Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2007 13:55:24 GMT -5
What does the term 'retired' mean to you? How long, roughly, until you get there, and what do you think it'll be like to be a retired person?
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Jay
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Post by Jay on Apr 15, 2007 14:08:50 GMT -5
Retired means not working any more. Hmmm, while it'd be nice to retire early......it won't happen for a long time, if ever, heh Social security will be long gone by the time I reach retirement age as well, so that won't help. If I could retire now, I'd be mad happy!
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Post by bignana on Apr 15, 2007 15:03:05 GMT -5
I just retired last July. Retirement to means I work harder and longer hours. I have been so busy since I retired, I don't know when I found time to work when I still did. But I do like the hours. I get up when I want to and go to bed when I want to. No set hours. It also seems like I have done more and have more. I am just 57, so I guess that makes me an early retiree. ;D
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Post by frayne56 on Apr 15, 2007 15:40:50 GMT -5
Retired to me, means not working, no alarm clocks, no office politics/BS, doing what you want, your time is your own.
Been retired two years; I golf, ride my bike, take classes, read, goof off, procrastinate, travel, enjoy life.
Retirement, much like any other life endeavor is what you make of it.
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Post by augie47 on Apr 15, 2007 17:07:58 GMT -5
followed dreams and jousted windmills most my life...never figured I'd retire...worked two jobs last 5 years..boss at prime job decided it was retirement time ( :-) )...enjoyed for 11 days then took a hard look at my health insurance/meds situation and doubled my efforts at my part time job to cover those costs....... one word of advice !!! if you ever hope to retire , anchor in some type of health insurance NOW!
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Post by daworm on Apr 15, 2007 18:35:05 GMT -5
Retirement to me means no longer having to work, but I probably still will, simply because I'm the type that must always be doing something. But what I'll be doing will be up to me, and will be something I'm interested in. I don't expect to reach that until I'm in my late 60's, though.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 15, 2007 19:05:56 GMT -5
I qualify for retirement in a little over 6 years. That'd be thirty years and I would be 51ish. It will be 47% of an average of my 5 highest salaried years.
As it stands now, my medical/dental will cost me the same as it does now (@ $10.00 per month) until Medicare kicks in.
I definitely don't plan to wear, "The bag" after I retire. I have received copious amount of training and experience (Thank you taxpayers!) that I can utilize to teach and work private crashes. That should keep food on the table, the house tab paid and beer in the fridge.
Me, and a great friend I worked with for many years, planned to buy a shrimp boat when we retired. Move to the South Georgia Coast, hire two or three 20-something co-eds bikini clad (Female) deck hands, and pull nets for a living. We planned to "look at the menu" all day, but we wouldn't "order" anything as we are both happily married!
We also planned to hire a Captain (Similarly attired) because I think they frown on SUI (Shrimping While Intoxicated). We would rent a little shack and make "Low Country Boil" to sell to the tourists.
We had it all worked out!
He went and ran for High Sheriff and won, so maybe the shrimping think may not work out.
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Milk
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Post by Milk on Apr 15, 2007 22:50:56 GMT -5
I have "retired" from the acting career to raise my daughter. I went to an insurance job. If there's one thing I've learned from this job it's this:
Insurance is where you go when your dreams die.
As far as actual "retirement," it's when you either cannot work anymore or don't have to.
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ScarlettP
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Post by ScarlettP on Apr 16, 2007 5:31:14 GMT -5
Family owned and opperated small businesses don't allow you to retire. Ask my dad. He's working the front of the store at 75. Of course, he has a big recliner behind the make up counter where he sleeps whenever there are no customers... so it's sort of like being at home and having lots of 'company' to talk to.
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whimdriven
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Post by whimdriven on Apr 16, 2007 6:52:06 GMT -5
Heh. Or where your dreams go to flourish, depending on the person ... However, you said you were an actor ... Just go into sales ... The money is good and you can certainly use your acting skills
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ScarlettP
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Post by ScarlettP on Apr 16, 2007 7:49:09 GMT -5
LOL! Act like you actually believe in your product!
