Anyone Living Plan B?

[GravitySucks]

When I retired 5 years ago the plan was to sell the house and get a double wide in a 55+ in a LCOL area and a resort type summer trailer place on a lake after year 1. The market was nicer to me than I expected and DD2 decided to go to Cosmetology school so I kept living here with her. Now DM needs help getting to Doctor appointments and what not so I'll be staying here even longer.

So it seems I'm living a Plan B, though the original Plan B and Plan A would be less expensive.

No complaints. I like my little village life. Top notch NCAA basketball, AHL Hockey, triple A baseball lots of Live music for free or low cost. Great Lakes and Finger Lakes less than an hour away. I get out during the worst of the winters and me and the dog like the cold weather in short doses, so really the only down side is my high property and income tax bills.

Any body else living a Plan B type retirement, or not what was planned?

 

[NYEXPAT]

When life gives you "Lemons", add Vodka put in the freezer and make "Limoncello"!

 

[MichaelB]

Any body else living a Plan B type retirement, or not what was planned?

We are. Our Plan "A" was to retire in Venezuela, where we lived for most of our married life. We had an extensive social network, volunteer activities, lots of family and friends, and our retirement home. That plan went down the toilet, and we were fortunate to get out and go to Plan B as easily as we did.

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men. Gang aft agley

 

[imoldernu]

What we did...
Kind of a mix that would have worked out ok if we had parents in the town where we were living.
We sold our house in 1989 and moved into Woodhaven Lakes Campground, living on a lake for a total cost of $50K for the trailer and $2000/yr for water sewer and electricity and taxes. Less than an hour from my original home in Lisle Il. Easy trip back and forth if necessary. It's a Campground where you own your camper and land and is a year round park.
After two years we split our time between Woodhaven and Florida as snowbirds, and finally bought our CCRC house here in Peru, Il in 2004.

Though that was a long time ago the total cost to maintain the same as it was in 1989 is only about $75K for the trailer (on the lake, like mine) or as low as $5000 and about $3000 for the rest of the costs.
We still own it.

Life in the campground was totally delightful, with great neighbors and much, much activity.

 

[Red Badger]

Plan B - light.

As my retirement date approached, we planned to buy a new or late model motorhome and travel the USA. I came very close to buying one and made an offer that was not accepted.

Driving home, I reflected on the very few times DW went camping when we had a towed RV years ago. I hate campgrounds, so would be inclined to dry camp at BLM, national parks, Wal-Mart, etc. She would never dry camp at wally world and would hate the remoteness of the BLM sites. Alas, I realized that I just dodged a bullet. Had my offer been accepted, one of would likely be unhappy wherever the RV ended up for the night. That would swiftly lead to loner camping by me (followed by an RV fire sale).

So, no RV. But that same bucket of money is in our fully funded travel budget. Lots of flights, hotels, Airbnb's, etc. I'm very satisfied with B-light.

 

[Dtail]

Just retired last year, so still on Plan A.
I love the topic and look forward to the additional responses.

 

[Car-Guy]

I do have (and have had) a plan A & B. I'm still on plan A (preferred) after ~7+ years of retirement but I will move to plan B if my total NW ever drops to a predetermined level. I'm not planning to ever need to move to plan B but "stuff" does happen sometimes.


Until then, see the "blow that dough" thread.


http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/blow-that-dough-2018-a-90646.html

 

[Walt34]

Sort of a "Plan B". We had originally intended to both get either full time or part time jobs, then discovered that virtually all part time jobs paid minimum wage. Yuck, not doing that. Both of us had thought that it would be easy for DW to get a federal job with all the federal agencies around (thanks to the late Senator Robert Byrd) and her prior excellent ratings but that never happened. She did interview for several but it seemed they'd already picked someone and were just going through the required motions. I did stumble into a nearby low stress full time job that paid almost as much as I was paid before retiring so I took that for about five years before the situation was going to rapidly deteriorate so I quit.

Meanwhile, DW's father began having increasing age-related issues and DW was grateful to not have a job so she could spend more time dealing with that stuff. It became almost a full time job for her, especially during selling the house and looking after him in the nursing home.

So I suppose that could be called "Plan B". Certainly not what we had planned on but that's the way it worked out.

