Let's Talk Self-Employed and Retirement

I'm tired of working.  Yes I know I've had it kind of easy in the working department.  I've had flexible time ever since we started our business in 1979 but I'm tired of it and lord knows The Hubby is hitting the wall in that department.  Sometimes I think it would be easier at a 9-5 kind of job with no worries after you go home but then you are stuck under someone else's thumb.  I like being self-employed with the freedom we have to get away when we want, we are the boss.  But, sometimes we aren't the boss.  Really our customers, clients are our boss and they can dictate our hours.  Especially in the early years when we were getting the company off the ground.  The Hubby worked 7 days a week 10-12 hours a day.  Then we got employees and that was another kind of headache for him to manage.  There were times that I really considered myself a single parent because of all the time he spent working.  I did resent it at times but I understood it.  You see, I come from a long line of self-employed family, my parents, both sets of grand parents, etc.  It is just kind of part of my DNA to be a self-employed person.  While The Hubby was working in the field, so to speak, I was managing the household, raising children, and the book work stuff.  At night when the girls were asleep and he was finally down I would be up working on spreadsheets, paying bills, invoicing, all by hand at the time.  I did/do my share of work, just at different kinds of time frames.  Where his is from the time he gets up in the morning to the time he sits down for dinner and after, mine is in spurts.  It was a struggle for sure to make ends meet.  Going to the grocery store with a calculator watching every single penny we spent.  I managed the money, still do and I think I've done quite well.  We started with absolutely NOTHING and look what we have now. We are comfortable in our lifestyle and so are employees, I think.  

Now all The Hubby talks about is retirement, ALL THE TIME!  Since we are hitting the 60's now it is just part of our everyday thoughts and talks with each other.  We've put a lot of time and energy in making our business very successful but it does take a toll and now we want to play more.  I'm ready to sleep in, paint, read, relax, garden, play with Rio, travel, etc.  Yes we've certainly been able to do a lot of this stuff but I think now it's the grind that is getting both of us down.  Being self-employed and especially with employees relying on you, keeping the business running and profitable is a challenge.  This past spring and summer was challenging with the oil and gas prices down a lot of our customer base is in the business and they just didn't spend any money on what we do.  The phone was silent A LOT to the point of a lot of worry.  We weathered this kind of downtime in the early 80's during all the oil crash and came out of it successfully when other companies in our field that had been around for a long time went belly up.  This time I was getting a bit worried, but all of a sudden, YEAH, we are busy.  Whew...that was a bit hairy, especially since we have this building loan hanging over our heads for the new building.  The Hubby was absolutely in a panic but now, finally, a deep breath and we can see light at the end of the tunnel.  Now if we can just hang on a few more years to get the most out of our retirement.  

I watched my parents business in the 80's faulter and die as ours built strong.  It was hard to see all the years Daddy put in in making money to have it just dry up and cease.  He had a machine shop and they majority of what he did was for the oil industry.  They had money built up but to stay afloat they used it up, closed down, sold everything off.  The money they saved they spent.  It was probably not enough to retire on but they did spend it.  Then Daddy just RETIRED.  He did it very early with not much to live off of.  Momma decided she had to get an actual job.  She went to work for MetLife in the mail room and loved it.  It got her out of the house and kind of away from Daddy.  It also provided them health  insurance which they didn't have.  Back then saving for "retirement" was just not part of their vocabulary.  Back then I guess they thought that social security would be their retirement as that is what he lives on now.  Daddy struggles to live off of social security and we DON'T want to struggle to live comfortably.  

Tick-Tock

I am making one last plea here for our youngest, Afton, stage name Sangster.  She is 12 days out to fulfill her fund drive via Pledge Music to raise funds to record her debut EP - Sangster:  Human Becoming!  (5% of the funds raised will benefit the ASPCA.)  You can go to the site and even listen to her voice and ENJOY!


The link for her PledgeMusic campaign is HERE!  

