Good morning!!!!

[Looking4new]

Good morning, the temperature is 23°F and going to 30. Wind SE 6 mph. Mainly cloudy.

I will be getting my first cup of coffee for 2021. 1/2 and 1/2 coffee and Baileys. I'm not going anywhere today, nor am I operating anything other than my keyboard.

I clear about a grand a month from Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) + another $2500.oo to be taken sometime over the year in whatever increments I want. The additional 2500 is a payout from my stock portfolio, mostly bank stock. I am not loaded like E.P.Taylor, but I am alive which is more than I can say for Taylor.


Have a safe and healthy day all

 

[Rich B1]

Good morning! 35 now, allegedly going to 39, snow/rain predicted. Pretty gloomy looking outside right now.

The å*µet of the house and go somewhere program the wife had for me yesterday was a success. We went to Rural King and the grocery store. I was the official cart driver at both places. I was tired when we got home. My trepidation of being around people was overblown, was ok once I got out and about.

Got a follow up with the doctor tomorrow morning. See how that goes.

Doubt I do much today. Kind of have the itch to reload some ammo, might get into that. Or not.

Everyone stay safe out there!

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

41 high of 51 today raining presently ending soon. Prayers for Kyles daughter, Jay and wife, Riptides, LS daughter in law and son, Farmer and Larro who are MIA, others I may have missed Our Country

Thank you all for the prayers, they are working. Prayers for you Buppies, Ron, riptides, Farmer, Jay & wifey, others who have silent needs....and Our Country.

Like I mentioned earlier, my daughter's friend got a small phonograph for Christmas. They've been having fun playing my old vinyl. Have an old 45rpm that is the Beatles, Strawberry fields forever on one side, and Penny Lane on the other. Even my boy can sing Strawberry Fields Forever now. haha. Retro, what's old is new. They just love watching the records "spin", and music coming from it. "Living is easy with eyes closed...."

Strawberry Fields Forever (Remastered 29) - YouTube

Sounds like most of you got the snowfall cleaned up.

Because I had kids at such a late stage of life, and the price of health insurance is so high, I will probably have to work until I die. Just hope my failing memory holds up long enough.

My Uncle is 99, and is in hospice. His son and GD are taking care of him. Expected to pass any day now. He is a great man, has led a great life. His wife died about a year ago, they had celebrated their 78th anniversary, IIRC.

Going to make pulled pork sandwiches today with the leftover carnitas.

Need to clean out fireplace ashes today. 41F (feels like 36F), going to 70F.

Hope you all have a blessed day.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 48F @ 5:00 AM. Mostly cloudy skies. High around 60F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
More rain than sun in the 10-day, but not much accumulation. Still better than nothing, I guess.

My parents were raised during the Great Depression, too, Drew, and if they didn't have the money for something, they did without it until they could pay for it outright. Dad was aghast when I asked him to cosign on a car loan so I didn't have to drive an old Pinto cross country to start a new job after I graduated college. He did anyway, and I paid off that loan in a year or two, and never took another one for a car. By the time I bought my first house, I had a 20% down payment and avoided PMI. I paid ahead on that mortgage, and the next one in a larger home (bigger garage!), too. Both were used, "fixers" my real estate agent called them, as were my cars and trucks. Just like my parents. I also paid them back for my college tuition. That was back in the days when a quarter's fee was "only" $250, but to keep things in perspective, gasoline was "only" $0.50 a gallon. It was half that when I first started driving. And yeah, I worked during the summer to save up enough to buy that first car. Some of the kids I went to school with were given cars for their high school graduation, but most of us worked summers to buy our own. How many kids do that today? How many just accumulate loan payments until they can't qualify anymore, then wonder why they'll never be able to retire? They never discovered the secrets of living like a monk, working your butt off in school so you can get a good job, then working your butt off in that job so you can avoid taking out loans. And scrimping and saving so you could take care of yourself in your old age. Don't get me started on Social Security being called an "entitlement", or all this "stimulus" BS "bread and circuses"...

I worry about running out of money in my "old" age, too, Drew. I do have savings, and a pension, too, but it's all fixed (David calls it "broken") income. Then he goes on to point out that the COL adjustments in Social Security don't really keep up with inflation. But of more concern than that are all the new medical advances that seek to preserve life without much concern for the quality of that life. I call it the Health Care/Industrial Complex, with their goal of warehousing elderly folks until they bleed them dry, then kick them out into what few facilities still accept Medicaid. Hopefully by then I'll have lost my mind and won't know or care what's happening to me. And no kids to worry about it, either.

Wild horses couldn't drag me onto a cruise ship, Ron. Not just because of Legionnaire's Disease, and now CoVid, I just don't enjoy that lifestyle and am afraid I'd be bored to tears. Give me a bike or, hopefully someday a camper van, and turn me loose on America's highways, and I'd be in heaven...

A buddy of mine keeps talking about the GoGo Years, the SloGo Years, and the NoGo Years. Sez he's trying to run out of Go about the same time he runs out of Years...:laughing:

I saw that part about government pensions when I was reading about Social Security, Phil. Also the part about Social Security benefits being taxed. That latter circumstance seems like you're being taxed on that money twice because I don't remember anywhere in TurboTax where it asks for how much Social Security you paid so you can deduct it. Did I miss something?:confused2:

I see in the latest Costco flyer that TurboTax is in stock and on sale...

Kind of an off day for me yesterday. I did get the welding table cleaned off, and did a little clean up around the house, but never worked up the energy to start cutting that steel into hoops. It was misty out all day, enough to keep things wet, so not a good day to be outside. Hopefully a little drier today and I can start back in.

