Games..Must We?

I recently helped move my fiance Janine from Michigan to Maine. That inspired this weeks 5.

1. How many times have you moved in your life?

Technically twice but actually never really. I always joke that when I was in the hospital that I moved for a few weeks. I have however helped many people move and when I was a kid my grandparents moved several times. I maintained a room and many things at their house so in a way it was like moving when they moved. I always helped and had stuff to pack.

2. What is the worst part of moving for you?

Lifting tons of boxes and heavy furniture. It is a back injury waiting to happen. I try very hard to lift properly but inevitably there is always that odd piece that is so hard to handle.

3. What are your thoughts on long car trips?

I enjoy them. I consider them an adventure. In this last trip I got to see lots of things I had never seen before. It would have been more fun if we could have stopped to see things but even as it was it was fun.

4. Tell us your preferred method of travel.

In the last few years I have done a lot of flying. I have to say that if you can get a cheap direct flight that is nice but if not then I think car is a way to do it. The convenience of flying has nearly dissappeared with all the regulations and all the waiting. I hate the waiting. I think the airlines need to seriously work on efficiency. Just because they want to be safe doesn't mean they can't be efficient. Somehow safety has been used as an excuse to make the process full of long delays and waiting.

I shall give an example. I recently flew from Owls Head, Maine to Detroit. To save money I flew through Boston, NYC (LaGuardia) and then on another airline to Detroit. That is how the ticket I bought went and honestly I saved a ton of money doing it. I almost didn't make it though. The OH to Boston trip was fine but the Boston to NYC trip was delayed for deicing. They let a plane sit there all day and gather 8 inches of snow on the plane during a storm. When did they choose to deice? At take off time. So instead of having the plane ready to go they took an hour to deice it and make us all late. Why? It is stuff like this that makes me not want to fly. When I got to LaGuardia I had to leave terminals and go through security again to get to my other plane. What a pain! I made my flight by only a few mins. Oh and I saw Richard Anderson from Villagesoup at LaGuardia but didn't have time to talk to him.

5. Has a friend ever come through for you in a way that surprised you?

Yes they did. Many friends came through for me and Janine both during this move . People helped load and unload the trailer and saved me a lot of work. It was still a lot of work but looking back I now realize I coudlnt' have done it alone the way I had intended. Who knew a 6x12 foot trailer would hold about 1000 boxes. My back was shot when we were done and we had help with most of it! Thanks to everyone who helped. You were all angels in my book.

In 25 days I will be retiring from the best job I ever had. Naturally, it is on my mind quite a bit! Even if you don't work for pay full time right now, What do you think it will be like?

1. At what age do you see yourself retiring?

Not really sure. I think instead of a traditional retirement I may just retire and work at a different job or go to part time when I get old enough. I guess I won't know till I get there.

2. Are you actively planning for that now? How?

Yes I am. I have had investment accounts since I was 20 and I have worked with a Certified Financial Planner since then. I did that as a personal decision and it wasn't anything anyone encouraged me to do. I guess I had just heard things. I am now coupling that strategy with Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace" program. It is really just a set of ideas about how to handle money that stresses debt elimination fast and up front. It is a great plan and Janine is also on board with it. I hope to to be debt free at an age much younger than most people. I am working on it!

3. Do you think that you will "come out of retirement" at least once? To do what?

No idea really. I may if I get bored. I know I want to only work a few days a week if I do that. I think staying active is important though. Too many people I know retire and die. It is the ones that stay active that get to enjoy their retirement.

4. Will you have a career after retirement? Paid? volunteer?

I know I want to be active in my church and that is volunteer but I would do a paid job at the church too if asked. I have always thought that if I ever became financially independant and didn't have to work I would dedicate a lot of time to doing things at the church.

5. Will you just take one last look around, close the door behind you, and keep walking? Or, will it be a slower, more gradual, more thoughtful process?

I guess it depends on where I retire from. If I had to retire today I would probably just cut down time and come back and visit if I left all together. I think it is important to always leave on a good note if you can and try to keep things positive you should.
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A few weeks ago I helped my fiance Janine moved from Detroit (area) to Maine. It was quite an experience.

That saturday morning I flew out to Michigan from Owls Head. My first time
doing that. Flying out of OH that is. I had to switch planes there and
then switch again in NYC at LaGuardia. It was also my first time on a prop airplane like that. The security at OH took forever! Not exactly sure why they felt the need to take so long but I almost missed the flight. The door closed and the airline manager had to run out and ask them to open it up for me. They were leaving!

So the trip from OH was fine and we landed in Boston. I made it to my
next gate with time to spare a stop to get some breakfast to take on the plane. It was a beautiful huge USAir plane. I
guess it is a shuttle to NYC that goes every hour. Before we could take
off they had to deice the plane. They didn't even start that till the
plane was full of people and they took an hour to do that. Mind you I had
to change in NYC again and only had an hour and a half on that end. So we
took off an hour late. We got into NYC and I found out I had to go to
another terminal to catch my next flight. This required me to leave the
security area and go through security again. How fun. I made my Detroit
plane by about 1 min and I had to run to do it. In the security line at
LaGuardia I saw Richard Anderson the owner of Village Soup. I spoke to
him for a moment. That was interesting to say the least. We literally had time to say hi and move on.

I got into Detroit and we went to eat with some of her friends at Bob
Evans farm restaurant. They are from Ohio and are very big in the midwest. They are pretty good. I had a great three cheese omelet with hash browns. We had to leave there to meet some people at her house who were
going to help move stuff. So we started loading the uhaul trailer. Lots
of help showed up and we got what we thought was 95% of it. The next day
we finished up but it took a lot of the day to do it. I was in so much
pain at that point. Due to my foot I have been very inactive lately so all of a sudden being very active and doing a lot of bad lifting wasn't kind to the ole body. So Sunday
night we left and drove to Erie, PA before stopping for the night. The
next day we got going a little late but we got in late. So we were on the
road at 10am. We drove all day till we got to Kennebunk, ME and we
decided we got ahead of the snow enough and stopped for the night. The
next day we went the rest of the way and unloaded and returned the uhaul.
Jason was very generous and allowed me some space at his garage. The
pastor also came and helped unload as well as a friend of the family. Two days of loading and packing c combined with about 16 hours of car time and then an unload on this end were pretty tiring but we made it just fine. We had a nice meal at Cody's that night.

I forgot to mention her dad actually pulled the uhaul trailer behind his
vehicle that he also had filled up with stuff. We went in her car which
was filled with stuff. We just went along and stopped about every two
hours for gas and food if need be. Her father's vehicle took a lot of gas
towing that trailer. He has a 2008 Ford Taurus X which is like a
crossover vehicle. He stayed a few days here and my family loved having him. A very
nice guy. My dad wanted him to stay longer actually. He drove back
by himself. He was fine doing that. He likes driving so he didn't mind.

Coming out we decided to avoid Canada even though that was the most direct route. We figured hauling a uhaul they could make it very hard for us if they wanted. So we went down through Ohio which only added an hour to the total journey. Her dad went through Canada going back and had to wait an hour just to get through customs so we really didn't lose anything. The Detroit/Windsor border corssing is very busy as well as the Niagra Falls crossing. I think one of those is the busiest and second busiest or something like that.

It was pretty interesting to drive through some cities I had never driven through before like Cleavland and Buffalo. Cleavland was intersting and Buffalo was really ugly. Albany was dissapointing and the traffic there was really bad. I know we will be making that drive a lot to see family and one of the nice things about it is that there are about 6 good roads and routes to take. I look forward to seeing them all.