Make a New Plan

Do you remember I said I was going to make a retirement plan but the only thing I got planned was to make a retirement plan?

Well, I finally did it.  It needs some tweaking - more action items to do so I know what I'm doing, but it's not bad, even if I do say so myself.  Every retirement plan I saw concentrated on financial planning, but I wanted to plan the living part.  Finances are a big part of living in America, especially in retirement, and it greatly influences the living part, but it's not everything.  So I made my own plan based on a Business Plan. 

I suggest you start your plan now so I'm including the outline here.  Tweak it so it works for you.  I have a nice cover page with a picture of a red gate and the title "My Retirement Plan".  You can use a picture of yourself or family, your favorite pet, your house or the house you want.   If you don't like my mission statement, change it (there's no reason it should work for you just because it works for me.) If you have a partner who'll be sharing retirement with you make it a joint Plan - use "our" instead of "my".

Mission Statement
My retirement will be spent in pursuing my own interests, maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle, and contributing positively to my neighborhood.  If work is available, I will continue to work in order to supplement my savings, pensions, and social security income, but only if the job supports my physical and mental health.

My Retirement Team
Include yourself, your partner, your relatives (if you want), friends, neighbors, church, insurance agent - it's your team include who you want - list names - addresses and other contact information are optional

Goals and Objectives
List your goals and objectives for retirement.  Do you want to start a new career?  Learn to play the drums?  Do as little as possible?  Write it down.  Re-visit it every few months or years, depending on your age, and change it.

Opportunities
This is related to Goals and Objectives, but not the same.  List what you'll have opportunities to do that you didn't have before.  After retirement you may have time to read more.  Loaf more.  Spoil the grandkids.  Pursue a hobby.

Location
Where do you want to live in retirement?  My plan says "Undecided", but I really should have a general area in mind.  Or at least the attributes of the place where I want to spend my retirement.  (There's no law that says I have to stay there when I get there.)

Key Issues
These are Issues that will affect your retirement.  What's going to hinder your retirement?  Unless one is filthy rich, one's issues should always include finances.  Other issues might be health, boredom,  or lack of mental stimulation.

Financial Plan
I said it was a big part of retirement so you have to face it sometimes.  How well you plan your finances now will affect the execution of the rest of the plan when the time comes.  The hard part for me is not knowing how many years to plan for.  It would be easier financially if I knew when I was going to die.  If I knew that I was only going to live just a few more years, I'd retire tomorrow and have a good ol' time, but I can't afford to live to be over 100 without cutting some corners.

For this part of the plan, start out with a paragraph of your general financial philosophy. 
Then prepare two tables, one for the Projected Monthly Income and one for the Projected Monthly Expenses. These will need to be updated as you get closer to retirement and know where you'll live and what you'll be doing.  There are many budget templates on the Internet.  Pick one you like and tweak it to suit your own needs.  Remember these are estimated projections, but do the best you can at the estimates. 

You can easily find budget spreadsheet templates on-line and tweak it to suit yourself.  For example, you can get help in building one from W.I.F.E. (Women's Institute for Financial Education); Microsoft Office  has several budget templates if you have an Office application or suite as does Open Office; and About.com has several.  Do a Google search to find others if you don't like those.

Pre-Retirement Preparations
This is a list of what you need to do to make your plan work.  It will vary greatly depending on your age.  The first thing you might want to put is Save Money or Build a Retirement Fund if you're still young enough to do that.  Be specific - determine how large your retirement fund should be and how your going to get there - Save 10% of my earnings before I spend a dime, Set up a 401(K), Be nice to my parents and make sure I stay in the will.  You should add Make a Will and Make a Living Will, and you might want to add Pre-funeral Planning. 

One of mine is Get Healthy - retirement isn't easy for sissies so I want to be in "fighting form" before it starts.

Wall Street Protests

I've been telling my friends and family for a long time that we need a people's movement in the United States.  Because it's going to take a whole bunch of us united together to convince the money grubbing, blood sucking, arrogant "fat cats", the "tall boots", the [expletive deleted] executives with their inflated self-worth and their million dollar salaries and bonuses that it's got to stop. 

I think the movement has started.

I have been reading about the Wall Street protesters and the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Boston movements, but I haven't been able to find out exactly what they hope to accomplish. I'm not the only one confused  about the protesters' goals, but I do have a clue.

I know they want to call attention to the high unemployment.  The rich getting richer while the rest of us get kicked around.  Workers getting laid off even as executives get multi-million dollar bonuses.  People losing their homes because they were misled by greedy money-lenders.  Kids with diplomas and dreams who fear they have no future.  Senior citizens who are afraid their money will run out before their lives do.

I don't think it's a political movement in so far as pitting Democrats and Republicans. It shouldn't be.  It's more about the haves vs the have-nots.  Ten percent (10%) of the population owns 70% of the money; one percent (1%) owns 40% of the money.  That doesn't leave much for the rest of us to share.

Maybe the protesters just want us all to realize that we are "the people of the United States" and we deserve to be heard. 

People, are you listening?  Are you speaking out?

Wall Street, are you listening?  Are you paying attention?

Congress are you listening?  Or do we have to fire you before you can hear?

Memories of Dr. Jahn

At work the other day we discussed Home Health Agency and what Home Health Agency nurses do.  And I was thinking about that conversation this morning and back when I was a HH nurse and suddenly I remembered Dr. Jahn.

HH nurses give report on their patients to the patients attending physicians and Dr. Jahn was my favorite long before I switched back to hospital nursing and got to meet him face to face.  Usually when I would call a doctor's office to report on a patient, a nurse or other staff member would take the report, but Dr. Jahn always insisted on taking the reports himself.  He was genuinely concerned and caring about his patients and was nice to the nurses, too.

