight control panels for the big commercial airplanes .

After three years of living in the city of Hamilton...which we detested...we finally moved back to the rural area that I grew up in....a wee area...not even sure you could call it a village at that point called Winona.

Way back, when we lived in Chatham, and our eldest was just a baby....Don decided to take some accounting courses that would eventually....ELEVEN YEARS LATER.....ONE COURSE AT A TIME.....have him graduating with his Certified General Accounting designation! We were so proud and thrilled that he finally achieved this accomplishment!

For the last number of years he’s held the position of a Pricing Analyst....which means he prices the parts for the landing gears that enable the company to put in successful or not successful bids for contacts with the large airplane manufacturers like Boeing. He made many trips to be part of  contract negotiations to California and Seattle, Washington , and working in their offices in Texas and Florida and even one long trip to Poland to working in the office there!

In the course of doing all this, plus being a husband, a dad, and a foster parent...he also took some courses to become a Financial Pricing Analyst....which, over the years has given him the nickname of Pricerman!

About fourteen years ago, a friend of Dons’ asked him to help him out by ‘teaching’ one of his college evening classes....After discovering he really liked it, he decided to pursue this as a second career ....so, to add to his list of accomplishments he has taught many evening classes to continuing education students that have to do with various forms of accounting, taxes and accounting computer programs.....Don was forever grateful that Kevin asked him to teach that first class and now he hopes to continue with the teaching after he retires.

Don plans to keep busy with a small home office type accounting business in his retirement years....you see, he really isn’t a hobby man.....he enjoys travelling, he enjoys a little photography, a little golf ( only if the weather conditions are perfect)....he just bought a new trailer, so he hopes to spend some time relaxing at that, ....but other than that, he’s just looking forward to not making that daily hour long commute to work every week day, that he’s been doing for over thirty years.

And he deserves the rest.

Happy Retirement, my darling!