More Retirement Myths

A lot of us boomers have some of the last old school retirement plans. Defined benefits that you can rely on are huge. Even smaller pensions, if you can rely on them, are extremely valuable. The good news is that those of us with such plans probably won’t starve. The bad news is that the retirement promoted in the brochures doesn’t fit the reality. 

The big issue is health. When people are socking away money, scrimping and saving, they think of those healthy looking older people walking on sunny beaches. That does happen. What happens more often is that instead of beaches you are more concerned about good doctors and hospital access. You aren’t taking a lot walks on the beach when in the middle of chemotherapy for cancer. Even some of my healthy looking friends are dealing with diabetes and other conditions. It’s not uncommon to be taking handfuls of medications every day. 

Another big issues is the age difference between spouses. I’ve buddies who’ve retired but their spouses still have another seven or eight years to work. By they time their partners retire they’ll be well into their 70s . . . or dead. Who knows? For some they have plenty of other things to do before their partner’s retire. Others just don’t know what to do with themselves. Many end up going back to work just to keep busy.

That’s another issue: some people have no lives outside of work. When they retire they lose their whole identity. No one in the retirement park cares that you were a big wheel in the Midget Widget Company. These people are lost. 

It’s funny the number of people who retire and think they have to either by an RV or go on a cruise -maybe both. They might not even be all that interested in doing it but because it’s someone else’s dream they think they should do those things. Once they do them they can feel kinda let down and then they have to figure out what’s next. 

Do what you actually want to do. A former classmate just took an early retirement. He’s doing something he’s wanted to do for some time. He bought a comfortable chair and put in a quite room far from electronics. That’s his place to read books in peace. That’s the big thing he never had time to do while working. 

There are young people today who know the boomer retirement won’t be there for them. With that in mind they are enjoying life now. If that involves a spotty work record and less savings, so what? You can do a lot more things at 30 than 70. Money does not buy youth and energy. Those people see that even the “good” boomer retirements have downsides. Often it’s working 40 years in a job you hate for people you don’t respect. 

In the end it’s not about retirement, jobs, or money  -it’s about life and living. 

-Sixbears

Lyme Vaccine

There’s a lyme disease vaccine entering its final trial stages. The last vaccine we had against lyme was pulled over safety concerns. There’s some debate on whether or not that was necessary. At any rate, that’s made getting a new vaccine to market troublesome.


My thoughts on vaccines in general tend to get me in trouble with both pro vaccine and anti vaccine people. I’m not against children getting vaccines. However, I have a problem with how it’s done. They give vaccines for a wide variety of diseases in one massive dose. You can get your child on a different schedule that doesn’t combine everything. That requires that you keep coming back to the doctor’s until all the required vaccines are given. I think that might avoid giving too much too soon to a kid and is easier on the body. I am not a doctor so that’s just my opinion.

I don’t get the flu vaccine. That’s my choice. If I don’t get it I may or may not get the flu. However, if I get the vaccine I will definitely feel sick from the shot. Your mileage may vary. Yes, I know all about herd immunity, but I still think my individual freedom has value too. I knew a person who was in charge of infection control at a hospital. To this day the flu shot is optional for workers there. However, if you don’t get the shot you have to wear a face mask. Last winter I saw a lot of hospital workers with face masks.

So what will I do if the lyme vaccine becomes available? I’m going to get it. Lyme is a nasty disease. I’m out in the woods all the time and have to do constant tick checks. The vaccine probably will be less risky than all the bug repellent I have to wear to go outside.

-Sixbears

Weird Articles

I keep coming across all these workplace articles. People complain about their job: work conditions, lousy coworkers, bad bosses, poor pay, long hours -stuff like that. At that point I expect the authors of the articles to have some useful advice about getting out of that bad situation -probably by leaving the job as fast as possible.

Nope. That’s not how things are treated in these new self-help pieces. They tell workers how to suck it up and keep plugging away at a crap job.

There are reasons to work bad jobs under horrible conditions. For me, it’s only acceptable if that’s how you keep your kids from starving. Even then, all your energies should be going towards finding something better as soon as possible.

People do some amazing things to keep working bad jobs. Some months ago I ran into a relative of mine working the front desk of a certain company. I asked her when she left her old job. She hadn’t. This was a second, almost full time job. She then mentioned that she probably wouldn’t have to take happy pills if she wasn’t working so much. This is a woman who survived cancer, only to go on and make her life a living hell.

I’ve seen people lose important relationships with loved ones because they were working 24/7. They didn’t even like their jobs all that much.

I guess we all make choices. Personally, I’d live full time in a tent before I gave up my life to make a few bucks from a bad job situation.

The workplace articles are pretty discouraging. True, worker’s rights are slipping, but that’s no reason not to fight the decline the whole way. We are supposed to be happy slaves. The whole situation makes me a little angry -and I’m not going to take happy pills about it either. Anger can be useful.