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Milk
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Post by Milk on Apr 16, 2007 13:52:20 GMT -5
Heh. Or where your dreams go to flourish, depending on the person ... However, you said you were an actor ... Just go into sales ... The money is good and you can certainly use your acting skills I know of no one who, when growing up, said to themselves, "I think I want to be an insurance claims payer when I get older!" Exceptions abound, I am sure, but I can only speak from personal experience. I hate sales more than I hate being a desk jockey. It's all the "talking on the phone" and "dealing with other people" that I dislike. My psychoses will not suffer that role. I'm thinking of coming out of "retirement" to try voice over work, but I have to find an inexpensive manner of recording a professional-quality CD. One day, maybe.
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whimdriven
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Post by whimdriven on Apr 16, 2007 13:57:26 GMT -5
Ah, the key to a fulfilling insurance career: go technical ... either underwriting, actuarial, accounting/finance ... anything but paying claims.
Luckily, I have not been subjected to that ... Insurance is my life's work, and I adore it ... I am sincerely sorry if you're paying claims. And, I would agree about the "go to die" statement if that's the case.
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Jay
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Post by Jay on Apr 16, 2007 19:18:19 GMT -5
So, do you guys at least get discounts on insurance?.. Make it a little bit more worthwhile..at least
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Milk
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Post by Milk on Apr 16, 2007 20:11:42 GMT -5
So, do you guys at least get discounts on insurance?.. Make it a little bit more worthwhile..at least Yeah, right. You would think so, wouldn't you. But no. Let's just say that there are few of us in my position that feel our insurance is worth the money we pay for it. If you have a lot of time and a lot of alcohol one day I'll try to explain it. It makes HMOs look like a "Dick and Jane" book.
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Post by Justin Thyme on Apr 16, 2007 20:17:32 GMT -5
Ah, the key to a fulfilling insurance career: go technical ... either underwriting, actuarial, accounting/finance ... anything but paying claims. My wife is a property and casualty claims adjuster. She seems to think her actual job is very interesting and she thrives on it. However, the BS that comes with working in a corporate environemtn drives her crazy.
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Milk
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Post by Milk on Apr 16, 2007 20:26:59 GMT -5
The job itself really isn't that bad, but the Corporate Environment, the slow, soul-stealing immorality of what I hear from day to day from co-workers and bosses (of which I have several) just eats away at me. The apathy and willful ignorance of 90% of the people at my job is appalling.
In reality, I am grateful to have a job that does not involve direct public contact and/or hard labor. It beats digging ditches. It beats fast food. It beats telemarketing. It is a good paycheck. And that's the choice I made. I know I sound whiny, and I don't really mean to come across that way; I just never envisioned myself doing this when I was young.
After today, though, I really am hoping to get that VO CD made and out to agents before August. I'll be praying.
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snarkalicious
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Post by snarkalicious on Apr 16, 2007 21:14:08 GMT -5
>>>I know of no one who, when growing up, said to themselves, "I think I want to be an insurance claims payer when I get older!"
Well, I certainly never said that-and yet, here I am, sitting in cubicle-world every day with my head swimming in CPT-4 codes.
On the other hand, I am no longer on my feet for 13 straight hours, cleaning up various body fluids and being exposed to exotic, drug-resistant diseases. So I'll keep on...
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 22:10:26 GMT -5
I knew I was weird.
I am doing exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up.
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Dreamwebber
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Post by Dreamwebber on Apr 16, 2007 23:08:57 GMT -5
Since I married for love and not for money........I will be working until the day I die....no retirement for me lol
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Longshot! [ Saint ]
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Post by Longshot! [ Saint ] on Apr 17, 2007 10:00:55 GMT -5
It's a funny word to me, because the military allowed my dad to retire at 42 (he was forced to actually--he had seven years left but family matters took precedent) but he has been retired now for four years longer than he worked there and only just THIS year did I finally pass him in take home pay...after 13 years with Chattanooga. I have another friend I graduated with that went in and stayed enlisted, and he'll be retiring at 38 with full medical and a decent check. I always wanted to be a fireman, so natually I'm a cop, and we have a retirement too...so it's always been a realistic, tangible thing for me...but not so much for anyone outside of military/fire/police/& rail road service, and I wasn't aware of that until I grew up. (Last year or so.)
