Quarantine and chill and kindness chatty clubhouse: Jump in and join the conversation! All is welcome!

[lynxstch]

Good morning everyone. First @Pea-n-Me 's for all you are dealing with. Settling an estate, dealing with your Mom's passing, already all stressful,,then talking about retirement on top of it,,hope the rest of it goes smoothly. After all your hard work yesterday, you deserved to order take out and sit and relax and enjoy it!

48 out now, going to be 61. Getting old sucks. I woke up at 2 am to turn over,,and my right hip was sore? Never had that before..do not like finding new aches and pains all the time

I was planning on getting the mowing done today, that may or may not happen unless these tylenol and icy hot kick in and straighten out the hip ache, lol

Watched the Preakness during dinner. Was sad that Medina Spirit didn't win, but wtg Rombauer for coming on at the last stretch. Always nice when an unexpected horse wins!

Have a nice morning all~~

 

[sparkle78]

Retirement ? I’m one of the younger ones on here, so i have 20 years or so before I do. But my plan is to have a small townhouse/condo in the 2 places where my kids live. And if i can dream/win the lottery, a 3rd place by Disney world for the winters. The idea of no mowing, and having a handy man to call and fix things sounds great.

reading ? When this pandemic is over, having worked in several schools in inner cities, they are always looking for volunteers to take a child out in the hallway and listen to them read to you, so they get practice

baseball ? Years ago, when we were dating our plan was to visit 2 or 3 baseballl stadiums every summer until we saw them all. Well life gets in the way and we only made it to 4 stadiums. Funny story, we have been to Boston several times and Fenway park. Never saw a baseball game there, but did attend a college football and college hockey game inside the stadium.

 

[easyas123]

Good morning everyone -
Still in FL, weather is wonderful here! Saw a alligator swim by the house twice, so I'm also getting my animal viewing in, too!
Headed out to my folks new house site in a bit to move some rebar, then headed out to a boat show...both my father and my husband are in the market, a dangerous combo.

QOTD: How did you/will you manage retirement?

It's something we've started talking about earnestly. We both turn 50 in the next year & a half, and we started meeting with a financial planner about 3 years ago to make sure we were on the right track. We've started discussing selling the farm in a few years in order to downsize our outdoor areas to be maintained. We are hoping to do a fair bit of traveling in next 20 years leading up to retirement, and so we hope to soon put into play a way to minimize our chores around the farm to enable us to leave more. We've started thinking of a second home/investment home BUT we don't know where we want to retire to yet, so haven't really made a move on that yet.
We got married at 20, had kids at 23 & 24 so we got started on that part of life early enough that we are done with paying high school tuition and college...youngest may get masters but that will be covered by his GI bill, so we are done with braces, school and all that. We have two weddings to contribute to though.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

Good morning.

Just a few minutes to post before our busy day today. Not sure if we’ll watch church this morning or later.

@Pea-n-Me, we have been through all 4 parents passing. Regarding selling the car, we sold 2 of my MIL’s cars and one of ours using CarMax. Felt we got a fair deal each time and very easy. Good luck with all of it.

And about estate money, SIL just received a $29,000 debit card from her DH’s life insurance. Had to contact her financial advisor about how to use that.

@lynstch, this morning DH and I were just discussing living with various aches and pains.

We were in a restaurant and watched the Preakness without sound. I was curious what song they played before the race now that “Maryland, My Maryland” is out. We all think they should write new lyrics for the tune. DS said the UMD marching band already used different words.

@sparkle78, DS’s in-laws plan their summer vacations to go to cities and go to baseball games to achieve that goal of seeing all the parks. DS and his wife took the challenge a few summers ago to see games at all the Oriole’s minor league stadiums in a season.

QOTD: How did you/will you manage retirement?

DH was self employed and for the last 30 years I was basically contract/per diem so we have not had any benefits or pension plan. Ahh, the life of health care workers. So, we have saved and invested. Paid for both kids to get through college and part of DD’s master’s degree, DD’s wedding and DS’s rehearsal dinner. I stopped working at 65 when I just couldn’t physically do it anymore but waited until 66 and full retirement age to take SS. DH planned to retire at 68 but did a few months early due to Covid. We own the building that was DH’s office so the rent the business paid went to the mortgage and was a forced retirement plan. We are counting on the sale of the building for our retirement. Our plan is to stay in this house as long as we can and travel. I also planned to volunteer more at church. Hopefully we have enough money. One year in and so far so good.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Retirement is still a fair bit away for us as well. We’ve met with a financial planner, who says we are doing the right things for now. But we haven’t made any decisions on where/when just yet. I really think it will depend on where DS ends up and if there are grandkids in the equation.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

I really think it will depend on where DS ends up and if there are grandkids in the equation.

If we moved, I'd like to be between our two kids. That would be Kent Island, MD but I don't want/can't afford to live there.