Mega Millions

I'm watching the news this morning and the big news on GMA is the lottery, the BIG lottery.  Do you participate in the lottery fever?  It's kind of infecting I must say.  I have only bought a lottery ticket in my life and that was with my Dad and Sis with their help.  It's one of those things I don't really understand and am a bit fearful about going in and plopping down money for.  1 in 176 million chance of winning the big one, $540 million with it to rise bigger, bigger, bigger because of all the people putting in more money.  I have to get gas this morning and I just might, might buy one.  How about you, do you? 

Just Another Day

It is Tuesday and again it is just like every other Tuesday or every day for that matter. I get up. I work out. I shower and I do the stuff that is on my calendar. While at work out this morning I was talking to Wade about my rut and being always on the edge of depression. Then he asked about the weekend and I relayed the details of the fish fry. I also told him about Bev & Kel coming up Saturday and how that was really difficult for me. I know we took the trip to New York with them but this was different. It was a familiar place that Gail had been with Kel many times. Also, while the guys were fishing Bev and I started just talking. We had very nice conversations for two solid days but at one point she inserted in the middle of one of the talks that when she and Kel were getting married in the future, then she continued her chat without stopping. I was stuck at that point and really didn't hear anything else she was adding. Married! Well, I knew that was probably going to happen because Kel is still young (my age) and has a lifetime left, but to actually hear it out in the open just took by surprise. I was telling Wade, PT guy, about this today and then I kind of choked up when I said that I still missed Gail, and I so do. I miss that friend and have not found anything to replace her in my life. God, I am lonely and I'm in a rut and I just don't care. I told him I'm pretty apathetic about everything lately, I just don't care about anything and I think that is dangerous and puts me on the edge. I am aware of this and am trying but there are days that it does get the best of me. Today is one of them.

I am sitting here posting this waiting to leave to take my car to have the faceplate for the radio replaced. After that is done I'll go back to the office and deal with a pile of stuff on my desk. Luckily B is there today so I don't feel guilty away. We put a contract on some investment property last week and they accepted it yesterday so that is stuff I have to do. We hired another guy to be a material handler and so that is stuff I need to deal with. We also had to buy another work van and when The Hubby was filling out the paperwork they informed him that there had been activity on his social security number. Since we don't finance much that was a shock but the activity has happened since 1998 and we have bought many vehicles since then. I was shocked we had not been informed by other dealerships before. So when I get back I have to check the credit reports and then deal with that legally. It was a woman out of Texas. Very concerning. Then I get an email from our attorney that is working on our estate planning who wants to meet, with us with the financial planner so I have to coordinate four different calendars to make that happen. Just crap to do and I DON'T WANT TO DO ANY OF IT!!!!!

Identity Theft

Not me, thank goodness but B. She had an awesome week because she found out that she passed her comps for her masters in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and is now toying with the idea of pursuing her PhD. This was yesterday and then when she got home for work a UPS truck pulled up and delivered a weird herbal tea stuff for weight loss that she didn't order. She called the company and found out it was ordered with her debit card and address. SHE DID NOT ORDER IT! The company had a different email address and phone number for the account but her financial info. They reimbursed the charges, thank goodness. There were only three or four charges and most were only for $1.00 which the bank lady said that they try to see if you catch it then they go for the big stuff. The idiot thief doesn't realize that B only has a minimal amount of money in the account most of the time and it would have overdrawn. She struggles most of the time. Luckily she caught it and they canceled her card but beware of ordering ANYTHING on the Internet with a debit card. B was so distraught last night when she called me and it scared me to death so I quickly took my laptop next door to check my accounts and A's to make sure they were okay.

Harri and Jimbo are out of town this weekend so I'm sitting on their deck by myself today and really enjoying the quietness, except for the chattering birds and the stupid acorns that are hitting the metal roofs. OUCH! Doggone it I just got hit on the shoulder by one. Aw it is fall here at the cabin! Thank goodness it wasn't one of these, BIG OUCH!

A Busy Week Past and Future!