-Sixbears

Changing your life

One of my pet peeves is people who complain about something in their lives, but they have the power to change that thing.

It could be the terrible boy or girl friend, their job, where they live -anything at all. When someone points out that those things could be changed all the excuses come out. It drives me nuts. They really don’t want things to change; they want sympathetic noises.

People become comfortable in their misery. It becomes part of their identity. They really don’t know who they’d be without their burden. The years tick on by and nothing changes. At some point they end up in a nursing home with nothing but regret.

Dead at 45

I had a doctor tell me I would be dead by age 45. I was 35 or 36 at the time. It wasn’t a warning to change something in my life or I’d be dead by 45. He just up and stated that I’d be dead before I was 45.

It’s great to be 61. While I did have some tough times, the good times more than make up for it. When you are told you are going to die fairly young there’s no sense wasting any time. As soon as I started to feel halfway decent I starting doing things that I always wanted to do.

I was having so much fun I forgot to die on time. Now one of my goals is to outlive doctors. So far so good. Maybe I was lucky to get a wake up call. People always assume they have more time than they do. Life is too short to get stuck in routines that don’t make you happy.

-Sixbears

Roads Not Taken

It’s funny how life is full of little zig zags. You start out doing one thing, then something else entirely comes up. Off you go into another new and different adventure. I’ve been reflecting on a few of of those times when life could have gone one way but went another.

I’m not talking about the inadvertent things that derailed my plans. Life is full of those. This is about a few of those choices that resulted in roads not taken.

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

***

Notice he took the road less traveled and that it made all the difference. However, there’s no value judgment if that road turned out better or worse. In that spirit I think I’ll mention a few roads not taken.

Back around ‘93 or ‘94 my lovely wife and I came close to buying a building and opening a bookstore. We knew there wasn’t a lot of money in it, but we do happen to love books. The only way to make the numbers work was to be able to purchase a building on the cheap. There was one in our price range. The building looked like it could work. One of the things that killed the deal is that I discovered that the septic system was subpar -and actually located on the neighbor’s land. We never did find the right conditions for a bookstore.

Then there was the time we were tempted to buy a campground. That venture might have financially broken us had we gone forward. One thing I didn’t like is that lovely wife would have to work full time while I managed the campground. That didn’t look like much fun.

Once I came dangerously close to buying an old VW microbus. I spent a good while haggling with a husband and wife about their bus. We were only a few hundred apart, but I refused to go up and the wife refused to go down. The husband wanted the cash in my hand so bad, but the title was in the wife’s name and she wasn’t budging. In the end I walked away as the couple was in the middle of nasty marital spat. Instead of buying that bus I bought an old Mercedes diesel and got into vegetable oil fuels.

There were a lot of roads not taken when it came to boats. We were offered a free 40 foot wooden ketch in sail away condition. The couple had it based out of Rockport Maine and were looking to give it to couple younger then them who would keep it sailing. I was sorely tempted, but my lovely wife said no. In the end I’m thankful she put her foot down as a maintaining a wooden boat is a full time job.

Then I refused a free catamaran that was offered to me after our shipwreck. It only needed a good cleaning. The owner suddenly lost his storage and I could have had it for the price of moving it. Too bad my lovely wife wasn’t quite ready to get back on a boat. Had I know she’d get over it in less than two weeks I might have said yes.

This past summer we were tempted by a couple of boats. There was a Pearson 26 that was clean and looked good. However, I discovered the keel boats were little piles of rust. We would not have had much time to fix it and I was leery of doing a rush job on something so vital as a keel.

During that same shopping trip we inspected a British Westerly sailboat that had bilge keels. It was a stoutly built boat and the information on the Internet looked good. We happened to look at the boat after a heavy rain. There was a good four or five inches of water sloshing around inside the cabin. Then there was the little issue of the trailer. One of the draws was that fact that such a seaworthy style boat was on a trailer. Once we got there we discovered the owner never actually launched from a ramp. He always had a crane launch and recover the boat. For me, the whole idea of a trailer was to eliminate things like lift fees. So between the wet cabin and dodgy trailer we moved on.

Oh well, such is life. Those are just a few roads we did not go down. We probably could have made any number of those decisions work -or at the very least we would have learned from them. One thing about life, while you can go down a lot of paths, you can’t go down all of them.

-Sixbears

Money Time and Comfort

While recovering I’ve had very little I could do but think about stuff and so some research. I must admit to getting some emotional comfort during this long winter recovery from watching sailing videos. Some things stood out.

If you’ve got the money it’s easy to purchase a comfortable boat and go sailing almost immediately. The fascinating thing is that not that many people who are motivated to make money want to quit and go sailing. A tiny fraction of high earners say enough is enough. Often something happens in their life that causes them to make a major change. Perhaps it’s a brush with mortality and they realize time on this planet is limited.

Young people might not have the money, but they have the time and energy to turn an old boat into a sea worthy comfortable one. Too often people wait until they retire to do a boat project. Most projects take longer than expected. Do you want to go sailing or work on a boat until you die?