 

[GravitySucks]

When life gives you "Lemons", add Vodka put in the freezer and make "Limoncello"!

Again, not a lament. The markets did so well I easily paid off the mortgage and though taxes are high they drop a bit starting this year. Being near to help Mom is a pleasure compared to worrying about her.
I didn't get the summer place, but I hit a different place every winter and travel the U.S. With the Doggo.
If I didn't have the dog, I might look at your lifestyle once mom passes.

I'll pass on the Lemoncello in favor of watching the Bills beat up those cheating Patriots at the Village bar with my buddies and some good IPA this evening.

 

[W2R]

Plan A: Move to Springfield, Missouri, to get away from what Hurricane Katrina had done to New Orleans. Visited Springfield many times but couldn't move until after we retired, in 2009.

Plan B: Staying here, which is what we ended up doing. By 2009, the city was better (or else we had gotten used to it). Anyway, we're still in New Orleans.

Let's hear it for Plan B!

 

[GravitySucks]

What we did...
Kind of a mix that would have worked out ok if we had parents in the town where we were living.
We sold our house in 1989 and moved into Woodhaven Lakes Campground, living on a lake for a total cost of $50K for the trailer and $2000/yr for water sewer and electricity and taxes. Less than an hour from my original home in Lisle Il. Easy trip back and forth if necessary. It's a Campground where you own your camper and land and is a year round park.
After two years we split our time between Woodhaven and Florida as snowbirds, and finally bought our CCRC house here in Peru, Il in 2004.

Though that was a long time ago the total cost to maintain the same as it was in 1989 is only about $75K for the trailer (on the lake, like mine) or as low as $5000 and about $3000 for the rest of the costs.
We still own it.

Life in the campground was totally delightful, with great neighbors and much, much activity.

Your long living post was one of the first i found on this forum and it was a comfort to see my plan was valid. I may still do it if the money runs down and some of the responsibilities drop off.
Guess Plan A is the new Plan B, or maybe Plan C

 

[Bestwifeever]

We didn’t really have a plan other than being relatively sure we wouldn’t be pinching pennies to make ends meet once the W2s stopped. So maybe that was plan A. We never planned to move or change our lifestyle.

 

[Sue J]

DHs plan was to work until 30 years of service at age 58.

At age 55 and just under 27 years of service they decided they didn't need him anymore. His reduced pension was enough to cover our monthly living expenses and his 8 years of COLA has now added enough to more than cover our current costs.

It's worked out very nicely. I have 14 months until Medicare, he has 17 months and then we can get past the problem of health insurance.

 

[FIREd]

Yep, on plan B.

Wife asked for a divorce 3 years into FIRE. I did not see it coming. We had a good life - a comfortable retirement income in a lower than average cost of living area of the U.S. that we both liked - but plan A was suddenly blown to bits.

After the divorce, our individual standard of living is not as plush as it used to be. The ex decided to go back to work. And I decided to stick with FIRE and make it work by going to plan B. Not what I had anticipated, but it should be good nonetheless.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I don't think anyone ever actually achieves their original Plan A, I think they just eventually rename Plan B (and often C, and D, and E, and F, and G....) "Plan A".

 

[spncity]

Plans A, B, and C were to get back to Colorado starting ten years ago. The first couple of tries were only testing the waters. A job interview once. Visiting and looking at real estate. Only the last try was completely serious. All we needed was an offer on the house and we were gone, baby, gone.

Surprise - grandchild came along!

Can you say Plan D...?!

Maybe we'll spend some time in Colorado here and there.

 

[MichaelB]

I don't think anyone ever actually achieves their original Plan A, I think they just eventually rename Plan B (and often C, and D, and E, and F, and G....) "Plan A".

Reading the thread responses shows that in many cases, sh!t does happen and people need to rethink and rebuild.

 

[HadEnuff]

I think if I rewind my life far enough back, I'm probably on Plan P or Q...or I may have run out of letters....I think I went to Roman Numerals after that...

Plan X! yeah...that's it...Plan X.

 

[candrew]

Plan B'ers

DW & I are plan B'ers.

