I am Retiring….

It’s time to retire. Well…not really. I’m still capable of working several more years but have been thinking of retirement for about a year now.

No…I do NOT have that million+ dollars ‘they’ say we should have before we retire. In fact, I’m not even in the same galaxy as that. I have faith, am not an alarmist, don’t worry about anything, and if history is any indication of the future, I will land on my feet.

The first time retirement popped into my head, I had no idea how one goes about retiring. I knew I had to make sure I could financially survive month-to-month, had to have a game plan of what I was going to do each day, but most importantly I wanted to maintain my current lifestyle. Please keep in mind that none of this is financially motivated. The ONLY thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to go backwards in my lifestyle once I retired.

Without telling anyone about my plan, including my husband, I had to do the obvious…check out how much I was going to get from social security, a very small pension from a job many years ago, and my itty-bitty savings (401k). I wanted it to equal what I was currently bringing home each month with my job.

Just to back peddle a little bit, I was not raised to think about money or taught to save money. We were middle class people growing up and I never had an inkling as to how much money my parents made or what their bills were. I knew my mom was frugal because she clipped coupons for every grocery store in town and shopped at each store for those items. My mom sewed most of our clothes too. But I never heard my folks talk about money.

College was not a word that was EVER mentioned in our house. My dad was the main bread winner and my mother raised my sister and I to be housewives. We learned how to set a proper table, scrub a floor, get stains out of clothes, sew, vacuum, dust, iron, etc. We were going to be proper housewives…not executives in a multi-million dollar corporation.

With that said, neither my sister or myself had a goal to achieve other than getting married, having kids, and keeping house.

In 1993 I had an office job but wanted more. I went to the local community college for a 3-night ‘test’ to determine strengths and weaknesses so you could find out what career to pursue. At the end of those 3 days the results told me to either be an office manager or a travel agent due to my organizational skills. Since I always heard that travel agents don’t make any money but have wonderful travel opportunities, I decided to go to night school for office management.

Same community college for Administrative Office Management and Leadership Development. Fabulous teacher. First and second semester my GPA was 4.0. I was thrilled. The company I was working for offered tuition reimbursement so I got my first year paid for 100%.

During that first year, a gal that I worked with told me that she bought office supplies from a small family-owned business and they were looking for an office manager. I met with them and everything clicked. I was hired. In my mind, experience is the best teacher so I decided not to go back for the second year at the community college.

I learned a lot but working for a very tight-knit family business had it’s drawbacks. Their business practices, in my opinion, were from another century and although I was with them for about five years, it was a difficult five years personally and professionally. With three months of savings to cover all bills, I turned in my resignation and left.

After a week of sitting on the couch in a daze wondering about this bad decision I just made, I went to Cancun with friends for a week. It was just what the doctor ordered. Once I got back I started job hunting not realizing at that time that office managers were a dying breed. Company’s were exploring different methods of covering the tasks that office managers always handled. But lo and behold, I found a position at a small one-girl real estate appraisal firm about 5 minutes from my house.

Loved the job, the location, and the people I worked with. Then the 2008 real estate market collapsed and real estate appraisals were dwindling. After 2 pay cuts I decided to look for another job.

I found one in short order and it was a start-up company looking for an office manager. To this day, it was my dream job. We grew fast and furious, I was valued, I had a lot of responsibility and when a new office was opening in Chicago, I was tasked with getting the new office up and running. Back and forth almost weekly on the train to Chicago. Loved every minute of it. Got the office going. To give you an idea of how fast we were growing, it was my responsibility to purchase the Christmas presents for our employees. In late August I found the perfect give and needed 28 of this item. By October I needed a total of 60. In hindsight the job was getting away from me and the HR director, and it was decided that we hire a controller. I was involved in the hiring process. Hired a gal and in less than a month I was let go because she was taking over my responsibilities. That was a kick in the teeth that took a long time to recover from.

Fall off the horse, you get back up. Found my current position and now it’s time to say goodbye.

So why I am retiring before I really need to? There are several reasons. I don’t respect the owner as I find some of business practices immoral and unethical. When I told someone about this, they replied, “Everybody does that.” Like my mom used to say, “If everybody jumped off of a bridge, would you?” Just because everybody does something doesn’t make it right. Another reason is my husband is 10 years older than I am and has been retired for about 8 years now. We want to travel more. I want to continue with some hobbies and try out others. I did secure a job for one day a week that I’m exited about.

There are many reasons people finally decide to retire. These are mine and this is my story. I know I’m going to be fine and I’m really excited about this next, and last, chapter of my life.