So what does a guy like me in his 60s do? I don’t have a lot of tine to waste. While I have the skills to do boat projects, I don’t want to spend all my remaining days doing them. I’m also one of those baby boomers who forgot to make a fortune. So when it comes to boats I don’t want to spend the time and can’t spend the money. That’s where one has to take a hard look at the comfort part of the equation.

A nice big catamaran is super comfortable but way way out of my price range. Certainly can’t afford that. New mono hulls are like floating apartments, but even they are too expensive. That leaves older cramped boats without all the bells and whistles. In short -less comfortable.

Then again, one has to ask: what is comfort? Yeah, I don’t have an ice maker on my boat, but I’m not stuck in port somewhere waiting for someone or parts to fix it. Instead I could be in a remote bay watching the sunset while sipping a warm rum. That’s a trade off I’m willing to take. There’s something to be said for simplicity.

I’ve been writing about boats, but it applies to other things too. Many of us know people who’ve bought expensive luxury cars only to have them in the shop all the time. People buy big houses with huge lawns only find they’ve become a general contractor to get everything taken care of. Either they have to hire people or they become the servant to the property.

-Sixbears

All the places, all the things

Recently I've been saying that I can't be at all the places doing all the things. That's a recondition that one has to pick and chose. Anyone who's been faced with a weekend full of various activities in different places knows what that's like.

Of course, I'm not just thinking about a single weekend but life in general. Looking back on my life there are times when I wish I'd done more traveling, especially International traveling. Then again, there are experiences and skills I'd never had learned had I not stayed here in northern New England.

More importantly, marriage and children came early in my life. That changes everything. Those relationships need a person's time and energy. When a lot of my friends were having a good time, I had responsibilities. On the other hand, when they were dealing with younger children, mine were grown and independent. Life has trade offs.

So where is this going? What do I have planned next? I'm really not sure, but there are options. There are always options. Life never became automatic for me. Even when I did the same thing day after day, I'd always wake up and decide that's what I'd do. Once in a while there were times in my life when I'd wake up and decide to move onto something else.

Recently I was reading someone's post in a forum. He was going on and on about how burned out he was. The guy sounded like a world weary 80 years old. At the end he revealed he was at the ripe old age of 50. As a 60 year old, I was surprised and a little disturbed. A closer reading of his post indicated he'd been working so long on a goal that by the time he got close to it, he was no longer all that interested. Sounds to me like he needs to step back and reconsider things.

Right now I'm working my way through my list of things that must get done in the near future. After that, possibilities open up.

-Sixbears

How do you go back to the real world?

Do you ever wonder what happens to people when the adventure ends? What does a person do after they've hiked the Appalachian Trail, lived on a boat, or traveled the country in a van? What is the rest of their story like?

Most of them have a really hard time adjusting to “real” life. Take the hikers for example. Some find ways to keep hiking. They may work six months of the year, then hike the next six months. Often the next hike they want to do is the Pacific Coast Trail. A few try to do a balance of work/hiking. They end up moving to an area where they can do a lot of day and overnight hikes. I have known a few who got stuck in the 9 to 5 world, but they were depressed alcoholics.

In the boating world, when someone moves off a boat back onto land it's called, “swallowing the anchor.” Boaters have such colorful terms for everything. Some go back to living in the real world, but darn few look happy about it. Often they look for other adventures. Some go traveling in an RV, have motorcycle adventures in Europe, or find some other adventure. One guy I knew went from being captain of a classic schooner to being a full time wilderness canoe guide. He felt canoes were a lot less work and responsibility.

As for myself, I haven't had a real job since 1993. The idea of going to an office and wearing a tie appalls me. Working full time for someone else is a horror thought. I'm willing to do a lot of creative things to avoid a normal regular life. As I see it, modern normal life isn't normal. Okay, maybe it is for some people, but not for me. Even my last “real” job, firefighter, wasn't normal. Running into burning buildings that the rats are trying to leave isn't normal.

If you've got the adventure gene it's tough to fit in. Maybe if you've never done any long term adventure, the gene can remain dormant. Once it's woken up, there's no hope for it. Just accept that you've got to do something different. Eventually age or illness catches up with all of us and we have to dial things back. However, some people die before they've ever really lived.

-Sixbears

Brush with mortality

Life goes on. One day follows the other. Years go by and then something happens. A friend of mine was telling me the story of his 44 year old co-worker. The guy had been living with his wife for many years and they had a daughter together.

One day, totally out of the blue, the guy had a heart attack. Fortunately, emergency medical personal were nearby. He received excellent emergency treatment, plus the hospital immediately dealt with his problem. The guy made a 100% recovery. Soon he was back at work. Everything looked fine.

However, a brush with mortality can change a person. In my friend's words, the guy had no more f**ks to give. The opportunity came up to have an affair with a 22 year old at work so he did. They got caught at work. The guy lost his job, his wife, custody of his kid, and the house. Now he has to make payments on the house he doesn't live in out of his unemployment check.

