I wrote a series of blogs many months ago, titled ‘DIJATC’ (Damn, it’s just around the corner). I was of course referring to retirement. As I just past my 62nd birthday last week, it all seems to be like a looming train, transfixing me in its bright lights. I am simply not ready.
There’s the mortgage to think of and probable medical expenses that won’t necessarily be covered by the state, and who the hell can afford medical insurance beyond 60, never lone at all. Now that my subsidy from work has gone for that purpose, I shall let it lapse. It’s a huge monthly figure for the 60 plus brigade.
Why am I in this reflectively fearful mood? Well I am on what many would say is a good salary and yet my disposable income is not big after all of the expenses one associates with owning (trying to) a very very modest unit. I look at friends who are on various benefits and see their daily struggle. Some of them are stubborn buggers and won’t accept any help, in the form of the odd hand-out or food etc. I can’t push that.
It brings home to me, the struggle many like myself will also face. I have been preparing for the drop in income, by making changes to the way I shop. I try to make things last longer and attempt to ignore the advertisements on TV for products of ‘want’ and concentrate on those that I ‘need.’
I do not look at the crap that comes through my letterbox---it goes straight in the bin, along with my desire to pluck out the ads on ‘fabulous savings on wine, this week on at----‘you get the picture.
I know that I won’t be travelling so much, so my car mileage will drop dramatically when I retire. I hope that other expenses will head the same way.
I am not relying on Kiwi Saver, because I will not have been in it for long enough. I have been thinking of other ways of making savings; for example, growing my own veggies. That will mean retraining my Jack Russell so that she doesn’t ‘help’ me so much with her digging. You should see the holes in my garden!
So in the knowledge that the ‘train is coming,’ I shall continue to find ways to shop cooperatively, do my garden and just retreat in my desire to keep up with the ‘Johnnies’---not that I ever did.
Oh yes, I will have to continue working for maybe two years before I absolutely stop working. Then of course there are my books, if they ever sell. So far that little venture is just costing me heaps of money, with no profit, unless of course you readers get out and buy them. Ooops, you may be in the same position as me---so go and get them free at your local library---ask them and they will buy them. You get them free and now that I am my own boss re publishing--- I shall get a pittance for my efforts. At least it keeps my mind in an ‘exercersive’ mode. I better stop, because I am starting to sound like our dear ‘Miranda.’
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