Good positive thinking. Living your life too the fullest, but then a curve ball thrown into it. Thought i was cruising along perfectly and then Sue died. I think i am starting all over at 70.
This, honestly, is a big fear for me, and probably one of the reasons I've decided it's time to live now, not later. My heath isn't super-duper awesome in the grand scheme of things, and like I said, I have watched far too many people go down this same path I'm on and not be able to enjoy the fruits of their labours down the road. So why not start eating some of the fruit now?
A turning point for me was watching a co-worker who I'd worked with (at the time) for around 15 years finally retire at long last after something like 40 years working his butt off 70-80 hours a week, and die literally 2 weeks later,
not having collected a single pension cheque. And I've seen lots of other coworkers retire in my 20 years at my current company only to not make it past 5ish years into retirement, with a few others I know who have made it 10 but are physically not able to do much anymore. Only a small handful seem to be genuinely enjoying their retirement.
My kids are worried about my new relationship because i am better off.
I suspect they are a little concerned about thier inheritance. Not a good feeling.
How unfortunate. I never had this opinion, and I counted on getting zero when my parents died. When my father did pass (mom had passed nearly a decade before) we each got a bit, and that was fine, but I didn't bemoan not getting more.
My dad was a little (OK, on further thought, a *lot*) like me now I think, he owned and ran his own business which provided us a good life, but also lived his life pretty hard, bought what he wanted when he wanted it, and did the same for the family, including me when I was a kid - I wanted for literally nothing as a kid - if I as much as whispered the words that I wanted something before the age of 15 or so, I got it. I look back now on this years later and realize dad was loose with his money (Heck, I had what was probably a $2500 Commodore 64 system at 8 or 9 years old, for example) but he too had lots of toys. It meant there wasn't much left at the end, but I think we were *all* happier as a result at the end when we went onto our own lives, and nobody cared about how much was left over.
This was quintessential dad - still in his coveralls even 10+ years after he retired from a life long career as a mechanic, poking around in the garage, still proud of his toys.
I'm glad he bought them and enjoyed them and spent his money doing so while he still could enjoy them. The last 2-3 years in a nursing home and the ~10 years or so before that when his body started failing him, well, what good is having a fat bank account at that stage?