I can how how that sort of thing can happen. Nothing like a near death experience to reevaluate one's life. That's totally valid. We get into ruts and sometimes something major causes us to want to make major life changes. That may be the case, but there are certainly better ways to do it.

Maybe he should have just gotten a sports car or a motorcycle?



-Sixbears

Evaluating Technology

There's a myth out there that the Amish reject technology. They don't. What they do is carefully evaluate technology to see if it will fit in with their community's values. Early adopters they are not. However, if something over time proves useful they will approve it.

There's a story about how an Australian aborigine was given a steel knife. The man admired and was impressed with the steel blade, but ultimately gave it back. His reasoning that while his flint knife wasn't wasn't quite as good, he could easily build another one. If he became dependent on the steel knife, he could not replace it if lost.

In the modern world it's impractical to take the aborigine's attitude towards technology. However, knowing basic bush-craft could save your life. The skills necessary to put together a basic survival tool kit from nothing are good to have. If you can get by with nothing you can go long ways with a little.

The problem with doing things the old fashioned way is that they can take a lot of time. If you've ever hand ground grain to make a loaf of bread you appreciate being able to buy bread at the bakery. Never mind actually growing your own wheat and threshing it. Sometimes I make bread from whole grains, but I didn't have to grow them and usually use my electric mill. To be honest, lately I've been buying my bread.

Time is an issue, there being only so many hours in the day. Another example: the oil company just delivered 200 gallons of heating oil to my house. The house is set up to burn wood and I burn at least some wood nearly every day. However, oil heat buys me time. After a cold night I don't have to get up before dawn to stoke the fires. The oil heat kicks in and keeps the house from freezing solid.

One winter, when we had almost no money at all, I heated the house with wood found within walking distance. It was cut and harvested mostly with hand tools. I did have a small electric saw to cut the logs into woodstove length. Heating oil and firewood was expensive. However, being out of work I had time to process wood. We got through the winter, but it was a daily grind.

Providing heat was just one aspect of survival. Now imagine if I had to forage for food and haul water. What if I had to do my laundry by hand. Make soap? Make candles? . . . and so on and so on. I know how to do these things, but they all take time and energy. That's why I often choose to make use of modern technology; there are more interesting things to do with my time.

Having oil in the tank and a pile of firewood is like having time in the bank. Same goes for food storage. The technologies that allow that are pretty good trade offs in my book.

There are technologies I reject as not worth the bother. Dishes are washed by hand. When the dishwasher broke I figured out it wasn't worth replacing. Snow is shoveled by hand rather than by a modern snowblower. Once the cost of the machine, gas, oil and repair was factored in, it wasn't worth it for me. My driveways are short. Besides, I hate the noise. While I have a clothes dryer, we have both an outdoor clothesline and an indoor one, plus a drying rack. The dryer is mostly used when time is an issue or the weather is too wet.

We've lived completely off grid and it worked. Now we have a mix of off-grid and utility power. The cost of grid power is worth it as it acts like a backup generator that I don't have to store gas for. That's what works for now. Our technology use is always up for reevaluation. There's a constant cost/value evaluation going on.

-Sixbears

Life and the Great Firewall of China

Life is like the great firewall of China. Huh? Let me explain.

The great firewall of China is China's version of the Internet. The Chinese don't have access to the full and unregulated parts of the Internet. They get the parts that the Chinese authorities allow them to see. There are also government approved versions of popular web sites. Just like the regular Internet, the Chinese version is really big. There are nearly limitless choices, but only choices approved by the government.

Growing up in “free” western nations we are taught that we have freedom of choice. We do, but just like the great firewall, those choices tend to steer a person down certain paths. Personally, for me the worse example of this guided path problem was my high school guidance councilor. If your grades were good enough they pushed you towards the state 4 year college. “B” students and those with few financial means were aimed towards the local community college. The others basically got encouraged to apply to the local mills.

Every socioeconomic class has its expected paths. For example, if you are upper middle class you may have to choose between becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Lower class may have to choose between factory work or service jobs. Some small movement is allowed between the different class paths. A factory worker's son, if intelligent and hard working may become a doctor. However, don't ever tell those of your social class that you aspire to do the job of a lower class person.

Worse than that however is to choose a path that's truly different than anyone else's. Those poor kids in high school almost never learn that it's even possible to do something no else is doing. No wonder so many kids feel trapped by life. The only freedom they know is the the freedom to choose one of the approved paths.

There is a word for those who stray away from the approved paths and go out on their own: failures. All that means is that they've failed to follow societal expectations. If they themselves are happy with their decisions then they are a success.

Freedom only comes to those who know they are not free. Too often our choices revolve around how we want to decorate our prison cell. Just like those stuck behind the great firewall, we don't know there's more stuff out there.

