Lordy how many times have we heard that statement.
Mike retired from the Air National Guard 8 years ago. Two years later I quit working full time when we moved my mother in with us because of her failing health. For the past 7 years Mike has worked part time teaching at a local community college and working at the airport. I (Jana) have also worked two part time jobs.
Like most folks our age we do have money we’ve put back over the years to keep us from burdening our children when we are old and feeble. No we aren’t there yet. As everyone knows though little of this money can be even touched before we turn a certain age. So we live off of Mike’s military/civilian retirement. With that said we knew from the very beginning of this journey there were things we would have to do and do without to be able to afford our “dream”.
First we both agreed that we could not be financially able to keep the house and cruise at the same time. So in 2013 we sold the house and moved into an apartment. Needless to say moving from a 4 bedroom home to a two bedroom apartment meant we had to “downsize” considerably. We actually started the process of downsizing shortly after my mother passed away. We literally had a garage full of furniture and STUFF, not to mention what we were using in the house. So after having friends and family come through and literally put post it notes on what they wanted we called our local auction house. Now anyone who even knows us a little knows that we go to auctions, not have one. But this time the auction house folks came to us. I literally walked through our garage and house and just started pointing at things that had to go. Three hours later we had filled a HUGE moving van full of belongings. I must admit that first time was a little scary and sad, but after it was all said and done it was so liberating. After the truck had left I couldn’t remember half the things I sent with them. Two months later the auction house sent us a nice fat check for our “stuff”. This money was then put into the “boat fund”. We proceeded to do this again 2 other times over the next year. One of the wonderful benefits of giving your things to friends and family is that you can see those things when you visit and know they are enjoying them.
Not only did we give things to the auction house, friends and family, but we also made donations to Goodwill and our local dumpster. It truly was and is amazing as to what you can live without.
One of the things that has struck me is the amount of clothes that we owned while we were working. Mike had military clothes, dress clothes, casual clothes and working in the garage clothes. And me well I hate to even admit how much I had. Yes I am a recovering clothesaholic. I LOVED CLOTHES!! We found that being retired means you don’t need all those clothes (Did we really need that much to begin with?) So we did the same thing with our closet as we did with our house. Keep some, donate or just throw out. We went from having two huge walk in closets stuffed full of clothes to one small apartment size closet with room to spare. Besides how much could we really take on the boat with us. The good thing about doing this is now we actually wear everything we own. As a side note let me tell you we not only donate to Goodwill we shop there too. We have purchased a lot of our boat work clothes there along with jeans, casual shirts and even my winter coat. Literally for pennies of what we would have spent buying new things. This too is another great way to save some money.
The biggest realization that you must come to is if something is a “want” verses a “need”. And yes there is a HUGE difference.
Ways we cut down on our expenses
- Cancelled our cable
- No longer go to auctions, flea markets, garage sales, etc.
- Don’t go to movies, we check them out at the library
- We don’t go to plays or concerts (unless they are free)
- We don’t own all the fancy electronics
- We don’t take vacations, we are retired remember, that is a vacation in itself
- We do the majority of the work on the boat ourselves
- We cook more meals at home vs. eating out
- PAID OFF ALL CREDIT CARDS and are debt free
- We put money into savings and don’t spend more than we make
Are we rich? To some yes, to others no, but to us we are rich in so many ways other than money, property and STUFF. We have more stress free time to spend together doing the things we enjoy with the people we love and living our dream. That in our mind is being RICH!
