Some days you can stack benefits one on top of the other.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Real simple - I went to one of those "I can show you how to secure your money" type of seminars.  I have to say it wasn't the worst thing ever, but the woman did downplay some of the downsides of what she was promoting.  Realizing this is one of the upsides/downsides of being financially literate.

And the product was... "Fixed Index Annuities".  I won't go into the pros & cons of them, you can easily do a quick search and find out the details.  I think I was sitting at the "sofisticated investor" table as while other tables seemed to be mostly enthusiastic about this idea, we could see the downside to them.  Hopefully I came up with the most balanced response as we discussed this: "If you are an unsofisticated investor without tons of money this may not be a bad idea.  If you are less than 55 y.o., or have a pension, or have over say $250,000 these are probably not a great idea."  To the presentor's credit she did say variable annuities are bad, so at least she knows will say that much.

EDIT: I did some searching on Bogleheads forums on these products.  They bring up worse issues than we could see during this sales pitch.  Also, the woman wouldn't answer questions during the presentation (OK I suppose), but would only answer afterwards.  One thing however, we started food right away so she would only answer questions a table at a time.  You don't want a large group of people to hear various issues with your product when you can keep it limited to a small number of skeptics.  Right????😇

Anyway, so what was the triple win?  I was able to get out and learn about this financial product, I got a great meal out of it (everyone at our table thought the food was good - maybe not super great, but much better than expected), and I had my car charging for free just outside.  The presentation & meal took so long I was able to get 95 miles of charge, just in time for me to drive out of town to Florida this Saturday.  They even gave us boxes so we could take home any extra food, which we all did.

Now comes next week... do they offer me another time share presentation at my mother's timeshare?  Last year I didn't get any good offer so I passed on it.  I was sad as the prior three years I was able to get a free timeshare week in Florida.  So is a freebee week on the horizon for me or will I be disappointed again?  Only the shadow knows.

Last time I wrote on my finances from the past few years and of today, but now its time to go personal (if only for myself to write it all out for myself). 

So, start with the good or with the bad?   Hmmmmm.....

Get the bad out of the way?  **SIGH** Ok, lets do it.   (NOTE: If you don't want to hear the whining, just drop down a few paragraphs to the heading of GOOD THINGS IN RETIREMENT)

Well its my relationship with the GF.  Don't know how much detail is good to discuss about it, but... yeah, it has gone downhill (lots).  I knew shortly before she moved in things were starting to spiral down but I kept telling myself this would pass, that it could be worked out.  Of course I said that in my prior marriage, and yeah... that didn't really happen.  And so it played out here as well.  We've kept things going, but really it has been, at least in my mind, a failed situation.  I think we are really suited to having a long distance relationship at best.  You know, I can take her in small doses at best.  Its a shame, but that's how its played out.  I would love to go into details, but its for the best if I stop here.

Another bad thing is I am getting older.  Yeah, not too old, and I do work out to keep in shape, and I certainly am in good shape for my age and all, but time marches on and little things are creeping up on me.  I don't sleep as well as I did, though I think I still sleep enough.  I heard of people sleeping less as they get older, now I am seeing it first hand.  Naps are my friends.  I never had headaches, yet now they are fairly common.  I think it is due to eye strain, even with the glasses I have.

*** GOOD THINGS IN RETIREMENT ***

So what have been the good things you have found in retirement?  (from least to favorite)

I now have time to do chores about the house with no rush.  "Don't want to do it now?  No problem, do it when the urge strikes."  And it usually does at some point.  I hate sitting about too much, so usually after a bit I will get annoyed with something and then up I go and deal with it.  No more rushing to get things done on the weekends.  Now weekends are very relaxed.  With this I have been slowly fixing up my house (probably too slowly, but whatevah).  I will fix it up faster as my money starts flowing in again.  I have been doing more on outside things like removing old trees. And getting free mulch and dirt to fill in various holes.  Yes, the yard does look better.

Travelling during less busy traffic times is great, especially in the DC suburbs.  Also I can get out of town and only have short tie ups instead of hours stuck in traffic leaving town. 

With the free time I have picked up a new "job".  Well, not much of one, in fact I have only worked three times.  I have been an election officer.  I figured I would give it a try as they are always posting for new people to work this job.  And now I know why!  Yes, it pays nice for a day of work, but oooooh boy, is it a long day!  I get up just after 4:00 AM, show up at 5:00, the polls open at 6:00 and only close at 6:00 PM.  And then there is closing up which takes hours.  So far I have gotten home after 9:00 each time.  So a 16 hour day.  For what you get paid it is less than minimum wage, but it is easy (and mostly boring) to be honest.  Just take along a book and enjoy the mostly free time.

With my electric car I have fueling the car up for free.  There are nearby free charging locations and with my limited driving my needs are easily filled with these chargers.  With a Tesla I can park, charge, and watch a variety of streaming services on the large tablet dashboard in the car - I usually watch YouTube videos.  These can be entertaining, instructive, or just interesting.  I might watch them at home anyway, so since I can watch them and fuel my car at the same time, why not?  In fact I am typing this up while the car is charging.