My time isn't up until 2021, but I'll be barely 50 years old and my plan is to stay longer if I wish, but retirement is working for Pleasure, not Necessity. I'm working very hard As We Type to make it that way; God knows there'll be a pitfal or eight along the way, but I'm paying heavy now to pay nothing later.
I want to re-grow my stomach lining, and teach myself not to hate every living breathing thing for being a potential threat or deviant. I want to have more than, say, two 'Friends'. I want to live somewhere that I don't see a crime scene from the past super-imposed. I'd like to get active in politics. I'd like to live in a place that smells like the places I grew up, with the salt-air of the sea. I want to find a place for Brown to live after I pass on, because she will be devastated by losing her Daddy to old age. I want to find a fireman who's not a pervert and a homo. I want to do all those things I cannot do now, and to do it at my convenience...and that is Retirement to me.
I wish to take the Long Walk into the Blasted Lands, where I may bring Law to the Lawless.
____
Milk brings up a point I found a while back in my life; I was looking down at a guy a few years ago, perhaps 100, hands on knees, and saying "I bet when you woke up this morning you didn't think you'd end up with a bullet in your gut today, did you partner?" I laughed, but as I stepped over him (to make way for medics, or a bird or something) I paused to reflect on that. I myself didn't think a few years ago that I'd be standing over a man who was shot for his failure to properly rob someone at knifepoint and condescending him for his poor choice in professions.
I carry this over most heavily into relationships--personal, romantic ones, or even family ones. It came up in just the last week; I explained to someone that the conflict they were feeling--the confusion in particular--stemmed from the very basic fact that 'This wasn't how things were supposed to work out', the pre-conceived notions we hold about getting married in a church, the white picket fence, the 2.3 kids and the family dog, leaving for work with a smile, a wave and a briefcase...it's because Life Happens.
I found myself adrift one day, marriage breaking apart like a meteor in a hot atmospheric burn, my kid living half way across the country, and quite frankly curious about where I was going to sleep that night--the first time it hit me. 'This wasn't the way I envisioned things', I thought. I was single with a full time job and a homeowner at 21 one minute, and the next I was driving on S. Access Rd towards the Dam at around 5:00pm on a clear, sunny Sunday with a pillow, gunbelt and radio charger in a box next to me losing my kid and my marriage certificate. But Life Happened, and it lead to the one I am living now--one I wouldn't trade for all the freshly ground coffee in Guatemala with a new house, a new job I consider the most imporant in 'The World', a new wife, great dog, and a tighter relationship with the same kid. May all go to hell in a handbasket tomorrow, but at least this time I'm wearing a catchers mit and better prepared for it.
We take jobs we don't want, we meet people we don't like, and we pay bills we didn't expect, and we get news so aweful we can barely wrap our brains around it...but those are just the things on the outside. Blips on the radar that makes us who we are by the way we adapt to them, for better or for worse. I believe that is what life is: Not what we plan or preconceive, but how we adapt to the cards we are randomly dealt. Some let themselves get knocked off the path, others are forced from it...but it's how we recover that makes the difference.
We can stick to a pretty basic guidline of what we would like, adapt to what we don't want, and find happiness in between...but we sure can't alter the unexpected, and occasionally, we get lucky and do what we enjoy. We just may not realize for a bit that the parts we enjoy are the ones we take for granted. (This won't make sense to everybody, but some will get it; Crash and his job, Milk and his beautiful family, me and my Dog...)
The beauty is there. The template we'd hoped for to guarentee it simply isn't, and we do the best we can. Because there is no 'Normal', there is no 'Expected', and there SURE as hell isn't any 'Deserve'...but there are good compromises if we can un-learn the preconceived notions of what 'perfect' is, and enjoy life for what it is. Truly a journey with few destinations.
(*I even figured out the bit about the Firemen. Perverts and Homo's...but that's why there are Policemen for them to have as heroes. See?)
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