Once again I’ve been startled to see how long it’s been since I last posted. Life has gotten in the way of regular writing, especially since I had already been slacking.
Specifically:
DF’s mom died in hospice recently, which was painful but a blessing in its own way: She’d taken a fall, after which she never got out of bed again. He was there almost every day, even though she was often unconscious during his visits. DF sat by her bedside, reading aloud or sometimes softly singing. Sometimes she knew he was there and would respond to his presence. When she was awake, he’d brush her hair or try to get her to sip some Ensure or at least some water.
This was the end of an 18-month journey, starting with needing to convince her to move to assisted living because she was no longer safe on her own. (She’d been scammed by phone and in person.) To do that, he had to tour existing facilities, furnish the apartment and get her settled, and prepare her house to be sold (which meant dealing with decades’ worth of art and supplies and furniture and such).
He made endless phone calls to untangle the labyrinth called “paying for assisted living”: His mom had an excellent long-term care policy (bless those state job benefits!), but getting it activated took reams of paperwork. The stress was nonstop, but he never complained.
There wasn’t much I could do, except be here for him. I’ve focused on being as present as possible, and to pick up the slack at home.
When I was home, that is.
A new gig
The freelance market is tottering due to AI and algorithms. Clients are disappearing, assignments are fewer and further between. Figured that was fine for me since I was nearing the end of my working life anyway: I’d write when I could and enjoy life the rest of the time.
After months of relative sloth, I started having the bag lady dream again. To quiet my inner alarmist, I took a retail job in early December – and I’m still there. After a couple of months of nearly full-time schedules, they’ve finally gotten me down to my desired 20 or so hours per week of cashiering.
Am I earning a fortune? Of course not. This is retail, remember? But it’s a steady income, and has some decent perks:
Retirement matching. The company matches up to 5% of what I put in.
Employee discount. The job is at a regional big-box store* that sells food, clothing, toys, shoes, home improvement items, and just about anything else you could want. I get a 10% discount on any of a couple of dozen store brands, and I can stack this with my senior discount. Sometimes we’re offered additional discounts; for example, I paid $86 for three pairs of Skechers shoes that are so comfortable I want to wear them to bed. (Shoes with good support are essential in this line of work.)
Proximity to deals. I’m there several times a week, which means more chances to find good prices – and, sometimes, to make them even cheaper with those discounts. A few examples: a pound of ground beef, $1.20; milk, 40 cents per half-gallon; kettle corn** drizzled with dark chocolate, 57 cents; 18 cage-free eggs, 90 cents. After the holidays, I went home with 29 boxes of Stove Top stuffing mix for a dime apiece; some went to friends and the rest to the food bank.
Nice people. Supervisors and co-workers were patient with my first-month jitters working in the “front end” of the store. (Hint: It had been 50 years since I worked retail. The cash registers have changed since then.) It’s hectic, but I feel that colleagues have my back. And I have theirs; I’ve given people rides*** home and bought food**** for a co-worker when she couldn’t find her debit card.
Human connection. Being a freelancer is isolating. Connecting with customers has been fun. People tend to bond over food; many a conversation has begun with me saying, “I’ve never cooked with (item they’re buying).” Customers love telling me how a dish is prepared and what it tastes like. I’m also getting a good look at shoppers’ anxiety over $10-a-pound chubs of 73% ground beef, which explains the amount of pasta coming over the conveyor belt.
The bag lady dream
Twenty years ago I published my first guest column on MSN Money. “Surviving (and thriving) on $12,000 a year” went viral before the phrase existed. It led to other guest pieces and ultimately to my starting the Smart Spending blog (later morphing into the Frugal Nation site) for MSN.
When I finally got my college degree in 2009, I wrote about deciding not to look for a square job. Freelancing paid the bills, re-established the financial safety net lost during the protracted divorce, and bolstered my retirement savings. It was the perfect gig for me: Work when I wanted, writing about topics that interested me and helped others.
It was great, until it wasn’t.
Understand: Those bag lady dreams are driven by anxiety. Thanks to careful living, I now have cash reserves again. The 401(k) from my newspapering days has grown decently. I have a Roth IRA, and my writing business has been funding a SEP-IRA (although those contributions have slowed way down). My goal is to let these funds ride until age 73, when I’ll have to take required minimum distributions.
On paper, I’m probably okay. But rationality is not much of a defense against that bag lady dream.
It’s not about getting rich. Who gets rich working retail? The job has been good for my self-esteem, for my health (tons of steps per day have helped me lose weight) and, yes, for the bottom line. Every dollar I earn is a dollar I don’t have to take from savings (or retirement) to cover things I need.
DF has told me I don’t have to work. I thanked him for his kindness and politely said that yes, I do have to work if I can work. I can’t in good conscience let him pay for everything.
I know how lucky I am. So many people aren’t able to save enough to stop working. But I don’t want to test that luck. Until I reach at least age 70 and qualify for full Social Security, I’ll keep playing store.
Readers: Are you still working? If retired, have you considered taking part-time or seasonal work to make ends meet?
*Won’t confirm the name of the store but anyone who lives here could probably figure it out.
**Usually I take a bag of pretzel M&Ms over to share when I get together with my friend Linda B. I was able to buy 10 bags of that popcorn for less than I’d spend on one bag of candy. And dang, is it good.
***Some people use Lyft, Uber or taxis to get home. Don’t want to think about how much of a day’s pay that eats up.
****She paid me back later that day, once she had time to go to the bank.
The post Not gone, just quiet. first appeared on Surviving and Thriving.
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