 

[dazedx3]

Pea-n-Me.... I'm sorry you had a rough week, but it does sound like you had some news that brightened your end of the week. I know exactly what you are saying about estate resolution. Dealing with my sister's estate has been an absolute nightmare, it is a part time job. We have the added complication of it being a trust and two disabled adult heirs. I really can't believe how complicated it all continues to be.

We also retired at the same time as dealing with my sister's affairs. My head is spinning at times! I can only hope and pray we are making the right decisions. We would like to move to a home with less upkeep, but the market is so crazy right now. We had not planned on retiring until a few years from now, but medical issues kind of forced it.

The past year has been so crazy, sometimes a wonder how I can even form a complete sentence anymore. We really are stronger than we think.

On a positive note.... Our son is coming to visit in July, we haven't seen him in over two years, and I tear up just thinking about the visit.

It is supposed to be nice today, so I am planning on potting up my annuals. I also should do a run to the grocery store today or tomorrow.

Have a great day everyone, and I hope you all can relax a bit.

 

[lynxstch]

Good morning.

Just a few minutes to post before our busy day today. Not sure if we’ll watch church this morning or later.

@Pea-n-Me, we have been through all 4 parents passing. Regarding selling the car, we sold 2 of my MIL’s cars and one of ours using CarMax. Felt we got a fair deal each time and very easy. Good luck with all of it.

And about estate money, SIL just received a $29,000 debit card from her DH’s life insurance. Had to contact her financial advisor about how to use that.

@lynstch, this morning DH and I were just discussing living with various aches and pains.

We were in a restaurant and watched the Preakness without sound. I was curious what song they played before the race now that “Maryland, My Maryland” is out. We all think they should write new lyrics for the tune. DS said the UMD marching band already used different words.

@sparkle78, DS’s in-laws plan their summer vacations to go to cities and go to baseball games to achieve that goal of seeing all the parks. DS and his wife took the challenge a few summers ago to see games at all the Oriole’s minor league stadiums in a season.

DH was self employed and for the last 30 years I was basically contract/per diem so we have not had any benefits or pension plan. Ahh, the life of health care workers. So, we have saved and invested. Paid for both kids to get through college and part of DD’s master’s degree, DD’s wedding and DS’s rehearsal dinner. I stopped working at 65 when I just couldn’t physically do it anymore but waited until 66 and full retirement age to take SS. DH planned to retire at 68 but did a few months early due to Covid. We own the building that was DH’s office so the rent the business paid went to the mortgage and was a forced retirement plan. We are counting on the sale of the building for our retirement. Our plan is to stay in this house as long as we can and travel. I also planned to volunteer more at church. Hopefully we have enough money. One year in and so far so good.

Raining here at the moment,,hope it doesn't head your way!

 

[tazdev3225]

Morning all.

I played lazy yesterday and did nothing. Just wasn't motivated. Today I bought my flowers but the flower place didn't take credit, thankfully I always have cash on me, except when I forget it. I need gloves and a small spade, they don't sell them. I also need a heavy duty pruner. Went across the street to Home Depot who had nothing but gloves but so jumbled up I could have picked the $30 gloves when I want the $5 ones. Went to two dollar stores and found nothing. The flowers are in the bed but not planted yet. I did find the work gloves my son uses when he does the back yard so one step closer to my garden being done. Interestingly I bought some kind of plant last year that came up again. I have no idea what it is so curious to see if it blooms. I try and find flowers that attract butterflies and bees. I have a HUGE Butterfly Bush on my front lawn that I do need to trim down a little. Anthony has a double header today and it's an hour away so I don't think I will get anything in the ground.

@Pea-n-Me Sorry you are having issues with your mothers estate settling. When my MIL passed she had been in a nursing home so there was nothing to settle. My aunt's housekeeper stole everything from us by getting my mentally not with it aunt to change her will right before she passed and the housekeeper had it through probate before we even knew my aunt was gone. They were also 2 hours away in another state so it would not have been an easy fight. My husband's cousin was the fun one. SHe was mentally challenged so my MIL took her in when her parents died in the 50's. When we put my MIL in a nursing home, she had Alzheimer's, my sister in law put the cousin in a different home. Somehow my husband and I were the contacts for both even though he had siblings much older than him and better able to handle things. We knew his cousin had insurance as her parents took out several policies on her. When she passed away we contacted the insurance company who swore she had nothing. Not a big deal. A few years later that same insurance company called and said we had 1 month to claim the policy or it was being turned over to the state. Of course we didn't have all the documents we needed, and we had 2 MAJOR snowstorms that shut the city down. Right before the pandemic hit we had all the paperwork together to try and claim the money and the state shut down all non essential personnel. I am hoping we can get it accomplished sometime this year. All we know it is more than $100. I am not looking forward to dealing with my parent's when they pass. Although they do have everything in order.

