The year I turned 50, my father died and my first granddaughter was born. This year I just attended that granddaughter's high school graduation and in August I shall be attending my 50 year high school reunion. Oh My! I have spent some time pondering about which of these events make me feel old.
I have decided that it is not the events that happen to me that make me feel old.
What does make me feel old is the amount of time it takes my joints to warm up and move about in the morning.
What does make me feel old is the amount of time that it takes my extra gained weight to come off now when I lost weight fairly easily with Weight Watchers just 20 years ago.
What does make me feel old is the amount of time that it takes me to retrieve information from the files in my brain when I know that it is "right on the tip of my tongue".
What does make me feel old is when I am filling out some form and they ask me to check the box for my age category and I find the last box they have listed is 50+. (Do they just automatically lump everyone from 50 to 90 in the same category?)
Oh My!
Retired and ready to___________________(you fill in your own blank).
Friday, June 15, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Vacation Car Rental Benefits
Being retired in the "not doing a job for someone else" sense provides us with a lot of flexibility when the need to travel comes up. We have two "must do" trips coming up this spring and summer. Carol Ann has a major class reunion and our granddaughter graduates from high school. Both of these events are going to require us to fly halfway across the country and necessitate renting a car to have the mobility, independence and time control we need.
Since few of those we will visit are retired they have obligations that do not always allow time to transport us or loan us a vehicle, we feel it simplifies life for all if we have our own transportation. The thing is, it can be a very expensive proposition if one is going to rent for several days or weeks. There's not just the cost of the rental but I like to have some insurance coverage and don't get me started on the cost of gasoline right now.
I made a discovery recently that was a pleasant surprise regarding car rental insurance. Two of my credit cards have insurance coverage options available that greatly reduce the out of pocket expense. One, a platinum Visa, has collision damage coverage built in if I use that card for the car rental. The other, a platinum American Express, has a flat $29.95 fee for total coverage if I rent the car with their card. That sure beats the sox off of the $12.95 a day cost the young woman quoted me for a two week car rental with Budget recently. While I do not generally have much nice to say about credit card companies, these certainly are value added services.
Retirement savings and income being what they are, I look for all the shortcuts to savings on a car rental that I can find. I am not very loyal to any brand as I think all of the major companies are about the same. We rent most often from Enterprise but Budget, Thrifty and Alamo have all given us comparable service. I am not sure who can afford Hertz unless your company is paying for the rental. I have found that using a travel search site called Kayak.com will find me the best deals to compare and choose from to get the cheapest price for the most comfortable car.
Give a site like Kayak.com a try and check with your credit card company to see if there may be a "hidden" benefit like the ones I discovered.
Since few of those we will visit are retired they have obligations that do not always allow time to transport us or loan us a vehicle, we feel it simplifies life for all if we have our own transportation. The thing is, it can be a very expensive proposition if one is going to rent for several days or weeks. There's not just the cost of the rental but I like to have some insurance coverage and don't get me started on the cost of gasoline right now.
I made a discovery recently that was a pleasant surprise regarding car rental insurance. Two of my credit cards have insurance coverage options available that greatly reduce the out of pocket expense. One, a platinum Visa, has collision damage coverage built in if I use that card for the car rental. The other, a platinum American Express, has a flat $29.95 fee for total coverage if I rent the car with their card. That sure beats the sox off of the $12.95 a day cost the young woman quoted me for a two week car rental with Budget recently. While I do not generally have much nice to say about credit card companies, these certainly are value added services.
Retirement savings and income being what they are, I look for all the shortcuts to savings on a car rental that I can find. I am not very loyal to any brand as I think all of the major companies are about the same. We rent most often from Enterprise but Budget, Thrifty and Alamo have all given us comparable service. I am not sure who can afford Hertz unless your company is paying for the rental. I have found that using a travel search site called Kayak.com will find me the best deals to compare and choose from to get the cheapest price for the most comfortable car.
Give a site like Kayak.com a try and check with your credit card company to see if there may be a "hidden" benefit like the ones I discovered.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
"Retired and Ready" the Newletter has Arrived!
It's here! Our blog has given birth to a newsletter! Given our desire to meet, greet and share with more retired folks, we have published the first edition of our ongoing newsletter. We would encourage you to check it out at www.retiredandready.com as it has articles and information we can't really cover well in this blog. Subscribe now and it is free. We are sure you will be glad that you did.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Retirement: I'm not seeing things!
I've said before that one of the great things about retirement is that it brings with it the time necessary to ponder over some of the things we see. Today I picked up the Sunday Books section of the newspaper because I had not gotten to it on Sunday before the Padres game came on television. When I hit the final page, the bottom half was an ad from Sony but about what I could not tell. Beyond the word Sony, the only words I could make out were, "Fit 80 books in you carry-on." My immediate reaction was, "why?" I need to point out here that I was wearing a pair of my cheater glasses but I could not not read another word in the entire advertisement. But by now I was curious.
I got off the couch and went out on the patio to get help from the Sun god. With his help I was able to learn that this piece of advertising was for a device called the Sony Reader. The point of the ad was that this device can hold roughly 80 downloads of your favorite books and if you purchase a Reader before the end of April, $50 worth of downloads are yours for the taking at Borders. When I finished, I began to ponder what the devil Sony was thinking.
