It’s been 5 months now since I officially retired. I’ve been asked if I have any regrets? In general, I guess I do have some regrets in life. I could have, should have, made better decisions when I was younger (who couldn’t have, right?). I regret not seeing and taking advantage of opportunities often right in front of me. I regret that I didn’t do more to stick with certain things in my life. I wish I would have followed my dreams sooner. But, do I regret working hard, making sacrifices, finally making some good choices and making it possible to leave my work life to retire early? NO WAY, man!
I’ve always been a worker (since I was 13 picking up trash and mowing the grass at the local grocery store). I guess I come by it naturally, as my mom was a hard-working single parent. I sometimes look back and question myself if I was actually a hard worker. Well, I know in my heart and mind that I certainly wasn’t always the hardest of workers, or the most dedicated, especially when I was young. But, over the years, others have often told me they saw it differently. I worked multiple jobs, for many years of my life, to try and make ends meet and support my family. I worked as many as three jobs at once. I even donated plasma after work or on the rare day off. I have a scar on the inside of my right arm from extracting in the same exact spot over and over as a constant reminder of those times. I saw it as just doing what I needed to do. Now, many years later, I look back at my work life and wonder if it was all worth it.
Of course, I HAD to work. I once thought I may have a future in professional sports, but my body, mind, and heart had other plans. So off to work I went. I’ve had several jobs in my life, although I guess not really a lot by others’ standards. I was a short order cook at a few different places when I was in high school. I’ve been a mailroom clerk, a sales associate at JC Penny, and worked a while for a temp agency. I was a shipping/receiving manager for a large department store in a mall for several years and I worked a long time at an auto body shop as well as in the service department of a car dealership. I unloaded trucks for UPS, did promotional work for a fitness gym, and even got to do stunt work in a movie! I worked for myself as a residential real estate appraiser and finally hung up (threw out – literally) my work clothes after 19 years as an appraiser with a local government agency. I also delivered pizza part time for 8 years during those nineteen years! Some people are lucky enough to find a job they love. Did I personally ever find MY passion and get to pursue that as my job? Did I find THAT thing that made me hop out of bed with excitement each day and couldn’t wait to get to work? I thought I did once, but it ultimately didn’t pan out.
I grew up loving movies. I spent hours in the mirror applying monster make-up to my face just to show my friends and family. I did magic shows for whomever would watch, I read credits on TV as if I were an announcer. I acted out movie stunts in the yard. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up! I liked performing. In my mid-20s I was actually able to pursue one of my dream careers as a radio announcer! I completed broadcasting trade school and I worked that angle, part time, for almost four years before reality set in. Reality was that I had a family, two young daughters to support. In the radio business, like most any other, you start at the bottom for little pay and hope to work your way up the ladder. You really have to be talented and able to move around the country a lot to get experience and climb the ranks. After starting out with a short stint at a tiny (very tiny) country music station in a small town where I actually did the morning show, wrote commercial copy, and beat the streets to sell advertising, not to mention driving a full hour each way every day, I was lucky enough to get in at a large radio station in a major market in my home town (KMGL, Magic 104.1). I started overnights on weekends, then weekend days, even filled in during weekday afternoon shifts. I helped as much as I could with promotions and live events, movie premieres, concerts, state fairs, air shows. I LOVED that stuff. I loved everything about it. I tried and TRIED to make inroads, to move up, to make it work. I wrote hand-written letters to supervisors and management at my station and others. Co-workers were on my side. As a really good friend at the time, Kristi helped me with resumes and promotional letters (she was a Mac computer whiz!!). Family members were supportive. But, lo, it wasn’t meant to be. I had to have a full time job too, and juggled yet another part time gig both at the same time as I was working overnights on the radio. It was exhausting. Ultimately, life got in the way. I couldn’t afford to drag my little family around the country to pursue my passion on a full time basis. That dream died on the vine. I let it go and life moved on.
I did however, years later, enjoy working for myself for a while, making my own schedule, and answering only to me. I was able to be there for my girls. I went on field trips, attended class parties, and was home when they were. However, after almost five years, I realized that I wasn’t managing myself and the business the way I needed. The money could be good, but I was growing tired of the financial rollercoaster. I never quite got a handle on the “save during the good times to cover for the slow times” concept. I also had zero benefits and no retirement plan. So I went back to work for “The Man”. I took a government job with a steady paycheck, although I certainly wasn’t going to get rich. I had great work hours, liberal time off, and I wasn’t doing hard, manual labor. I also had excellent health care and a nice retirement plan. Like so many people far from traditional retirement, I had to think past the so-so pay and learn to value the awesome benefits. I liked my co-workers and my supervisors were mostly hands-off. Nice pay increases came over the years. What’s not to like?! That job distanced me from living hand-to-mouth and gave me financial resources with which to look to the future. Yet, something was missing. After moving on from a previous marriage, I was forced to double down on my inherent frugality, but quickly realized that, despite my secure job, increasing salary and benefits, I was existing in the now and not necessarily looking down the road. My head was firmly above the water, but I was treading, not swimming, both financially and personally.
Life intervened again, this time for the good. Kristi rode in from the past on horseback, naked, with her long hair flowing in the wind, à la Lady Godiva (that’s how I recall it anyway! Kristi says, “uh, NO”). Seriously, I was ready for a new relationship. I was ready for a real partner, someone on the same page, with similar views on life, finances, work, and the future. I’d known Kristi for decades and knew we came from similar backgrounds and she had experienced many of the same hardships I had throughout her young adult years. We talked about all of those things for hours, for days on end and eventually realized we were meant for one another (dare I say soul mates?). We married, combined our finances, and began thinking about the future. Double income was a huge key for us, along with unrestricted communication and being frugal. Through the years we have stayed grounded and budgeted for vacations, home repairs, etc. When we did stray outside the financial lines, it was with coupons, special offers, or incredible financing. The road has not been without a few distractions (oooh, something sparkly!) or small potholes, but even those we attacked head on, rolled up our sleeves and did what we knew – WORK it out.
So, do I have regrets now that I’m on the other side of my work life? Only that I/we weren’t able to start down this path sooner. But, we truly believe that we would not appreciate where we are now if we hadn’t experienced the lives we had before, the trials and tribulations, the hardships, and having learned the lessons we had both learned. To be fair, I THINK I could have somehow eventually figured this out by myself, relying on that lifelong work ethic and all the things life and those many jobs taught me, but I can’t argue that it has been MUCH easier with a like-minded partner. As stated many times before, we started this journey together only 12 years ago, in our mid-forties. It’s never too late to choose happiness. For us, that meant leaving our work lives as soon as possible, while we were young enough to enjoy life and each other. We both knew we did not want to wilt away behind a desk long into old age, thinking we were simply doing the right thing and being safe. We know that no one is promised tomorrow and believe that each passing day, month, and year is a gamble with health, mobility and desire. We worked hard to make early retirement a reality. We choose to travel and experience people and the world NOW. If life turns out differently than we envision, then so be it. No one ever wished they would have worked MORE. Instead, experience your best life now. To quote Lucille Ball, “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”
We are Mike and Kristi, and we spent the last decade getting out of debt, saving money, and becoming financially independent so we could retire early and travel the globe. You can also follow our journey on Instagram at MKAlmostThere https://www.instagram.com/mkalmostthere/ and eventually on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh6VD3QdcfN_2IIHkjk7V-Q
11/9/22
Mike