The last I blogged here I was at 9 pounds lost, well, I'm glad to announce that as of Friday it was 10 pounds. I have not been this weight in over 20+ years. I'm very stoked by my desire to continue on my quest this time. To top off the 10 pounds I broke a small zero, not the big one but that will come in time. I walked with my walking group Monday 1.5 miles, then again on Thursday. Yesterday I again walked and ran at the lake about 2 miles. Tomorrow I am supposed to walk for a St. Patrick's walk, 2 miles, but the forecast is 90% chance of rain and I'm sort of a fair weather walker. We'll just have to see. I know that if I choose to not walk The Hubby will give me grief and looks. He is so afraid I am going to stop and is kind of watching me out of the corner of his eye. Makes me very angry. Lately I've been very perturbed at him with his little comments. I made the statement about being at the back of the pack of my walking group but I'm working as fast as my legs can work and at a very steady pace. He said, "Well, when you lose more weight you'll move faster." That is not the point my dear. My legs are very, very short and so my stride is very short, hence the back of the pack and probably will always be at the back of the pack. I have to face the fact that he is coming at this whole thing with a skinny person brain and I come into it with a fat person brain. They are so very different in their preception of weight, food, exercise, trust me I live it I know. Enough of him. I will proceed the way I want too!

The wedding is two weeks away and we are plodding along nicely. I think we have to pay for the cake and part of the caterer this week and get the announcement in the paper too. She won't let me put the picture in the paper, Rats! Next weekend A comes into town and I can't wait to see her. She seems to be doing very well in California now. She's teaching music to various students, piano, voice and guitar and Loves it. I'm proud of her on sticking to what she wants in life and trying to attain it. Good girl!

Tomorrow The Hubby and I meet with a financial planner. YUCK! The Hubby has decided we need to make more money on our money, make sure we are where we need to be so when we retire or sell the business we will be comfortable. I totally agree but I hate to talk money with him because then he might question "any" of my spending and I draw the line. I do not go shopping and just blow wads of cash contrary to what his perception of my handling of the money goes. He trusts me to manage the money at the office and I do quite well with that and I manage all our money at home and do well with that. I just hate to be put under the microscope. It has taken me a month to gather up all the stuff I needed: 3 years of tax returns, business and personal; monies in the bank in various accounts; properties and the taxes paid; wills, trusts, life insurance, health insurance, etc. I have a HUGE stack of stuff to take there on Monday. I am kind of dreading it but kind of excited to know where we are. One of the things I had to do though was...shhhh...I have been playing at the stock market a little for about 4 or 5 years and since we had to bring all financial records I decided I had better cash out, rats. It was okay as I was losing money at the moment and it couldn't hurt having a little loss right now. It wasn't much, only about $2300 but I was having fun with it but had gotten bored. When I first started it one of the stocks I bought went up from $50 to 1850. I sold that one very quick and it was a good thing because it went down again and has not been up like that again. Very nice return.

Lawyers

The past few years I have been battling our lawyer. He is a nice guy and has been a casual friend of ours for over 20 years but I've just about had it with him. In 2005 we had him develop a LLC partnership for our real estate workings but he has been disagreeing with us on how we deal with it and our trust. I have done my own research, my cousin is a tax attorney (now our attorney) and our CPA and our financial advisor have agreed with me. This previous attorney has just been acting like if he ignores me then I'll forget about it but I haven't. I sent a letter 3 weeks ago requesting all of our files and no response. Last week, Monday, I called, told his secretary I wanted to leave him a message, I didn't need to speak to him, just leave a message. I left this message: "I want our files messenged to our office as soon as possible." That was all I said but no response until Tuesday morning at 9 am when in walked the guy. He had two small file folders in his hands and handed them to me. First of all I didn't know he smoked, yuck, the files and himself stunk. Second he started lecturing me again that I needed to rethink what I was about to do. Third he said that the two files were all he found, that he would keep his eye out for more files. Now we have clients of his for about 20 years you would think there would be more than that. Fast forward to today when I went to the bank to AGAIN open a checking account in the LLC name and was told that the file I had was missing the operating agreement. The file consisted of partial paperwork, a photocopy of the certificate, nothing original. I'm am ticked off royally with this guy. He has made more work for me and I really don't appreciate it. I am so angry with this guy and really am stuck trying to make it right.