 

[riptides]

39 outside and rain. Seems like it has been wet forever.

Spent most of the last few days making dump runs for all the construction debris from the front porch. That's a few hours in the truck I'll never get back. I don't like going to the landfill as it seems it is on the other side of the county. Not sure what happened to our local drop off as the construction dumpster seems to have disappeared.

All this talk of retirement, tried it twice, sort of did not work out. Unfortunate for me, my pensions were all frozen when I was working due to corporate buy outs and downsizing. My last pension I decided to take the lump sum distribution and put it in the stock market, aggressively. That worked out rather well. The elephant in the room is medical. I thought I had that covered until I would be eligible for Medicare. That did not work out as the kids were still on our policy and the wife was starting to have some back issues. Lucky for me the business I am in, got me employed rather quickly. Just in time to cover the wifes back, and the resulting insurance/legal battles that would end up bankrupting the average American.

My deal now is to just continue working (very low pace) just to carry medical until my age says otherwise. In the meantime I am aggressively saving to recoup the past few years losses. I have got another big expenditure with our failing drain fields, but that will probably tap into the home equity to fix.

I cannot say it enough, if you have a pension, consider yourself lucky, and if you have medical insurance absolutely stay on top of that at all times. Medical issues even with insurance can reset your plans in a very bad way.

Thinking long term, I think the pace I am at, the old work/life balance will carry me forward for the future. My big deal now is to pay it forward with the kids and community. I had a goal of just cutting grass, reality says otherwise. LOL.

Medical, medical....medical.

Have a great day all. Be safe! Try and stay healthy.

 

[txdon]

Good morning! 42˚F lots of sun today. It was 10˚ cooler last night before the prevailing winds shifted from the South again.

HEB is still not offering the vaccine to 1-b and all the other places in Texas that had vaccine left over from last weeks 1-A ran out last week when their B-1 list filled up quickly. I agree Ron, once you get the vaccine things will be a lot easier knowing that you can get out and about without exposing yourself to a month long sickness and recovery (or worse). Eddie Walker is finally going to attempt to go back to work Monday, I hope he has enough strength and did not rush it, (about 21 days) but he is self employed and can set the pace.

I like to keep the hedges around the house short and not touching the house. We only have 1 day a month to put organic waste at the curb (in a paper bag) so until then I trim a few hedges each week to put in the regular trash. It sure would be nice to have a large compost pile but I already have the largest recycle bin allowed - 60 gallons - and I use that for kitchen waste. I have a good crop of solider larva that eat it as fast as I put it in in the summer, in the winter they slow down considerably and I have to remove the bottom layers that are black dirt through the bottom door. The black gold goes in the vegetable garden.

 

[pennwalk]

Dr.Sehult at Medcram has a new video about what to do if someone gets the covid. I hope none of you will need the information but there is a lot of Covid out there. Take Care.

Chris

 

[toppop52]

Don, I’m glad to hear Eddie is doing better, I read some of that thread. I always liked him.

Retirement holds surprises for us for sure, when I lost my first wife I lost a large chunk of her retirement. The life insurance made up for a couple of years of it, so I had to scramble a bit. I put some the savings into retirement payments for a while until I settled on that property last year, that got me back to a good place. Plus my new wife has a very substantial investment/retirement package. She was smarter than me, she realized more with less. But she’s an accountant, I’m not.

43 and drizzling, got .68” overnight on top of the .98” Friday night on top of the near 12” in December. I’m glad I have a foot of drop across the front of my property. The back is not that steep and it’s like a sponge.

Looks like at least a couple of weeks before any vaccine for us.
We both got the $600 deposits in our account, I didn’t think we would qualify this round.

Have a good day.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning to all! Low of 18, going up to 45, no precipitation, just wind at 30-40......

I have been doing a few hours here and there rearranging the shop. The initial plan that I made using a scale drawing and tool templates, did not work as intended, most of it did, but still had to be altered. Luckily, everything was on casters by then, so just a little bit of rolling the tools around.

There is another request for a trinket box, for my BIL's birthday on Jan 20th.... deadline for shipping should be around the 14-15th, so got to get moving on that.

And of course, a request from the Daughter for a chest for her..... for her birthday.....(beginning of March). Similar to the toy chests that I made, only twice as long. That's going to be the tough one to do.... especially if my scheduled surgery (Feb 12th) still happens.... conflicting reports on the status of elective surgeries.

Some good news was that the igniter on the pellet stove got replaced under warranty (even though the warranty expired 7 weeks prior). Talked to them on the phone on the 28th, had it by the 31st. Great customer service experience. I ordered / paid for an additional one .... just in case.... I haven't gotten that one yet.
During the day, it wasn't too bad lighting the stove manually. The stove will easily 'overheat' the house to about 94 degrees if left running, so couldn't let it run all night. We used a portable heat pump instead.... which would wake us up when it turned on / off. We are glad the pellet stove is back to running on it's programmed night time schedule. :thumbsup:

Well, gonna get going.... everyone have a great day!

 

[ronjhall]

Riptide, medical is the big thing in retiring early. My Dr neighbor decided to change from a Supplement plan to a Advantage plan to save monthly payments. When he was diagnosed with cancer in September. He found 2 problems with the Advantage plan. 1. Cannot not get care outside of network. 2. Did not cover all the treatment he needed. That cost him $11,000 out of his pocket. He is back on a Supplemental plan now. I am sure you get similar plans pre-Medicare.