Some
months, I worry that I may need to return to substitute teaching to allow us to
build a vacation fund or bank away enough money to remodel the bathrooms and
update the kitchen. Then I remember how illness traveled with me as I went from
classroom to classroom, school to school. Frankly, as I get older I don’t know
if my body can take the pummeling various viruses battered through me. Would
the extra money be worth exposing my health to illnesses that settle in my
chest for weeks at a time?
Frankly,
a trip to the beach or mountains, to another city or another country doesn’t
entice me to return to work. Although the house needs sprucing up
here-and-there, everything works. No reason to gut a room if it also means
picking up a bug that also guts me!
My
determination to remain fully retired took a punch last week when my husband’s
company announced another round of layoffs happening soon. Our goal has been for
him work until he’s 70 to pull in the highest Social Security benefit possible.
If he ends up unemployed at 67, will his retirement income be enough?
We
frantically crunched all of the numbers, remembering that we’d have to pick up
all of his medical insurance, and realized one or both of us would still need
to work at least part-time, or begin tapping into our retirement funds earlier
than we predicted.
How
can this be?
Over
the next few weeks, we’ll see how the dust settles. With luck, his position
will remain untouched during this round of cuts. He’ll get to his goal of three
more years with this company, and I won’t get thrown back to work.
For
now, we’re on alert for possible storms ahead.
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