QOTD - I'm not sure we ever really planned beyond my husband having a decent pension and social security. But I though I had a few more years to figure it out. The strokes changed that for us. Honestly we are in better shape with him retired for now. We still have his medical insurance from work for about 2 more years. He qualified for full social security and medicare much earlier than expected because he is now permanently disabled. I have to apply for medicare now as my mother pointed out I am OLD! I would be 65 on my birthday this year but I have decided not to have a birthday. Thanks again Mom!. I plan on applying for Social Security at the same time but against my husbands since he is collecting his full benefit, We figure my social security will cover the supplemental insurance when we lose the work coverage. The only major expense is the mortgage. The house should have been paid off 5 years ago but my husband used it to try and finance a business. That folded in months when we had everything stolen from us by the former owner. Hard to make pizza without a pizza oven. Thankfully we avoided bankruptcy but we still have the mortgage. I am hoping to pay it off early and then we should be OK.

Our plans were to travel the country by car but that has changed. Since my husband can no longer drive and I can't drive long distances that has to be altered. We did fulfill one dream of going to Scotland, OK his dream is Germany, but we went. I want to travel overseas a little more but since he refuses to go to France, other than Normandy Beach because in his mind that isn't part of France, I think the UK will be the end of it. I talked him into maybe more cruising after next year. He did enjoy that at least.

Oh well. Baseball starts at 3 and it's 2 games which means we won't get home early. My poor daughter has the overnight shift so she is going to be tired. I have no idea what dinner will be since we won't get home till probably around 9 PM. Probably get some fast food on the way home. Hope everyone has a good day.

 

[flyingdumbo127]

Good Morning,

to you Pea. God works in a mysterious lovely way. So thankful you did get some happier news.

Much prayer also for Kaya, Allison. Would she like a card?

Retirement isn't on my radar at the moment. Post pandemic, I pray to get some sort of consistent part time work. When I was much younger, I absolutely better realize now, the bigger picture importance of longer term saving/planning that way.

May each of you find joy this day

 

[Allison Joy]

Funny story, we have been to Boston several times and Fenway park. Never saw a baseball game there, but did attend a college football and college hockey game inside the stadium.

So I live in St. Louis. We had the Rams here for 20 years. I've been to the stadium where they played MULTIPLE times, but never saw a Rams game. All of my visits to the stadium where for band competitions, both as a member of the band for a couple years in high school and as a spectator; for a conference I've attended every three years since 2006, and for concerts. But I never saw the Rams play there, and now never will.

Much prayer also for Kaya, Allison. Would she like a card?

Oh, that's sweet of you, but I'd feel weird giving out her address, even though I do have it.

Question of the Day -- I have no plans to leave my current job, and it has a... decent (?) but not great retirement policy, plus I have a defered compensation account, which is like a 401K, but not quite?? I know I'm probably not planning as much as I should, but it just seems to complicated, and far away and... yeah.

 

[flyingdumbo127]

Hug, Allison, I will PM you. My suggestion should you want to, is post in our thread and invite anyone interested to PM you a greeting for Kaya. You could compile them together and print out perhaps into a card for her. No exchange of anyone's info needed

 

[Allison Joy]

Hug, Allison, I will PM you. My suggestion should you want to, is post in our thread and invite anyone interested to PM you a greeting for Kaya. You could compile them together and print out perhaps into a card for her. No exchange of anyone's info needed

I could figure something like that out, sure!

 

[Kirby]

QOTD: How did you/will you manage retirement?
I don't have a clue. We'll file for medicare in two years. Will be glad to get that $2400 monthly health insurance payment off our backs. We're self employed and there's not much we can do about the cost of health insurance. We haven't decided when we'll begin collecting SS. We need to get with a financial advisor to see what's best for us.

@tazdev3224, I can sympathize with you about that woman stealing from your family. The same thing basically happened to us. DH's aunt lived in Nebraska and owned a couple of sections of land that she rented out farmers. She also had land in Iowa that she rented out to Green Giant. She sent our kids an outfit each year and DS, when he was about 10, wanted to meet this aunt. So we took a long weekend and drove up to see her. Within a year her mind was going and she was put in a memory care facility. Two years later she passed and we found out that her will had been changed after she had been in the facility. All of DH's siblings were in the original will along with the aunts brother and his children. The changed will left DH's siblings out and gave the brother and children monetary gifts. We found out the aunts BIL had her will changed leaving basically everything to him. She was worth quite a bit of money and none of DH's family had the money to fight the will.

It's begun raining and we're looking at a week of rain.

 

[lynxstch]

Typical Sunday. After raining almost all day, at 3 pm the sun pops out, now that everything outside is soaking wet. Gave me a day to do nothing for a change. All I have done is finish up Season 1 of Hawaii 5-O and start season 2. Dinner is going to be boneless center cut pork chops (on a grill pan) , scalloped potatoes, applesauce and whole kernel corn.

