Retirement?

I'm an ex full time maintenance man. Jack of all trades master of several. Best/favorite thing....put me on a Case 580L or pretty much any tractor w/ bucket and blade and I am a happy camper.

I am near done with school. Took my last Final today and Confidence Is High that I passed. I have one more class to make up and 40 hours of OJT and then on to the State exam which is in 2 parts. Pass ALL or fail. Hopefully this is my last career change as I'm on my way down Old Geezer Road and I'm just a bit tired. I figure I got 11 more years to work and then collect 100% SS.

I'm reentering the Health Care field. I was a medic when I was in the Service 35 years ago. The field I have trained for is expanding exponentially and for the first time in my life I believe I can make a good living. By that I mean pay my bills on time, buy the toys I want and even save $$$, start a new IRA and maybe even get Long Term Care Insurance. Only time will tell. I still have to pass my State Exams.

I've been working as a caregiver part time since 2009. I was getting suck wages, supplied my own grub and paid for my own gas while being expected to be a taxi for free. That will all soon end when I renegotiate my salary/bennies.

I am giving up the weed for now to concentrate on my studies. In the last 14 days I've had 2 beers and one hit off the pipe. My brain ain't all foggy like usual. My vocabulary and word usage is such I damn near sound like a rocket scientist!! I've been giving away my stash I have with me. Today I offered some of it to one of the guys in my class. Told me he wasn't interested....he wants to pass his next UA with clean urine. Imagine that!!

Confidence Is High!! HOOAAH!!:sunny:

 

What a cool concept!

 

Here's a cool retirement idea---there is a place in the Philippines just a few miles from Tagaytay on the highway to Batangas that is a... I forget what they called it, but a place where you can have a hobby as a farmer, or just retire. You buy a lot, real cheap---as it is the Philippines---and you can build a house on it, with the following restriction---you have to leave a certain percentage of the lot for farming, or even to just to grow wild. You can farm whatever you want (but they are strict about drugs---so none of that is allowed). But you could do bananas, or fruits or anything. You don't even have to work it, as there are tenant farmers that can work it for you, and you don't have to pay them, as they can take a portion of the produce in payment. If you want you can sell it at the market run by the subdivision.

You are about 45 miles or so out of Manila (and its pollution), and sit fairly high up on Tagaytay which is a giant old caldera. It has a big lake in its bottom and in the lake is what is referred to as the world's smallest volcano. It erupts from time to time but they are small eruptions that affect only the few fisherman that live on the island that makes up the volcano. Tagaytay is fairly high so you don't get the heat that you get down in Manila. There are casinos and Starbucks and restaurants with great views.

From this land, you have a great view of the ocean around Batangas and Cavite which is down below at sea level. And if you follow the highway (which is a two-lane road to us) down to the coast you have some excellent resorts in Anito that are off the beaten track. The snorkeling there is incredible and you can rent a boat and be taken out to some great diving spots. One of the main resorts is Vista Mar. But go 2-doors back from that and there is a great resort run by a friendly little old man. You can stay in a nipa hut right on the beach for about US$10 a night. (There is no airconditioner so wait a month of living in the Philippines before you try that so you'll become acclimated to the heat---then its great). Then when you snorkle---swim up the beach towards the other side of Vista Mar to see the most fish. But there's quite a few just in the water at the resort. By some fish, and charcoal, in the local market not far away, and barbecue it right on the beach. The old man can sell you ice cold San Miguel beer, or Coke for real cheap. He'll even sit and play chess or checkers with you, and he has great stories to tell if you have someone to translate his tagalog. His english is not that good.

Your neighbors at the subdivision will include a few wealthy people, and some Philippine movie stars. You could hire a maid for anywhere from $25 - 100/month and just give her a place to sleep, and she will cook, clean, even go to the market and shop for the food, etc. You won't have to lift a finger. (Just don't get a maid from a big city like Manila---they can be lazy, and even try to fool you or steal from you). The same goes for a driver, if you want one (You would never get me to drive in the Philippines---except within a subdivision).

There is one catch though---foreigner's cannot own real estate. So you'd need to either rent, or marry a Filipina (if you are a female, there would probably be a bigger cultural clash if you married a Filipino, than for a guy to marry a Filipina). Anyway---I thought it was a cool place----I just don't remember the name of it.

 

LOL Rent a Filipino.

 

Whoops--a Freudian slip---but you would have much more fun renting a 'Filipina.' And actually there are certain parts of Asia, such as Taiwan where you can rent a wife, who performs all the wifely duties, including in the bedroom, and she will even cry for you when you go back home, presumably to your real wife. They don't have that specific set-up in the Philippines, but you can certainly pay for female companionship and I am sure that you could work something out (Just don't sign any property to them).

While on the subject, there are many stories of maids in the Philippines who have relationships with the masters of the house. We knew of a number of cases personally. One wealthy real estate investor introduced his maid as his secretary, and she worked for him as a secretary, and a maid at home. This made it much easier for him to have a relationbship with while he was 'working' in his office and his wife was at home. On the other hand we knew a woman who had a very obvious relationship with her driver. The husband generally stayed home.

Being an American, many of our maid flirted with me, and made it clear that they would be happy to be more than a maid. But a Filipina can be very jealous and my wife probably would have cut off body parts I needed to be happy if I did anything, so I never encouraged anything.

We had one maid that was pretty, and seemed to like me but never really flirted with me. One time my wife had to fly to Japan for about a week to renew her Japanese residence visa, and I had to stay back home to take care of some business. After she left, the maid put on makeup, which I didn't notice until my stepdaughters pointed it out to me. She was pretty flirty the whole week, and one day we went to a nearb park with the kids and had a picnic. It was obvious, and I thought it funny, how she was pretending to be my wife. We set out a blanket, and watched the kids play, as if we were out for a nice family outing with the kids.

