I am in the process of turning over all the books and equipments under my care in the course of my work as a college librarian. My target to retire is on December 2016 and I will have to double my time as next month classes will start again for another semester.
Well, I will be 52 this years, so I am not quite to that retirement age yet. However, even when I reach that age, I am not sure that I will want to retire fully. I am able to work part time and enjoy doing freelance work, which is a much more leisurely pace of life in some ways. On the other hand, being my own boss means that if I do not have the motivation one day, I don't get paid that day. Ha ha.
That, I really like, appreciate, and can relate to. In a somewhat different situation, but similar requirements to produce needed results, we lived without power or running water, in an area mostly cold the greater part of the year, so thus HAD to drive ourselves to stock in firewood, feed the two stoves in the middle of the night, see to it the animals would not freeze (milk goat, chickens), walk out amongst the coyotes' howling, (of course, in the middle of the night), to pee in an outhouse 100 feet from our humble cabin. THIS was "living off the grid", before the phrase hade been coined. Would I do it again? IN A HEARTBEAT! Frank
Frank, that sounds fun, scary, exciting and interesting. LOL How long did you do this for, and what were your motivations? I'm curious as to why you stopped as well. It sounds like the kind of life that many people choose and don't change. I know a family who have pretty much always lived off the grid, no TV, no internet, no electricity. It is amazing what we get used to that we don't actually need.
Your experience sounds a whole lot like mine, @Frank Sanoica , except I was already almost 60 years old, and living on my own when I tried doing that. I had moved up to family property in northern Idaho, and had enough money to be able to get an old used single-wide trailer and get it set up; but not enough to have lights and water put in. I also had livestock to take care of , but no way to use wood heat, and instead I had a kerosene heater. Snow was over my knees all winter long, and below zero weather most of the time. I can't tell you how glad I was when I finally got electricity, and then in another year or so, I had saved enough to sign up for the county water system. I do miss the peace and privacy of living out in the woods; but unlike you, Frank; I would NOT want to live that way again now.
Hi Ken, You're doing the work that I dearly want to do! How do I find a job here on line? I dearly need to work from home, and have searched for work that would permit me to do that. Can you guide me? Thanks Jeanne
Hi, Jeanne. We are just an average Seniors forum here, and not a place for locating a job, even though we do have topics on that. Most of us that are older do not actually have a job anymore, but we can relate to each other because of the age group that we are all part of. Perhaps, @Ken Anderson can steer you in the right direction, since he works online full-time.
Web directories are not as big as they once were, so there are not a lot of jobs in that field right now. We all pretty much know one another and have been doing it for more than two decades. Most everyone I know who earns a living online these days doesn't depend on any one thing, but tries to have revenue streams coming in from a lot of places.
I'm still working. I was laid off from my "career" job in IT at the age of 64 and got a job at a credit bureau to bridge to where I felt comfortable living on SS and being on Medicare. I left there in October 2020 and have been doing jobs that I like doing. Last month, I started working at the Walgreens Fulfillment Center in Northlake, Texas, and will probably stay there until I am not physically capable of doing the work. I was hired as a Pharmacy Technician but right now I'm working in the fulfillment area (they are VERY shorthanded in the fulfillment area), loading little yellow robot dump trucks that take the prescriptions to the appropriate tote for the retail pharmacy that is to get it. That's not me in the video, but what I do is similar.
Frank! Frank! I have TWO indoor privies in my barnhouse. One is a commercial electric toilet and one is a thunder mug (as my mother used to call them) with a lid! I guess I am more upper class than some.
As I have mentioned before, I do still work but I work from home on my own time, and wouldn't look forward to punching a clock or reporting any particular place for work anymore. Since all I would have otherwise is my Social Security, I suppose I'll work as long as I am able to see the computer screen and manipulate the keys on a keyboard.
I quit my adjunct prof job at the local two year college two years ago, shortly before the pandemic broke out. Because of the pandemic, I'm glad that I did, but I do indeed miss it. For a few years before that my wife kept reminding me that we didn't need the money, but I kept going anyway. Since it was part time, I could manage the schedule so as to work in our travels. As above, I miss it.