Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Does Anyone Know of a Shady Park Bench with WI-FI? Part One

The other day I tried out an AARP retirement calculator to see how much we should be saving.  (Of course, we aren't really saving much of anything, so I knew the number would be bad.)  I found out we only have to save nearly 1.3M to retire at age 67.  They said the alternative would be to wait and retire at 87.  I knew that Mark and I would never be able to retire, but confirming it was a bit depressing.  However, if we work hard and save around $19,000 a year, we could maybe semi-retire at a lower standard of living.

What they don't say is how much lower that standard would have to go.  I am willing to give up some things; the dream of a waterfront vacation condo, a Porsche, traveling the world, a sailboat that would stay at the condo, etc.  But, I get the impression we will need to go without the necessities of life such as cable, internet and eating out.  I've already given up shopping except for art supplies (gotta stock up while I can!), we haven't gone on a real vacation in years, we don't use credit cards hardly ever and I've even gone to raising my own eggs!  (Okay, that really isn't a break-even proposition, but it sounds good.  Mark has thousands of honey bees working their bee butts off, but we keep giving them back the honey to eat during Winter.  Out of thousands of pounds, we have harvested maybe a cup.)

So now what do we cut out?  I get my DVD movies mostly from the library or the $1 a day place.  I guess I could cut out my prescriptions, but that could kill me and defeat the purpose.  I borrow books from the library and only have a couple magazine subscriptions (one was free, the other $12.)  I don't even know why I need the WI-FI for my park bench because I don't have a laptop or Ipad.  I have a second-hand Nook in black and white that I like though that uses WI-FI.  On Fridays you can get a free book from Barnes & Nobles.  I could certainly cut out eating and lose a few pounds, but I could live longer (and that would also defeat the purpose!)

To be continued....

Take care,
Gale


7 comments:

  1. Cher sent me over and I am so glad she did. I love/hate this post. I am now depressed, but your writing is very entertaining. So I will now follow you because I cannot wait to hear the "to be continued"!

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  2. Thank you so much. Welcome! Hopefully, I will post more entertaining than crappy or at least make the crappy entertaining...

    Warmest regards,
    Gale

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  3. Barnes and Noble has Free Book Fridays!? Now, that you made me feel too guilty to spend any more money on books, I may have to take advantage of free reading material. ;) (Love this post, I'm at that age, too.)

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  4. Yep, when you power up your Nook on Fridays and select Shop, there will be specials at the bottom of the screen. Of course, they pick the book of the week, but often it's not too bad! There are also supposedly hundreds of free books on their permanent list, but you have to slog through to find them!

    Sorry to depress you...guess we have to laugh or we will cry!!!

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  5. I lost about half my in the crash and this year I haven't worked for 8 months, due to surgeries. I will never retire.

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  6. Most of us are in the same boat. That would normally be comforting, but in this case, the boat is the Titanic...

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