Maybe it was because he came from a different time.  When I first met him he was over 70 yet still working as an orthopedic surgeon.  His patients loved him.  The anesthesiologists said he was slowing down and taking longer than other docs during surgery, but they still said he was the best.  The nurses respected him.

Dr. Jahn had only 2 flaws.  He didn't write legibly and he smoked the worst smelling cigars in the world. 

He claimed he wrote the way the did on purpose so nobody could read what he wrote.  I learned to read it and often had to decipher it for one of his colleagues (whose own penmanship was just as atrocious so I often had to decipher his reports for Dr. Jahn.)

Dr. Jahn's cigars smelled like burning chicken feathers.  Really, they did.  A long time ago, people could smoke in hospitals.  Doctors could even smoke in the nursing station.  Dr. Jahn had no problem lighting one of his ill-smelling cigars no matter how much we protested.  (But we never really did, because we liked Dr. Jahn.)  Anyway, one evening shortly after he lit up, a new orderly came running into the nurses' station claiming that a pillow was on fire but he couldn't find it.  He could only smell it.  As soon as I calmed him down, I introduced him to Dr. Jahn and his cigars.  Dr. Jahn didn't think it was as funny as I did.

I'm sharing

I used to use that word "sharing" sarcastically because I had a manager who wanted us to "share" everything.  She couldn't say, "Tell us about that project."  It had to be "Would you share with us what you are doing with that project?"  Maybe I'm just selfish, but I hated "sharing" in that context.  I'd tell you what I was doing, how the project was going, where is was going, but I didn't want to "share".  I'd gladly "share" the project if you wanted to "share" some of the work.  Like I said, I'm not selfish. 

Anyway, I want to share a tip with you that I learned this week.  You may already know it, but I didn't and it saved me a bunch of money and embarrassment.

Friday I worked through my lunch so left work a half hour early at 5:30.  When I got to the parking lot my car wouldn't start.  The key wouldn't budge the ignition switch one iota of an inch. 

I tried jiggling the steering wheel but it wouldn't move either. 

I tried jiggling the gear shift, but it wouldn't budge.  I couldn't even depress the little button to make it jiggle.

I tried reading the manual that came with the car.  Nothing.

I tried called my service rep at the car dealer.  No answer.

I tried everything above again.  Still nothing.

I called AAA to get some help.  Two rings and I got an answer.  She promised to send a truck out right away but added, "Did you try stepping on the brake pedal, moving the steering wheel about a quarter of an inch, then trying the key?"

No, I hadn't done that.  I'm not co-ordinated enough to do all that and talk on the phone either.  So I laid the phone down, stepped on the brake, the steering wheel moved, the key turned the ignition, and the engine roared to life! 

All I had to do was step on the brake to make the car go.  I didn't know that.

So I'm sharing this tip with you just in case you are as uninformed as I.

And to the lady at AAA.  THANKS, again!  No, really, I can't thank you enough.

Sometimes patience is it's own reward.

For the past year, I've been looking all over for a coffee scoop because they hold 2 tablespoons or 1/8 cup and my 1/8 cup measuring cup has seen much better days. It was one of a set of very cheap measuring utensils of which I have 2 left.  The others were discarded because they weren't very accurate. 

Anyway, I needed another 1/8 cup measuring cup.  I know I could just use a tablespoon twice, but once you've seen how handy 1/8 cup is, well - you'll never want to go back, will you?  And it's impossible to find a 1/8 cup measuring cup without investing a sizable chunk of change.  So I thought I'd just get a coffee scoop.  How hard could that be, right?

Nobody in this town sells coffee scoops or maybe I, not being a coffee drinker, just didn't know where to look, but I couldn't find one.  I could order one on-line, but they cost $10 or more.  For one little coffee scoop! 

Well, I'm too cheap to pay that so I kept looking and looking and I finally found not one, but two!  This is where the story gets good for all you frugalistics out there.  I paid $1.00 for 2 scoops at the Dollar Tree.  And they accurately measure 2 tablespoon.

So now I have one in my flour tin because flour is what I usually measure out 1/8 cup at a time and a spare for everything else.

Here's a recipe that uses my new measuring scoop.

Basic white sauce:

1.  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat in a heavy saucepan,
2. Stir 2 tablespoons (1 coffee scoop) of flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt into the melted butter.
3. Cook over low heat, stirring, for about 1 minute, or up to 4 or 5 minutes if you have the patience (which I don't). Cooking for this length of time will minimize 'flour' taste.
4. Take the pot off the stove and slowly add 1 cup of cold milk, stirring constantly.  (A little whisk works better than a fork or a spoon but you may need the spoon to get the flour/butter mixture out of the curve at the bottom of the pan, if you know what I mean.  And the milk doesn't have to be refrigerator cold, just not hot.  And you can use broth instead of milk, but your sauce will be thinner.)
5. Put the pan back on the stove and keep stirring while it comes to a simmer. 
6. Then keep stirring while it simmers until smooth and thickened, at least a minute.  (I sometimes put half the milk in the pot and heat the other half in the microwave while I stir the pot on the stove because I measure the milk with a Pyrex measuring cup that goes in the microwave.  Then I add the hot milk to the pan and the milk heats up faster and I don't have to stand and stir as long because I hate that job.)

To make cheese sauce, add about 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese after step 6, stirring until mostly melted. 

Either sauce can be used to make casseroles like scalloped potatoes, or creamed peas, or as gravy over potatoes or rice, or over scrambled eggs, or over creamy enchiladas. 

You can freeze it and re-heat in the microwave.  If you have any left.  Which you won't.