Too Cozy To Write

Yesterday I edited about 5,000 words out of my novel (mostly by deleting many of the parts that I knew were too icky when I wrote them) and made some nice word choice improvements and just started rearranging the scenes into chronological order (which may not be the final order, but is a good place to start), in about two hours.

Then let's just say the house was cool, the bed was cozy, and I succumbed. No journal, no dishes, no hanging up laundry.

This morning I decided I have enough information to do the presentation I talked about on planning for retirement, so I'm going to submit a proposal. From what I can tell, all proposals are accepted.

Sharing the Fantasy

Today I mailed in my proposal to lead a session at the student services professional development day, so it probably really will happen. The theme is something about paving your own yellow brick road and one of the three sub-themes is "transitioning to retirement," which is something I think about a lot during my many fantasies.

Most of what I read about retirement is how no one could ever save enough money, even if they tried, which no one does, so I guess we'll never retire. And it's not like anyone would know what to do with themselves anyway, because who wants to rock on the porch all day, anyway? So we'll all work until we're too sick to work, but we won't be able to afford medical care, so then we'll lose all our assets trying to pay off the nursing home, and then we'll die. The end.

That's not a very good fantasy, though, is it? I plan to take a different approach.

So my plan for the first half of the session is to have people brainstorm goals for retirement in the areas of creative, intellectual, social, spiritual, and physical goals--everyone picks one subset and brainstorms with others within that one subset. Then a spokesperson shares some of the results of that with everyone else.

[I have too many goals of course. I want to keep having all the fun I'm currently having only moreso, plus do more hobbies, do some volunteer work, do more traveling, more reading, more exercise, some gardening, more cooking, etc.]

For the second half of the session I'll talk a little bit about ways to prepare. Of course I'll mention the "three-legged stool" of retirement, composed of pension, Social Security, and personal savings. (My employer actually still has pensions.) Then I'll talk about a few retirement investment vehicles for the personal savings: 403bs and 457s (like 401Ks for my type employer) and IRAs. Then I will continue the boring traditional advice by mentioning the three types of investment: stocks, bonds, and cash.

[I'm using pension, Social Security, a Roth IRA, and other (non-retirement) savings. I have some stock mutual funds, some plain stocks, and a few savings bonds (some I-bonds from back when the fixed percentage was 3% instead of the 1% it is now).]

But then I will talk about other investments. Like buying a house and getting it paid off, researching health problems you're prone to (genetically and based on your lifestyle) and working on improving your odds in that area, developing hobbies if you don't have any, building a social support system (church, friends, family), and my least favorite, keeping up job skills (and professional organization memberships). I'll also make a brief mention of real estate, REIT's, and the guns-and-canned-goods strategy (preparing for armageddon).

[I'm paying off a house, trying to eat more fiber, keeping an eye out for symptoms of diabetes and hypothyroidism--two family favorites, taking extra calcium--against osteoporosis--another family favorite, wearing sunscreen more often (since my skin tone--pink--is highly susceptible), thinking that I should get back to my ideal weight and blood pressure (at least they've stopped going up), learning funner job skills, and working on becoming publishable (with nonfiction articles). Of course maintaining friends and hobbies goes without saying.]

Feel free to share comments about your retirement fantasies and/or strategies.