A New Focus!

Are you ready for retirement? I've been sort of retired now for 4 years and have learned more about retirement than I ever thought possible. When I started this blog, my focus was getting ready for retirement and then progressing through retirement. I have to admit, it's been a blast! But now it's time to share with you what I've learned. The most important thing is don't retire at the same time the stock market is tanking! If you do choose to retire in a down market, plan on working at least part time...I've edited medical papers for non-English speaking authors, written and re-written web sites, written articles, sold a few photos and, of course, did a little healthcare consulting for the big bucks! Woody and I also worked in a gallery and high end gift store in Montana for 6 months when we thought we wanted a gallery of our own. Trust me, after two weeks we decided we didn't like retail and weren't too sure we liked people, especially tourists! We also tried the workamping life in our RV and spent a miserable six weeks checking people into an RV park in Florida! If you have an RV, there are tons of jobs that are fun...just be selective. We'll talk more about this in a later post!

So...while I'll still update you on our fun things, I'm going to sprinkle in some good advice too. The first piece of advice is related to financial planning...save all the money you can and be prepared to use principal since earning interest is not in your future and don't even think that the stock market is your friend. Or work part time! You'll be bored anyway if you don't have lots of hobbies or you're comfortable being a couch potato. You can only travel so much which is what everyone says they want to do when they retire! Just try to find jobs that are flexible and can travel with you. And sell all the stuff you've collected over the years on eBay since your kids are probably like our daughter who told us to quit bringing our crap to her! Oh well...one woman's treasures are another woman's crap!