Canadian Grunt
Truth be known I enjoy work. I know this may be heresy on this board but that’s Ok.
Billy and I have talked about this many times. We have always been producers. We loved working and still do. We love the challenge, the feeling of satisfaction of getting something done - which is why we do volunteer work now in our retirement. It’s a combination of feeling productive and giving back which is very rewarding. Plus we don’t really need or want much.
Talk about heresy, listen to this. You know how people talk down about
Wal*Mart greeters or grocery store baggers? They say things like ‘shoot me before I take a job like that….’ I’d love to have an incognito job like that - no one knowing who I am or what I have done in my life…. Service is a big thing for me, and jeeze, to actually get
paid for just saying hello to people in such a way that it makes their day, or to bag their groceries - cripes. Life couldn’t be easier. I do harder things now and don’t get paid a cent. And besides, who cares what some stranger thinks about me?
Having been retired almost 20 years now (retired at age 38 ) I’ve logged thousands and thousands of miles on an airplane, seen exotic hill tribe villages, lived years overseas, opened my perspectives about life and how I can live it, made new friends and learned lots of new skills. I would find it fascinating to bag people’s groceries and see how they’d treat me. Then I’d write a book about it or something.
Are you drawn to money and benefits over stimulating work, a better lifestyle, or work you would prefer to do?
Most of my working life I was self employed. Benefits? I had to pay for them myself… I did work for the State of California while going to college at night and they did give lots of benefits. I personally found the system of rewarding tenure over actual production to be confusing and spirit killing
, so I left to purchase our restaurant.
For you older retired folks, If you could go back would you have lived more and saved less even though you would have delayed retirement?
We’re 56 now(although I don't consider myself to be 'old'), and sometimes I refer to our retirement planning like being a banana squished out of its peel. We took 2 years to plan it, and then the two years were up. That was it. Pow! We were retired. People thought we were nuts. I wouldn’t change it though, so no is the answer to this question.
48 Fire
They will waste two hours of my time in a meeting just drilling me.
I don’t ‘do’ meetings if I can avoid them. When I run a meeting, I bring an egg timer. 3 minutes - then on to the next person. Any meeting I have gone to that is over an hour is about 50 minutes too long. I guess that’s why I don’t exactly fit well in the Corporate World…
Be well,
Akaisha
Author,
The Adventurer’s Guide to Early Retirement