-Sixbears

That nasty old guy ruining your life

It was a beautiful night with family and friends around the campfire. We were all having a glass of wine and watching the meteor shower. Great night for conversation.

One guy was asked if he was looking at retirement. He'd really like to retire soon, but he did the math. By the time he was eighty he'd be losing too much money so he's going to work much longer.

I said, "Screw that old guy. You don't know him. Don't let him ruin your life."

It got a few laughs, but I was only half joking. Would 80 year old you be thankful that you worked all those years in a job you don't much care for anymore? Would there even be an 80 year old you? This guy has already suffered on major heart attack. He's doing fine now, but that's got to be a warning.

It's not like the guy wouldn't know what to do with himself. He's a talented musician and artist and makes money doing those things. Could it be that after decades working the same job, like some many other people, he fears change? Yes, the math looks bad at 80 for an early retirement now. That's assuming there won't be a major financial crash in the next 20 years. Judging from even the last 20 that looks like a bad bet. No matter what he decides, there's no way to know what the future will bring.

Unlike him I did not have the luxury of choosing when to retire. We are all just one injury from being unable to do our old jobs. I lost out on all the normal retirement planning that would have given me a better pension. For years my income's been losing ground to inflation. Yet here I sit, watching the birds, sipping a coffee, and watching the fog lift off the lake. He's back at the job he doesn't much like anymore -in fear of what nasty 80 year old him might think.

-Sixbears

Boats, building and/or sailing

Back when I was first sailboat shopping I knew nothing about them. Sure, I picked up a few books, but it always helps to talk to someone with more experience. So there's this guy I knew who was rebuilding a small sailboat in Maine. In fact I talked to this guy on the phone the day I decided to pick up my Oday 19.

I thought it'd be great to go spend a few days sailing together once his boat was finished. That day has yet to come as his boat is still being rebuilt. He is paying an awful lot of attention to detail. I'm more of a “good enough now let's get in the water” sort of guy.

Recently I built a boat in my driveway. It took a couple of summers working off and on -more off than on. It took long enough and it was only a 12 foot boat. Once a boat gets over 20 feet, building it yourself isn't very economical. There are plenty of good used boats out there for small money. If you want to get out on the water for little money, buy used instead of building.

However, some people aren't really into sailing. What they are into is building a boat. If you are one of those people, go right ahead and build a boat. There are worse hobbies. I get it, having built a few small boats myself.

I can't help but look at boat designs and think how I could build the perfect shallow draft coastal cruiser. Something like Dave Z's most recent boat comes to mind. His boat is being built to fit his very individualistic needs and he's doing it using pretty basic materials and tools. Using a lot of ordinary lumber yard materials, it's a pretty cheap build, but still more expensive than buying a used boat.

One thing about Dave's boat, it will be in the water in a reasonable amount of time. Too often I see boat projects outliving the builder. Even if they actually complete the boat, they are sometimes too old to sail it anywhere.

Fiberglass changed everything. Mass production using semi-skilled labor turned out a lot of boats. They last a very long time, much longer than most people expected. Fiberglass is repairable. I once had drinks on a very nice sailing catamaran that the guy picked up for very little. It was beautiful and I could not believe the price. He took me down below and showed me where one of the hulls had been nearly cut in two in a collision. That was the state he bought it in. In six months he rebuilt the boat to where it was impossible to see the damage from the outside. He left the inside in a rougher condition as it didn't hurt the function of the boat and was normally hidden by a fabric liner.

If you want to do boat work, save a ton of money, and go out on the water in a reasonable time frame, picking up a fixer upper boat is the way to go. However, if what you really want to do is to go now, there are plenty of used boats in nearly sail away condition.

You've got to ask yourself: are you a boat user or a boat builder? Or, what sort of blend of builder/sailer are you?

-Sixbears

Choices

Freedom is all about choices. The problem in our modern world is that so many of our choices are not really choices at all.

Take voting for example. You have your “choice” of which corporate owned shill to vote for. The money necessary to run for office makes a politician beholden to their backers. There are a few outsiders beyond corporate clutches. The are either famous enough or have enough of their own money to make a go of it. If they do get elected, they'll never get anything done -unless they too play the game. How many reformers have been swallowed up by the system, their former passionate causes reduced to slogans and bad memories.

How about a young person who's just completed their mandatory time in prison? I mean school. After years of schooling and maybe precious little education, they are set free. What are their choices? Work, more school or the military. That's about it. If their parents are wealthy they may grant them a bit of subsidized time to do other things, but then will be expected to “grow up.” Seems to me there should be a lot more choices out there. Is it freedom when you are only free to starve?

Look at housing. You have a choice: rent or own. Those not part of that system are disenfranchised in so many ways. Let's say someone decides to live in a small RV or on a boat. They've got to figure out ways to have some sort of address. Most governments do not recognize the nomadic state. Vehicles have to registered and insured and that requires a static address. Snail mail has to go someplace. A truly nomadic person has no voting rights, so even that weak protection is lost to them. If you are classified as homeless, forget it. The government will bulldoze your tent and squash your backpack.

