On a guilt trip called retirement
‘What do you do with all your time?’ they ask. It took a while to feel good about not working
BRUCE BARNETT

As published in the Globe and Mail – March 23, 2009

At 65, I entered the unknown world of retirement with trepidation.

I had concerns about finances, even though I was retiring with a fairly good pension and we were mortgage free.

I was also more than a little concerned about being unemployed. Since I began working at 15, I had been out of work just a few months in those 50 long years, which in retrospect seemed to fly by.

For five decades I had been a contributor to society in many places of employment on many career paths. After two years of odd jobs, I began a five-year stint with the Royal Canadian Navy as an able seaman/radar plotter, sailing on three destroyers including Canada’s most famous warship, HMCS Haida.

 In my last position, I worked for 27 years with the city’s public library department as a senior manager responsible for construction and building operations.

Now, here I was on the dole, so to speak. I was a taker, not a contributor, and I didn’t feel all that good about it.

I never thought about retirement until I arrived at my 60th birthday and saw light at the end of the tunnel. Once I started thinking about it, I became a bit obsessed. I thought of doing all those things I had never had time for while I was working – Caribbean vacations, cruises, wintering in the southern states.

I am now 67 and have been retired almost two years. In that time, my wife and I have enjoyed three Caribbean vacations and a Mediterranean cruise, and we are preparing for a trip to Florida in early April. I also went golfing with friends in Myrtle Beach.

I should have been overjoyed at my great fortune – my wife and I have survived to this age in good health, with enough finances to live some of our dreams – and I would have been, if it weren’t for a wretched feeling of guilt.

I wasn’t prepared for the guilt that hit me out of nowhere upon receipt of my first pension cheque. I didn’t acquire this feeling by myself – a great number of people have contributed to my low self-esteem.

Once I retired, many people asked me what I intended to do now that I had left my place of employment. I informed these inquisitors that I was enjoying my retirement and my plan was to continue to do so. The next question was invariably, “What do you do with all your time?” They would follow that up with, “I’d be bored stiff if I didn’t work.”

Some people ask me if I am doing any consulting, or if I am working part-time at something outside my area of expertise. When I respond that I don’t work at anything full-time, part-time or any time, my comments are usually met with a scowling face and the comment, “I don’t know how you do it.”

I try to explain that I do it very well. I am quite good at retirement, in fact. I have a social life with many lunches and dinners out. I play a lot of golf in the summertime and vacation in warmer climates in the winter. I now have time to spend with my four grandchildren when I choose to (although my children would say I don’t do enough of that). I read, visit places of culture and do a little writing now and then. Frankly, I don’t have enough time for a job.

My interrogators meet this explanation with something akin to, “Well, I do all that and still work.”

Five days a week at 7:30 a.m., I attend a fitness club for a workout with cardio machines and free weights, and some socializing. Most members are there to work out before heading off to their places of employment. When I see people older than me donning their business attire, preparing to head out into the world of commerce, my guilt is magnified.

One day I was talking to a fellow member whom I had just met. He asked me if I was retired and I said I was. He appeared to be somewhat older than me so I asked if he was retired.

He surprised me by saying, “No, but I promised my wife that I would quit working after 19 more years.”

“Nineteen years?” I asked.

“I’m 81 now,” he said.

I muttered something congratulatory and skulked away.

It took a while for my feelings to change. I have learned to appreciate my fortunate lot in life and enjoy my retirement guilt-free. I was lucky to have been employed for 50 years, and to work any longer would be unfair to those who are now seeking employment.

I think I would feel much guiltier working in a position that could go to a younger person raising a family. I reason that my actions are even somewhat altruistic.

So to all my interrogators of substantial means who are of retirement age and still employed, I say, “I don’t know how you do it.”

 We keep our readers and particularly those contemplating a purchase of a U.S. “place in the sun” up to date by replaying various media articles on the subject of U.S. home prices.  The focus will be on those articles related to prices in U.S. sun belt states.   Here is a recent article.

U.S. mortgage woes break records
J.W. ELPHINSTONE

11:32 EST Thursday, Mar 05, 2009
 
NEW YORK — A stunning 48 per cent of U.S. home owners who have a subprime, adjustable-rate mortgage are behind on their payments or in foreclosure, and that’s not the worst of it, new data Thursday showed.

The reckless lending practices in states like Florida, California and Nevada that were the epicentre of the housing crisis are no longer driving up the nation’s delinquency rate. Instead, the foreclosure crisis now is being fuelled by a spike in defaults in states like Louisiana, New York, Georgia and Texas, where the economies are rapidly deteriorating and thousands are losing their jobs.

A record 5.4 million American homeowners with a mortgage of any kind, or nearly 12 per cent, were at least one month late or in foreclosure at the end of last year, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported. That’s up from 10 per cent at the end of the third quarter, and up from 8 per cent at the end of 2007.

Prime and subprime fixed-rate loans saw sharp increases in the fourth quarter, a sign that the problem is now the economy.

“We’re seeing increases in fixed-rate categories and that’s where the problems are coming from,” said Jay Brinkmann, the group’s chief economist. “The foreclosure picture is more clearly driven by the jobs market.”

That trend highlights one of the biggest challenges confronting the Obama administration’s mortgage relief plan launched this week. While the $75-billion plan could help change the loan terms or refinance up to 9 million homeowners, unemployed borrowers will have a hard time qualifying.

On Thursday, the Labor Department said new unemployment claims last week totaled 639,000, lower than expected, but still at elevated levels. Factory orders also slipped for the sixth month in a row in January, the Commerce Department reported.

“There can be no doubt that employers continue to shed labour at a frightening pace, with no end in sight,” Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a client note Wednesday.

© Copyright The Globe and Mail

On Feb 28, 2009  we are given the following update on the US economy, consumer confidence and housing prices.

U.S. consumer confidence did a swan dive in February with the confidence index down 12.4 points to a level of 25.  According to the Conference Board, this is a level not seen since the survey began in 1967.  This is the third consecutive record low and clearly surpassed expectations by a long shot!

In a separate release, the Standard & Poors Case-Shiller house price index capped off a terrible year with more record moves down.    On a month to month basis and on a year to year basis the declines were the largest ever.  Prices in every city the survey covers remain below year-ago levels with Las Vegas and Phoenix neck-n-neck for last place.  The S&P Case Shiller Home Price Indices (for detailed information go to www.standardandpoors.com)  tracks changes in the value of  residential real estate in 20 metropolitan areas across the U.S.

How much further do prices have to fall to be enticing enough for a Canadian to step up and buy that place in the sun?  Affordability is at its highest in almost 4 decades (ignoring the recent fall in the Cdn $) and on average there is 9 months supply of homes on the market which is 3 months more than “normal”.