I think I know about four people over the age of fifty who do not require some type of assistance to read the printed word. I know one of them has had Lasiks surgery. So I know hundreds of senior citizens and retirees who if not curious like I was, would have passed right over the content of this ad. Was Sony thinking, we do not want to advertise to retirees and people with vision weaknesses? Was their intent to create the kind of curiuosity that requires all of these persons to seek bright light or magnifying glasses to find out what was being advertised here? The more I pondered, the more irritated I became because I concluded that they were not thinking. This is an ad for a "reading" device and the print is so darn small no one but a teenager could read the ad. I don't know about you, but I don't know many kids today who read much more than text messages unless it is assigned as homework.
The senior citizens and retired people I know do a great deal of reading. How many would be interested in this type of device, I have no idea. I am guessing that Sony doesn't know either!
Ponder that!
I got off the couch and went out on the patio to get help from the Sun god. With his help I was able to learn that this piece of advertising was for a device called the Sony Reader. The point of the ad was that this device can hold roughly 80 downloads of your favorite books and if you purchase a Reader before the end of April, $50 worth of downloads are yours for the taking at Borders. When I finished, I began to ponder what the devil Sony was thinking.
I think I know about four people over the age of fifty who do not require some type of assistance to read the printed word. I know one of them has had Lasiks surgery. So I know hundreds of senior citizens and retirees who if not curious like I was, would have passed right over the content of this ad. Was Sony thinking, we do not want to advertise to retirees and people with vision weaknesses? Was their intent to create the kind of curiuosity that requires all of these persons to seek bright light or magnifying glasses to find out what was being advertised here? The more I pondered, the more irritated I became because I concluded that they were not thinking. This is an ad for a "reading" device and the print is so darn small no one but a teenager could read the ad. I don't know about you, but I don't know many kids today who read much more than text messages unless it is assigned as homework.
The senior citizens and retired people I know do a great deal of reading. How many would be interested in this type of device, I have no idea. I am guessing that Sony doesn't know either!
Ponder that!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
ID Theft is Scary to the Retired
I realize that as we age, changes in the mind and body can result in the reduction of courage and the enhancement of some fears. But I have to tell you that after a recent conversation with a fellow retired person, the two of us had nearly scare ourselves silly!
He had gotten an email from his brother about how messed up his son's (Paul's nephew) life had become since his identity had been stolen. Apparently someone had gotten enough of the nephew's personal information to successfully complete a pre-approved credit card application retrieved from the dumpster at his complex. The nephew currently believes it was someone working in tandem with a person who gained access to his personnel file at a former employer.
We got to speculating about various ways we had run across recently that illustrated how people leave themselves open to identity theft. At our Credit Union ATM there are routinely withdrawal receipts on the floor. At gas pumps, people leave their receipt in or around the pump. It would seem that the annoying reminder beep would help but many older and retired persons do not hear sounds in that range. In our retirement community they still deliver to the mailbox on your house and a number of homes have an unlocked decorative mailbox 20 ft from the curb. A retired acquaintance left her sunroof open in a hospital parking lot and someone just reached in and took the garage door opener and car registration that were clipped to the visor. With the address on the registration and the opener, her house was robbed of not only identity rich materials but valuable jewelry before she got home from the hospital. When crows tore open a neighbors garbage bags, some of what ended up in the street included checks for balance transfer and cash advances from one of her credit cards. Until a couple of years ago, I used to sort my mail at the garbage can and throw those kinds of offers in the can unopened!
By the time we finished our walk we felt like there was a bogey man behind every tree and we had both taken a pledge to religiously use our shredder! Do you have an identity theft experience or a good tip on how to protect us from identity theft? Leave us a comment to share.
Take care of yourself and your identity.
He had gotten an email from his brother about how messed up his son's (Paul's nephew) life had become since his identity had been stolen. Apparently someone had gotten enough of the nephew's personal information to successfully complete a pre-approved credit card application retrieved from the dumpster at his complex. The nephew currently believes it was someone working in tandem with a person who gained access to his personnel file at a former employer.
We got to speculating about various ways we had run across recently that illustrated how people leave themselves open to identity theft. At our Credit Union ATM there are routinely withdrawal receipts on the floor. At gas pumps, people leave their receipt in or around the pump. It would seem that the annoying reminder beep would help but many older and retired persons do not hear sounds in that range. In our retirement community they still deliver to the mailbox on your house and a number of homes have an unlocked decorative mailbox 20 ft from the curb. A retired acquaintance left her sunroof open in a hospital parking lot and someone just reached in and took the garage door opener and car registration that were clipped to the visor. With the address on the registration and the opener, her house was robbed of not only identity rich materials but valuable jewelry before she got home from the hospital. When crows tore open a neighbors garbage bags, some of what ended up in the street included checks for balance transfer and cash advances from one of her credit cards. Until a couple of years ago, I used to sort my mail at the garbage can and throw those kinds of offers in the can unopened!
By the time we finished our walk we felt like there was a bogey man behind every tree and we had both taken a pledge to religiously use our shredder! Do you have an identity theft experience or a good tip on how to protect us from identity theft? Leave us a comment to share.
Take care of yourself and your identity.
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