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Monday, September 21, 2015

Those who say no



Sunday I was reading the newspaper -yeah an actual dead tree edition. I'm staying at my dad's and they still get such things. There was this article about retirement. It looked a lot like an article about how retirement for most people is going to be financially impossible. In fact, after reading it I came to the conclusion that I'd be unable to retire at 65, even though I'm 57 and have been retired for years. That was one persuasive article.

Of course, I'm doing it so it can't be impossible.

I'm doing a lot of things that the experts say I should not be doing. Just about anyone will tell you that my little sailboat is way too small for coastal cruising -never mind the fact that I've actually coastal cruised in it.

People told me that building a dome home where I live wouldn't work and that it would leak all the time. It's been up for over 20 years with no problems.

They said solar electric wouldn't work in my area, yet that too has been working for over 20 years.

Good thing I don't listen to the experts. They establish some arbitrary criteria that must be met. The retirement people assume a retired person would not change their lifestyle to fit a smaller budget. The boat people assumed that a sailboat needs things like a galley in the cabin. (I found I could cook in the cockpit just fine) There were construction methods to eliminate any problems inherent to the dome design. I researched and assembled my solar electric system myself, greatly reducing costs and adapting it to my local site.

Over and over experts say something is impossible and maybe it is -if you do it the way the experts expect you to do it.

Fortunately for me, life is full of loopholes.

-Sixbears


8 comments:

  1. Money experts cant retire. All they know is money. Money makes most things possible. A little effort and thinking outside the mainstream makes things possible. The advisers make money handling investments so people can have a million at retirement but by the time they say it time your to old to enjoy it .

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    1. I'm here at my dad's right now because he's in hospice. He retired at 52 and had a lot of living in the 28 years since. Bet he's glad he didn't wait to retire until he was 70.

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  2. I've noticed that people get a lot more pleasure out of telling others "that won't work" than saying "that's a good plan."

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    1. I'm lucky that my dad encouraged me to try a lot of different things when I was growing up. The worse he'd say about a plan is "well . . . that's not the way I'd do it." He wasn't going to stop me from doing it my way, just put out a word of caution.

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  3. I bet the author of that article was selling a book....

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    1. You know, it would not surprise me. At the very least he was selling his services as a retirement planner.

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  4. The secret to surviving retirement is to have every thing paid for (except utilities) before you retire.

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