Do I go out for the "senior specials"?  Not really, but I can (and do) take advantage of the freedom to make my own specials.  My favorite is determining the time at nearby grocery stores when the markdowns on perishables are made.  I can go there at those times and see what has been marked down and get fresh items cheap (as long as I will use them of course).  The stores are only a mile or two away, so its not a long trip.

And the best for last.  I have been doing major travel trips with my mother (well that's something I never thought I would say a decade ago!).  Yep, this has been crazy, but a good crazy.  As our relationship has improved over the last decade, I was hearing about her trips to Europe in the past years (she started a few years after the second husband died).  She (with a local friend) did one of those all-inclusive trips you see advertised and during that they struck up a friendship with other travelers.  Turned out one of them likes to arrange her own European trips but that only made sense financially with small groups (not by herself).  Well my mother started doing trips with her instead of these all-inclusive trips.

All this to say two months before my end date at work I went on a ten day trip to Italy with my mother and two other women from the other side of the USA.  That was an amazing trip.  From Venice to Florence to Rome and finally to Napoli (Naples).  We did such things as stayed in very old small hotel right on the grand canal, rode the water buses with the natives in Venice, saw where the Merchant of Venice was based on, saw lots of statues throughout Florence, went to an opera in a church built in the 1500s, took a gelato and pizza class on a local farm, went to where the horses are raced in Sienna, went through the Vatican, stayed a block from the Pantheon where we walked to the Trivoli fountain, the Pantheon, the Forum and Colloseum, I got lost in Rome (literally - I was trying to walk and meet the others at a restaurant and arrived two hours late! I was soooo tired that night!), stayed in a hotel (in Sorrento) overlooking the Mediterranean and Mount Vesuvius, and had a private boat tour of the Amalfi coast (stopping in Amalfi and Portofino).  We even hired private drivers to take us between each city.  Wow, writing it all out really makes it sound great. 

Almost a year later this past March we went on another trip, this time a cross country drive going from Pennsylvania to Arizona.  My Tesla made it a relatively easy trip as it can do most of the driving for me especially on the highways.  This was great way to see so many parts of the country.  We were able to stay with a friend of my mother's in Arizona for a month, so it was relaxing there.  While there I went to the Antelope Canyon, Grand Canyon, Kitt Peak Observatory, Lake Powell, Tombstone, and spent some time in Phoenix, Tuscon, and Williams.  Some days driving in Arizona we would see a 50 degree temperature change from the start of the day's travels to the end of the day. We saw tons of Cacti and she loved to see them everywhere.  We got caught in an unexpected blizzard in Flagstaff (oh yeah, it will be just a small amount of snow.  Suuuuuuuure...).   On our way back east we drove through a national forest that included what I believe is called the Upper Rim.  It felt like I was driving up the side of a moutain (just like my drive up to Kitt Peak to be honest), but at the top it was a level plain thousands of feet higher than before.  On the trip back we stopped at places along Route 66, then in Tennesse we were a few days in Gatlingburg in a motel room that was right over a creek that goes through town.  It even had a fireplace in the room.  From there on the way back at one point we got stuck on a back mountain single lane road in West Virginia for an hour (it was due to the main road being closed for electrical wire work and someone towing a massive boat ahead of us got stuck!), and then we made our way to Shanksville to the memorial there.  The day at Shanksville was our only bad weather day on our drive out or back, and it sort of fit the somber mood of the memorial honestly.  In all, it was an amazing trip.

Now my mother and I are scheduled to go back with the same group to Rome, Germany and France for two weeks in October.  Once back I have to get ready for my yearly trip to Florida in November.  And now, in the past week we (my mother and I) have scheduled another trip (for next Spring) with the same group to Europe, this time on one of those Viking river cruises you see advertised.  This is to go on the Danube from Hungary ending in Germany.  I think my calendar is booked up for now.  Hopefully I can keep up.

Not sure what I expected to happen when I retired, but these trips are sure not it.  I mean, I did talk about a cross country drive, so there is that.  But I used to say I was not a traveler, yet here I am going to a crazy amount of places.  I guess there are worse things in the world, right? 

Well its been nice knowing 'ya.  

A long time ago in a galaxy... ok, I gotta stop that.  Anywho, it's been 2007 since I started a little experiment.  I would work out how to do without paying for the local trash pickup, and I would invest the money.  This would be my incentive to cut back on my trash.   To do this I started a DRIP (Direct ReInvestment Program) online.  I invested in a stable stock, and put in originally $25/mo. as this was close to the monthly trash charge.  I upped it after a few years to $40 and left it there ever since.   Well with my efforts to clean up my finances this year, along with my finances being tight as I put so much into my 457 plan + pension + HSA + taxes + insurance (yikes!), I am taking home only 15% of my gross pay right now.  Any little bit will help and so I have decided to stop monthly investments in this stock.  I'm sure its for the best as tracking all these investments if I should ever decide to sell will be ... lets just say "a challenge".  

So to get two benefits, I stop the investments and save myself tracking and get a little extra cash.  Yep, not a bad idea.