Once a person wakes up to the fact that their choices are not really choices, they see it all around them. Sometimes our choices are like a bad joke: death by hanging, death by fireing squad, death by drowing, death by poison . . . Sure, there are choices, but death is always a part of the choice.

Here's the thing, the first step in making real choices is to see the false choices. Until a man discovers exactly what the problem is, he can't even begin to fix it.

Of course, that might be hard and even dangerous.

. . . freedom always is.

-Sixbears

Choosing your complexity level

There is something to be said for simplicity -live stripped down to the basics. It's easy for things to get out of hand. The worse is labor saving devices.

Right now I'd rather hand wash dishes than deal with maintaining a dishwasher. When mine failed it was hauled to the dump and never replaced. Currently it's less hassle for me to wash dishes than deal with getting a new machine. That's a huge change for me. Once I moved apartments because the new apartment had a dishwasher.

People wonder why I don't own a snowblower. I'm too lazy to own a snowblower. Figure in the expense, maintenance and noise and I'd rather shovel. It's easier in the long run. I abandon my lower driveways and only use the ones with parking right next to the road. Less to shovel. Works for me.

The simplicity of the kitchen woodstove pleases me. No need for electricity, special thermostats, or expensive service plans. The oil furnace it replaced was modern and automatic. A whole symphony of pumps, blowers, motors and control electronics had to function flawlessly. A simple failure in any component and the automatic heat is no more. When new it worked well. Time has not be kind to all those little complex gadgets that make it go.

Sailing has taught me the value of simple robust systems. My boat might not have all the gadgets, but it has enough to be comfortable. All too often in my travels I see people sitting at the marina fixing water makers, heads, fancy electronics, electronic winches, refrigeration units, AC systems, and what not. I've talked to highly intelligent mechanically minded people who still find themselves overwhelmed with their boat's systems.

Then there are some things I've decided to learn to live with. My van is more complex than I like, but that's the cost of having a vehicle big enough to tow my boat. If it was just me I'd solve that problem by living on a boat, but my lovely wife is not ready for that. Life is full of little compromises. (It's simpler to please the wife)

I could go a long time without computers and the Internet. After all, I'm old enough to remember life without those things. Right now the usefulness of computers and the 'net outweigh the hassles. Even so, there are ways to simplify life. I'm using cheap laptop computers and Ubuntu as an operating system as it's very stable. The computers are cheap enough that I don't mind taking them apart and repairing the darn thing myself. After all, if I do fail another cheap computer is less money than many computer service calls.

Rarely in modern times does something equal the simplicity and utility of a Native American's birch bark canoe. With a few simple tools and locally available materials a native could construct a beautiful and extremely useful craft. Often he could build one so quickly that he'd abandon an old canoe rather that portage it. He could just build a new one when the came to the next water system.

Modern life is almost never so simple. That doesn't mean we have to accept every new gizmo that comes along. Rarely do they provide promised lifestyle improvement. Benefits are hyped. Costs are ignored.

Maybe the Amish are onto something.

-Sixbears

Voluntary simplicity fear

People fear voluntary simplicity. They might hate slaving for the man and paying too much for a lifestyle they don't even enjoy all that much. Even though they don't like the rat race they are afraid to get off the wheel.

They fear that if simplicity doesn't work for them, they'll never get their old lifestyle back. (they might hate it, but it's familiar)

The thing is, the fear is valid. The trip down can be one way. Let's say the guy gives up the big house, the expensive car, and the high pressure job. He retreats to small cabin where he can make a living weaving baskets. His needs are simple. There's no pressure. Six months later he's going stir crazy and wants back in the game.

Getting back won't be easy. There's the six month gap in the resume to explain. He doesn't even own a good suit for a job interview. Then there's the fact that potential employers will figure he's a radical nut for his six months of simple living.

Be careful when making radical life changes.

I've a couple of friends who live downstate. One was going through some issues and was thinking of giving up everything: the job, the house, the wife, the cars -everything. I think he had some idea of backpacking through South America or something like that. My other friend recommended that he come up to see me for a few days.

So my buddy comes up to visit us in the woods. We hang out, take it easy, and have some good conversation. I figured out the big problem. He was in a terrible marriage that was just entering the early stages of divorce. I told him to deal with the divorce then see how the rest of his life looked to him.

Well, after the divorce, the rest of his life didn't look bad at all. The house was sold, but he had a new one built in a lower cost area. The guy remarried and is doing fine. Turns out he didn't really want to backpack in South America. The one thing he really needed to downsize was the high cost wife. She was emotionally expensive.

We hear about people making the big leap into a simple lifestyle. That's a good story. Dramatic. Those who downsize, little by little, into something they are comfortable with, isn't as exciting a story. Now it is possible start out by doing a few small things and eventually living very simply. By moving slowly, a person can figure out if the whole simplicity thing is what he really wants. Also, there's the chance to learn from trial and error along the way.

