Right now we have only one custom home under construction (pre-sold, thank goodness), completion expected within a month. Tuesday morning the wood floor finishing crew started the sanding / scraping / staining / polyurethaning process, and will finish by the middle of next week. In the meantime no one else can be in there with them as too many people stir up dust, which settles on their still-wet floor and ruins the finish. This means I have to stay away, too. What I'm getting at is I have no where to go all day, and nothing to do. This week has become a sort of retirement trial run. I don't like it.
I was home Tuesday morning before lunch. After about half an hour I was bored, so I went to the grocery store and bought the fixin's for banana pudding and came home and made that. Then I saw that K had some sweet potatoes out, so I went ahead and baked them. And I cooked some pasta, too. Then I went out and started my running program. Later I read for a while, then watched a Big Bang Theory marathon. And then I was bored again.
Yesterday wasn't much better. I washed and dried and put away a load of clothes, and even ironed 5 of K's business-style blouses. (My jeans and T-shirts are all "wash and wear", regardless of what the label says.) Then I was bored again, so I went to a local park / nature preserve and walked about 3 miles. I saw one bird. Apparently everything else was either taking a nap or was nocturnal, or discreetly sized me up as not worth attacking. I stopped on my way back at Starbucks where I sipped a latte and read my Kindle....until I got bored.
When I do retire for real I'm going to have to either get a part-time job or do some volunteer work. I never thought of myself as being overly active, but I guess I am.
Are you retired? If so, how do you spend your time on an average day? I'll need some pointers.
S
Showing posts with label early retirement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label early retirement. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Rant time....
Yesterday I read that since 2006 federal government starting salaries have increased by approximately 15% while private sector jobs have seen an 8% decrease. IMO, many of these government employees, maybe even most, are paid big bucks to do jobs that simply don't need doing in the first place. They're glorified "make work" projects. To add insult to injury, 22% of the fed's 2.1 million workers are paid more than $100,000 per year. And once they get one of those cushy jobs, little short of raping a coworker on top of a desk will get them fired, and based on their lackluster job performance, they're well aware of that fact, too. Only .55%....that's point 55 percent....of their workforce were removed for cause last year. In fact, a federal worker is 13 times more likely to die of natural causes during his employment than get fired. And their perks and retirement plans are legendary. Many of them retire well before age 60 and are sitting on a tropical beach somewhere sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them while you and I are facing the probability of having our retirement age pushed back....again.
Why is it the least productive members of our society get the best benefits? Are we that stupid?
And it's not just federal government employees who get my dander up. Local and state workers are given ridiculous pay, perks, and retirement plans at the taxpayers expense, too. Now I learn that in 21 states employees can buy credit for a few extra years of work, known as "air time", thereby enhancing their retirement pay. As an example, it mentioned one guy in California who paid $75,000 for an extra 5 years work credit, which resulted in him getting an additional $13,000 a year in retirement pay for life. And he retired at age 55! My city gives new hires 21 sick-days off and 3 weeks vacation from day one. My wife working in the private sector doesn't get three weeks vacation until she's been there five years. And she's eligible for two weeks vacation only after she's been there for one year.
Why are workers in the private sector, the very ones who are footing the bill for everything from padded government payrolls to all our social programs, treated like second-class citizens compared to government workers?
Meanwhile, teachers are being laid off. Priorities? And in those areas where we need more government oversight, such as in financial auditing and banking regulation, they're no where to be seen. I'm sure they're there, but they're either dumb or lazy (based on the things they let slide through), or they've been called off by their elected-official paymasters.
Anyone remember William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Senator who put out his "most wasteful government program of the week"? Today Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is doing about the same. He's bringing to light things like funding a $600,000 study to find out why monkeys fling their feces at each other, or the obscene sum of taxpayer money allocated to set up a museum to document the history of video games. He points out that billions of dollars in wasteful spending all starts with many small (?) million dollar pork projects. Sort of like Sen. Everett Dirkson's famous "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
The good news is I think people are getting fed up with this the more they see. We simply can't afford the number of lavishly well-paid bureaucrats we have. We need to look at every government program we have, at every level, and determine if we really need it, and if not, shut it down. And all the people working on such programs should be given notice to start looking for a real job in the private sector. Short term hurt, long term gain. Starting now!
S
Why is it the least productive members of our society get the best benefits? Are we that stupid?
And it's not just federal government employees who get my dander up. Local and state workers are given ridiculous pay, perks, and retirement plans at the taxpayers expense, too. Now I learn that in 21 states employees can buy credit for a few extra years of work, known as "air time", thereby enhancing their retirement pay. As an example, it mentioned one guy in California who paid $75,000 for an extra 5 years work credit, which resulted in him getting an additional $13,000 a year in retirement pay for life. And he retired at age 55! My city gives new hires 21 sick-days off and 3 weeks vacation from day one. My wife working in the private sector doesn't get three weeks vacation until she's been there five years. And she's eligible for two weeks vacation only after she's been there for one year.
Why are workers in the private sector, the very ones who are footing the bill for everything from padded government payrolls to all our social programs, treated like second-class citizens compared to government workers?
Meanwhile, teachers are being laid off. Priorities? And in those areas where we need more government oversight, such as in financial auditing and banking regulation, they're no where to be seen. I'm sure they're there, but they're either dumb or lazy (based on the things they let slide through), or they've been called off by their elected-official paymasters.
Anyone remember William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Senator who put out his "most wasteful government program of the week"? Today Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is doing about the same. He's bringing to light things like funding a $600,000 study to find out why monkeys fling their feces at each other, or the obscene sum of taxpayer money allocated to set up a museum to document the history of video games. He points out that billions of dollars in wasteful spending all starts with many small (?) million dollar pork projects. Sort of like Sen. Everett Dirkson's famous "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
The good news is I think people are getting fed up with this the more they see. We simply can't afford the number of lavishly well-paid bureaucrats we have. We need to look at every government program we have, at every level, and determine if we really need it, and if not, shut it down. And all the people working on such programs should be given notice to start looking for a real job in the private sector. Short term hurt, long term gain. Starting now!
S
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