 

[flyingdumbo127]

To stories of being stolen from. That is awful! I may have shared this previously but I also had relatives who were stolen from in money by a caregiver.

It's chilly here and feels like it could rain. Hope the comes out tomorrow! I so look forward to watching worship later from your church Carol. I did watch some of worship from my own church this morning because I knew the new interim minister would be preaching. He came across to me as down to earth. I liked that he clearly let viewers know what the scripture would be and invited us all to go get our Bibles to follow along. Should any of you be interested (just because I have shared about the transition of my church on here. I'm in no way intending to push church) PM me for a link.

 

[usnuzuloose]

Raining here at the moment,,hope it doesn't head your way!

To stories of being stolen from. That is awful! I may have shared this previously but I also had relatives who were stolen from in money by a caregiver.

It's chilly here and feels like it could rain. Hope the comes out tomorrow! I so look forward to watching worship later from your church Carol. I did watch some of worship from my own church this morning because I knew the new interim minister would be preaching. He came across to me as down to earth. I liked that he clearly let viewers know what the scripture would be and invited us all to go get our Bibles to follow along. Should any of you be interested (just because I have shared about the transition of my church on here. I'm in no way intending to push church) PM me for a link.

I watch Charles Stanley on saturdays

 

[AuntieMe3]

Meant to post this earlier but I guess I forgot to hit post again...lol

Our weather took a turn Friday, it's cold and windy and making my allergies go wild. I can't stop sneezing this morning. Dh and I were in San Francisco last week and got home on Thursday evening. He had to head straight to Los Angeles for work, literally just unloaded the dirty clothes and threw in some clean clothes. He was there until yesterday afternoon when again come home, switched out laundry and headed back to San Francisco....geesh....poor guy. They really need to hire another another mobile guy or give DH a raise. He really wanted me to go with him but I have some stuff to take care of this week. I told him maybe I'll drive up for a couple days this week.

I've had so many thoughtful friends send cards, flowers and a couple have even brought over some food. My sister and I have been working on the planning for my mom's celebration of life other than that it's been a lazy day. The weather is really depressing. I really hate the wind.

 

[Allison Joy]

Kaya Update: Praise! The infection is NOT as bad as her surgeon originally thought. It is on the skin only, not in the wound or bone! She'll still get some IV antibiotics, but then will go home with oral antibiotics, but its treatable.

Also, if you'd like to send something to Kaya, I'm certainly willing to collect stuff digitally, arrange it all, and get it to her. PM me.

 

[lynxstch]

I need to vent. I just had to spend 20 min on the phone with ebay. Tried to buy a cat water/food dispenser from a seller. Used buy it now, paid through paypal, got an email with the transaction #. 1 minute later I get an email from ebay that my payment didn't go through, try again. So I go and do it again. Pay through paypal, first transaction was gone, get an email with transaction #, followed by another email from ebay about payment not going through. I check sellers page, says paypal accepted. Check my paypal,,has correct visa #, exp date etc. Finally find the place to get ebay to call me. Get some guy who says 'it shows that your check out went through just fine'. I said no it did not. Both transactions are gone from paypal , and the one that showed up right away in our bank account also disappeared just as fast. He sends me to the 'buying specialist', who of course speaks broken english This moron tells me that Ebay is breaking ties with paypal and that they are blocking buyers from using it. I said you are totally incorrect, I know because I just used paypal on Friday to buy a Bissell Little Green Clean Machine with no issues. He disappears and comes back and says he was wrong..that the seller is the one who blocked me from using paypal. That they don't take paypal I said then they need to be reprimanded and ebay needs to make them remove Paypal as a form of payment for that seller. Guy says why don't you try buying it using your visa or debit. I said I do NOT want my visa or debit on file with ebay, that is why I use paypal! He says I will find you another seller of the same item. So he does..I look at it, and say this seller has no feedback and has been a seller for 5 days. Says they take paypal. Guy looks and says..oh I see the issue,,neither one of those sellers is verified by paypal, that's why you can't pay that way. They are going to notify both sellers that they must either verify themselves or remove paypal as a form of payment. So I made the guy restate that Ebay was NOT doing away with buyers being able to use paypal..and he admitted he spoke out of turn on that one. I said well if you do away with it, you are going to lose a LOT of ebay buyers.. I have been buying on ebay for more than 25 years, and I have never run into this issue before. The guy says do you want to try and buy it from another seller. I said YES,,I am going to Amazon to buy it,,thank you for your time and your 'misinformation' and I hung up...geez..what a waste of my time!
Thanks for letting me vent..hubby doesn't want to hear it..he was trying to talk over the guy the whole phone conversation I was on..lol!