Unfortunately, the way the economy is today, involuntary simplicity can happen to anyone who works for a living. It's a rougher road than the voluntary kind. Choices are limited and everything has to be figured out at once. Even if you don't want to simplify your life, it wouldn't hurt to give some thought on how to go about doing it. The mental exercise will be good for you. You might even find you like the idea and take a few baby steps in that direction. Being mentally prepared could save you a world of grief in the future.

-Sixbears

Money saving hints

There are thousands of books, articles, and web pages with money saving tips. Most of them are pretty good, with one big caveat. They only really work if you aren't too bad off to begin with.

They say things like: get a cheaper cell phone plan, take your lunch into work, brew your own coffee rather than ordering out -stuff like that. It's all good advice. The money saved can be used to pay down debt or to have some money in savings. If you are working but can't seem to get ahead, these are the sorts of little changes that can help. Information on how to do those little money saving things is everywhere.

When you are out of work and living on beans and rice, not buying an espresso won't save the day. When your mortgage is greater than your income, hints on do it yourself landscaping isn't what you need. Information on what to do then is much harder to come by. The choices are harsh and not much fun at all. Success is uncertain.

There are two different strategies, depending on circumstances. In one scenario there's a less than zero chance of your income situation improving. You think that your lay off might be temporary. (that means the company hasn't sold off all its machinery to China) Perhaps you are waiting to see you are going to qualify for retirement or disability payments. Maybe your skills are still in demand and finding another good paying job is only a matter of time.

The other scenario is one where earning enough money to pay your bills isn't going to happen. You were laid off and the company did sell off its machinery. Perhaps your skills are in a field that's disappearing. Maybe you are too sick or injured to ever be able to work full time again. If your only hope of financial solvency is winning the lottery, you are in this category.

I was in the first category. There was no way I could pay all my bills, but I had hope of winning my disability case. While we lived a pretty frugal life, but we still paid for extras. The kids had music and karate lessons, for example. We still occasionally went out to hear live music. The money saved by forgoing these things would not have saved us. While the money might be retroactive, my kid's childhoods weren't.

When you are in that sort of situation you end up keeping up credit card payments but let the house mortgage and taxes slide. Sure, eventually the house will go up for auction, but you need the credit cards in good standing so you can eat and pay for fuel. Maybe you get a really nice cell phone with a good plan, but the home landlines and Internet service is canceled. People look at you funny for getting a nice phone, but it makes sense at the time. That phone is what keeps you in contact with your lawyer or helps you find a job.

I won my bet against time, but just barely. My house was going up for auction in two weeks. My back pay brought the mortgage, taxes, and credit cards up to date. (by then, even the credit card payments could not be met.) It was a huge risk. Normally a case like mine takes about a year to settle. Mine had the bad fortune to become a test case and took four years to settle.

My situation was about to slide from the good chance of catching up latter category to the totally doomed category.

It's that second category that needs more planning. Dropping from “think you're gonna make it' to “no you ain't,” is worse than just accepting it's not ever going back the way it was.

Had my case failed, I'd have lost my house, been without savings or even a functional credit card. I did not know it at the time, but my own parents were well on their way to an eventual bankruptcy. My in-laws were 2000 miles away and had issues of their own. The family would have had to live in a tent in the woods until we could save up enough money for a rent deposit on a crappy apartment.

Here's how we could have done it differently if right from the beginning we would have accepted being in category two. That's tough to do and takes steel will. Let's say I knew right from the beginning that my funds would not recover. The first thing to do would have been to sell the house rather than wait for foreclosure. At the time I could have cleared enough money to buy an old trailer on a small lot. It' s not much, but beats living in a tent. Then paying land taxes becomes more important than keeping up the credit cards.

If I'd owed more money on the house that it was worth, then the thing to do would be to stop mortgage payments and save up cash for a deposit on a good rent. These days I'd most likely buy an old boat to live on.

One guy I knew slowly turned all his toys like motorcycles and boats into cash, which he never put in a bank. There was no paper trail that way. After everything was settled, he took that physical cash, moved to a new state and restarted his life.

Money saving tips are fine if you are basically financially sound. It's like cosmetic surgery, nice to have but not life saving. Sometimes what you need is radical life saving financial surgery. Then it's financial triage, cutting away anything not essential to life.

-Sixbears

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I've always loved that poem.

He took the road less traveled, and it made all the difference. We are left to think that the difference was a good difference, but it's never really spelled out. For all we know, it could have been a horrible difference.

Probably not, though. Like much of life, it's just different.

This poem came to mind when I think of how close we came to dropping everything and sailing the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway) this fall. We'd be having the adventure of long and interesting trip. On the other hand, we would have lost out on all the time spent with friends and family. Maybe next fall we'll finally get to take that trip.

I sometimes wonder if there are parallel worlds out there. Perhaps in some version of the world, my lovely wife and I are sailing southward to warm waters. Maybe that me is wondering what would have happened had we stayed home for the holidays.