Plan A: Build a small home in Fiji where we own a lot on an outer island. In early 2016, two weeks away from putting our home on the market here in the states, a Cat 5 cyclone by the name of Winston barreled through the island chain. Winston was the strongest cyclone to hit the Southern Hemisphere in recorded history with winds topping 170 mph and a storm surge of almost 30 feet. It leveled nearly everything on our future homestead location. Friends of ours who lost their homes are still struggling to rebuild. We back-burnered Plan A indefinitely.

Plan B: We retired on the same timeline and have been slow traveling about the world for the past 2 years. No regrets at all. In fact, Winston did us a huge favor. We've had amazing experiences and made new friends in our travels that would have not happened had we been on Plan A.

Will we ever revert back to Plan A? Quien sabe? For now, we depart in December for a 5 month sojourn that will take us to New Zealand, then Morocco, and then on to Italy. Beyond that, it's parts unknown and an uncertain return date.

 

[Katsmeow]

Plan D?

Plan A - DH and I to retire at the same time and to remodel a small older home we had bought.

Plan B - I was offered the ability to work very part-time for my existing employer (one day a week) and the house remodel turned out not to work

Plan C - Buy a forever house in a neighboring county

Plan D - Realize that house only really worked while we had kids at home and we wanted to be closer to amenities; moved 250 miles away to the area where I grew up (and never would have thought I would ever go back to) - so far so good....

 

[Bamaman]

Plan A was to downsize our big Atlanta area home and move to Ultra LCOL NW Alabama to a slightly smaller but much less expensive house. We already had our inherited lake house across town.

Plan B was when the wife got ants in her pants for a really big house bought really right as a foreclosure. We sold our other house 10 months later for top dollar. We also have a fifth wheel trailer in the NW Georgia mountains.

Now we find ourselves permanently raising a 7 year granddaughter, and she's in a private school. While we do take one international trip yearly, from here on out Brynley's going to be going with us. And we don't get to our RV as often as we would like due to school functions. We just pray for good long term health for us.

 

[Independent]

I'm working toward Plan B.

Plan A was lots of travel and some modest "blow the dough" spending. A car upgrade, and maybe even a house upgrade.

Then, my wife got breast cancer soon after I retired. That was a 1 1/2 delay (yep, 9 years later she is doing fine). By then, the wheels were coming off in two of our kids lives. I've spent a lot of time with one due to a disabled grandson. And, a lot of money with another due to a disabled son. I never imagined either of those.

Plan B was to live quietly, ageing in place, spending time in low cost activities like the library, gardening, local bicycling, and the local gym. That is happening.
Fortunately, the internet is even better than the local library. And, I've spent more time with the other grandsons than I would have in Plan A, that's a plus.

 

[RobbieB]

Since I had no plan, I guess I'm still on plan A? I mean if you have no plan...

Must be the first plan that doesn't exist eh? Maybe. One can only hope.

 

[FUEGO]

Doing Plan A more or less. Except we added a ton more travel into our plans. Turns out it doesn't cost that much more to travel for 2 months each summer vs. stay at home and consume utilities, groceries, entertainment expenses, etc.

5 years ago (before retirement), I wouldn't have predicted we would be traveling this much. But that was when our kids were still really young (age 1, 7, and 8) and travel was a lot harder. As they have aged the traveling suddenly got a lot easier and more enjoyable. Go figure...

Financially we're doing way better than Plan A ever anticipated. The portfolio is up close to 50% from when I quit working. And I started a blog plus very very part time consulting biz that has generated enough income to cover a big part of our routine expenses without a lot of work on my part.

Plan B involved some form of expense cutting, part time work, or doing something creative for health insurance. Plan C was to move to a less desirable country to lower costs (and get access to health insurance if it was no longer feasible in the US). Fortunately none of that has been necessary.

 

[Souschef]

After my wife died, I was sort of on autopilot. I took a couple of trips to places she had no desire to go. I was still w*king, as I had no other way to fill the days.
After my last trip alone, I wrote the following at the end of my trip story: [FONT=&quot]At this point my life is at a crossroads. I have no idea when my next trip is or where it will be to. Time will tell[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]When I came back from that trip, I said I had no idea where I would be going next, but I did not want to be traveling alone again. Well, life is funny that way, because I met a wonderful lady named KL, who is a widow and has sons about the same age as mine.She became my Plan A and we will celebrating our 11th anniversary next week. [/FONT][/FONT]