She was very nice though---she would flirt but I knew she wouldn't try to push anything (which would get me in trouble). I am sure she will make someone a very good wife. She wasn't stunning, but she was pretty...

And when she bathed me, she would always ask first before... -----I'M JOKING!!!! My wife never let the maids bathe me----dog gone it!!!

 

Twilight years, my ass! Speak for yourself, sonny! hahahahaha

 

Could be that some of us don't want to be retired....

 

The way this Government is CON-DEMing us, Retirement may come sooner than methinks
Still,
"Sell the House, Give away the possessions, and then maybe "Live the Dream" " perhaps - well one lives to hope

 

I tried that. I felt like I was to dependent on others. Always looking for the next opportunity. Being homeless is a hard road. One always needs a base. A place to come back to. A place to keep things. An address is needed in today's society. Figuring out how to own a property without being a slave to the bank and a full time worker. That's the hard part. That's the part where the banks have us by the balls.

 

I just saw a show' "Locked up Abroad" or something that was about a English guy and Philippine who were pregnant and busted for adultery. They have serious adultery laws there!

 

If that's how you guys want to do it----start reading the magazine, 'Cruising' and then learn how to sail. The magazine is chock full of advice, safety issues and so forth.

Then, when you sell your house and (sell) your possessions---buy a sailboat, at least 30 to 36 foot, and do what most everyone else that contributes to that magazine is doing---sail around the world. Or if you are afraid of a transatlantic or transpacific journey, sail around the carribean, or the mediteranean.

You won't have to worry about banks, the government, or working off debt. There are times when you will have to worry about hurricanes, and in some parts of the world you will have to worry about pirates, but you will be free and having adventure.

Probably not a good idea to have a heart attack, or a stroke, or go senile while between ports...

 

That sounds like a fine adventure

Not everyone is interested in sailing around the world, though. Some of us are quite happy and content to putter in our gardens, travel a bit, hike in the mountains, mentor kids, and write poetry

 

I like this version of retirement! I love to travel tho, often I get crazed urges to hit the road. But love to tinker in the garden, hike with the dog, drink a cold homemade beer, just be a hermit here on the farm with the nearest neighbor over half a mile away......

 

Actually I don't really want to sail around the world either. I might sail around the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound----maybe even go around the caribbean. To be truthful though, it is kind of a pain just to put the sails up for a day sail around Lake Dillon (here in Colorado). I've got a 26 foot sail boat, and I would probably putter around my garden before I would go sailing----even though I love to sail---I'm just too lazy to take the boat out.

I enjoy writing---generally nonfiction, and for the poetry----I get into these moods where I could spend hours and hours composing haiku, but not like the hokey English ones---in Japanese with the apropriate seasonal word that simultaneously ties it to nature, and time (as in the season). If I am composing haiku, I love to go hiking in the woods or wherever I can get away into nature.

As far as travelling----I have them travelling bones and I have to travel every so often. I am tired of the drama that comes with living in the Philippines, so I would never be able to settle and spend the whole year in that place in the Philippines I wrote of a few pages back---maybe 4 or 5 months out of the year with an additional month or two on the beaches.

But I would never be able to live too far from a good bookstore. And I would need a Starbucks nearby, or at least a good coffee shop---they would have to brew coffee at least as good as a Japanese coffee shop (Mmmmmmm I miss that coffee...). Starbucks doesn't quite do that---but I love their lattes and their frappes, and drink that in lieu of a great cup of coffee. I would preferably not have to deal with Coke and Pepsi that, depending on where you buy it, has turned stale from sitting for days in the hot tropical sun (another problem with the Philippines).

It would also be cool if part of the year I would be able to sit at a favorite restaurant that looks out over a harbor, where I could sit and feast on Blue Marlin steak and lazily watch the sunset over cargo ships coming and going and unloading their cargo. And that the Blue Marlin Steak is cheap enough, that I don't even think about ordering my third or fourth or fifth... (That is how I spent many an evening at The Aristocrat on Roxas Blvd overlooking Manila Bay---and the Blue Marlin Steaks were only about US$2.00 or so...). I could sit for hours and watch harbor lights at night, and electrical storms, and...

But I would also have to be able to get good steaks too. (Another problem with the Philippines...)

I love the tropics, but I love the fall, and I want to spend at least a little time in the snowy mountains. I guess I won't be able to just settle down somewhere...

 

Do you still work your farm? Do you have animals and things?

Just out of curiosity, is that big enough to sail to Hawaii?

 

Very true.

If there is one thing that this entire financial crisis has given us, it's opportunity. You can pick up land today for pennies! My son purchased 200 acres for 4K in Ohio. It's in the middle of nowhere but as he put it, that means he can make love to his wife out in the open.

So I'm saying that if this is in your hart, you have to go for it. When the land is cheap enough, you can buy it on a McDonalds job. And once you have land, people will start coming. And once you have people, you will have opportunity to do something that will make you self-sufficient.

 

Most people that sail more than a few miles out from shore prefer to take a 36 foot or bigger. I guess you can get tossed around more in anything smaller. However there are a number of people who have sailed around the world on a 26 footer.

In fact, it is a 26' MacGregor, and it is a pretty stable boat. I have heard of a fair number of people who have sailed to Hawaii on a 26' MacGregor.

 

I'm not really a boat kind of person, but that does sound like a cool adventure.

I guess you'd want to be really good friends with your shipmates, though

 

Or be really good at pushing people...