Some scientists theorize that every decision splits the world off into multiple realities. Boggles the mind. If that is true, I'm sure I'm not in many of those realities. There have been enough close calls in my life that's the odds are against me still being around. It's a sobering thought. Some of those less traveled roads kept me from being run over. Other times, those less traveled roads brought me to the edge of nowhere.

I wonder what old Robert Frost was really thinking of. He once lived on a couple farms not all that far from me. We've traveled some of the same roads.

I don't regret the decisions made in the past. The past is the past. We don't know where all roads lead. Life seems to have a horrible element of chance -or a wonderful element of chance. We are often pretty bad at judging how something will affect us in the long run. Those horrible experiences may be what gave us the skills and will to overcome something bigger that might have destroyed us.

Well, one thing for sure. We've got to choose one path or the the other -else we'd never get out of the woods.

-Sixbears

Killing yourself for health insurance

Over and over I hear of people doing things they don’t want to do -for the health insurance. My lovely wife was just telling me about another one. This woman is doing a job that will most likely get her seriously injured and she’s doing it for the health insurance. There’s another job that she’d really rather do but she thinks she can’t give up her health insurance. The thing is, she’s currently healthy -except for the constant wear and tear her job is doing to her.

The woman could actually do something she likes. If she quit her old job could be filled by a nice young strong person. She’d be healthy and happy, plus someone else could have a job. Still, she’s working the job that’s slowly killing her.

There’s a couple I know who got married because one of them lost health insurance. Both of them are healthy but they rushed into marriage for that all important health insurance.

What really drives me nuts is that the insurance that they are sacrificing for isn’t even that good. Plans have been whittled back until they don’t provide the same sort of coverage that they used to. The polices are written to conceal their true weaknesses. Even if a service is technically covered they deny payment on trumped up excuses.

I know from experience that fighting an insurance company is very hard to do -especially when I really was sick and not at my best. If my lovely wife hadn’t dealt with the insurance companies for me, it would never have been straightened out.

People are making large sacrifices for insurance only to get screwed by the insurance companies anyway. The decisions aren’t driven by logic. Destroying real health for something that may or may not help you when sick doesn’t make sense.

Fear is driving these decisions. Give up fear. Think the unthinkable.

-Sixbears

Time and money and freedom

I live pretty cheaply. The key here is that I don’t have to go to work every darn day. I can do things at home that reduce my living expenses. I do all my electrical, plumbing, and carpentry work. Instead of spending all my money on fuel, WVO is gathered to run my diesels, and firewood provides most of the heading and cooking. I also do money saving things like bake bread and cook meals from scratch.

There are special projects that save money: converting the vehicles to run on waste veggie and installing a solar electric system. I decided I’d rather stay home and do things that reduce expenses than get a job and earn more money.

It’s not an all or nothing proposition. How many times do we see both spouses working? Often the second income barely covers the expenses of working: the second car, child care, work wardrobe, and meals out. Sometimes it actually costs money to go to work.

Traditionally, the wife would stay home and be the domestic engineer. That role doesn’t get the respect it deserves. A well run household becomes a center of production rather than just an expense. Housewives took care of children, cooked, cleaned, mended and even made clothes. Often they tended to gardens and small livestock like chickens and rabbits. They had a huge economic impact. Better yet, none of their production was taxable.

In today’s work world, sometimes it makes sense for the husband to stay home. Wives may have the higher income and enjoy their work more. Men can take care of and nurture children. They can cook, clean, and do all that other domestic stuff. In general, men are stronger than women. They are better at cutting and piling firewood, and doing heavy lifting in general. Stay at home husbands are not traditional, but so what? Do what makes sense for you.

Maybe what you really need is a job with fewer hours. Could spending time at home make up for less hours of work? I know I guy who figured out he could get by nicely working only 3 days/week. His dad asked him why he only worked 3 days/week.

“Because I don’t quite make enough money working just 2,” he said.

The days he didn’t go to work, he spent renovating his house. He saved a bundle doing the work himself, and didn’t have to borrow money to do it.

I know people who work seasonally. During the off seasons, they basically work for themselves. One buddy of mine was irritated that his seasonal job lasted longer than it normally did. It was keeping him from home and all the things he wanted to do there.

One of the things that drives me nuts is people who retire and complain they have to go back to work. Now if they wanted to go back to work, that would be one thing. No, these people whine that they have to work to keep up their lifestyle. They complain that they want to travel like I do, but can’t.

However, they may live in a house that’s too big for them, drive cars they are making payments on, and refuse to travel any way that’s not first class. Appearances are more important to them than actually doing something. I’ll think about them while sitting on my 1982 boat, pulled south by my 1993 truck, enjoying my 10 million dollar view.

I’ve got the rare gift of time. It’s a gift I gave myself by adjusting my lifestyle. I’ve made choices on what’s more important. For me, free time is freedom.

-Sixbears