The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I guess since all my cronies are throwing in the towel and taking retirement on schedule, it’s only reasonable I’ve been getting calls from the Mabana Financial Services asking if I’d like to come on down to their lavish offices overlooking the Port of Mabana and discuss fiscal strategies for my upcoming Golden Years. Ho ho, would I ever? Course, like I tell Ben, the head honcho down at MFS, it’s a little like saddling up the horse that ske-daddled when I left the barn door open back in my earning years. Earning years. Old Ben loves expressions like that.

I said I’d talk to him, but only over beers down at the newly opened Bar 282, named after our zip code’s last three numbers, probably some numerology factoid that becomes apparent deep in the cups. Better, I suppose, than 666, what the Little Church in the Ravine refers to it as. So if Benjamin and I are going to discuss finances, what better place? At least that’s what I told him when he asked, why there?

We got through the first two schooners okay, managed to navigate around my Social Security numbers which, admittedly, were poor, a reflection of my life as a fiddling grasshopper while my neighbors labored as productive ants. My mistake, at least from the vantage point of an old grasshopper, but I wouldn’t change anything even if I had a time machine. Ben commiserated the way a funeral director would offer comfort to the bereaved, not totally heart-felt, but what his job calls for. What’s he gonna say, you deserve poverty, Skeeter? Instead he mentioned annuities, aggressive equities, municipal bonds and a dozen other financial instruments. Instruments. I kid you not, that’s what he called them. Like something in a fiscal orchestra and he, I guess, was the maestro.

By the 3rd beer we were both convinced it was hopeless. I wasn’t going to catch up to Warren Buffet, not in the remaining years, not if I worked until I was 300 years old. “Ben,” I said, “I appreciate you trying to help. But you can’t prime a pump if you don’t have water.” Ben shook his head wearily. “You change your mind, Skeeter, drop by and we’ll strategize some more.” I haven’t been in since, but I might go for another beer with him. Maybe some of that high rolling fiscal firepower will rub off. That, or I could trade a few of my banjos for a couple of his instruments.

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I can’t tell you how many people think I ought to retire, figuring maybe I’m mostly washed up, too old, too tired, too burned out. Retirement’s a lot like religions, you want to share your newfound paradise with those who haven’t yet found the Light and the Way. Either that or they feel guilty they called it quits while I toil valiantly on. Okay, they probably think I’m stupid.

Most of my buddies have thrown in the towel. Years ago. It’s hard for them to understand why anybody wouldn’t. I get it. If I’d worked some thankless job 40 hours a week, I’d probably … wait, I did work a thankless job. You try making art and worse, try selling it! Thankless? Don’t even get me started. I could write the Wikipedia article.

Let’s face it — I’m not going to get a pension. Social Security, yeah, but see how much you’d get if most of your wage earning years were less than 3 figures. Not that I’m complaining, I’ll take whatever the returns on my crappy investment in myself were. Serves me right, I guess.

An artist — and this is just an unscientific survey — probably makes way more at the tail end of a career than the early years. Dead artists make even more. Not that it would do this one much good. All those glass panels left down at the studio, sure, quadruple the worth, buy me a Cadillac coffin why don’tcha?

Meanwhile I’m hoping for some returns on work pre-demise, maybe the best earning years, maybe not. Okay, probably not. Nobody went into art thinking to get rich, trust me on that and engrave it on my tombstone. HERE LIES A STARVING ARTIST.
Course, he didn’t die of malnutrition, he died because he refused to retire.

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FIRE ( Financial Independence, Retire Early)

Even before Trump pronounced You’re Fired, maybe you heard of FIRE, the groupthink of slackers like myself who thought Maynard G. Krebs had it correct back on Dobie Gillis: Work?? A four letter word spoken only with incredulity, as in, What, Me?
There’s an entire movement out there for those who want to retire young. In fact, there’s a Lean Fire and a Fat Fire, the former for those who think they might manage to live on 40 grand a year and the latter for those who think they might manage on a mere 150 grand. The latter we’re going to call rich and if they need help figuring out how to retire comfortably, I’m not going to be the one to give advice. Other than to tell them to get their heads out of their ass and wake up. You’re rich, you idiot!

But for the rest of us, me, my neighbors on the South End and possibly you wannabee retirees, I have all kinds of free advice. I know, if I set myself up as a Life Counselor, I’d be in the Fat Fire category, rich beyond my means to spend it all. No, that would defeat the purpose now, wouldn’t it? Even if I do think Life Counselor doesn’t actually fall into the category of work. Maynard G. was really a life counselor, after all. At least for me.

I have friends who run the numbers on what they will need to live a comfortable lifestyle into their 90’s. You can find financial advisors who will lay out your portfolio and give you the verdict if you can live on a mere 100K a year until the assisted living apartments kick your indigent self onto the sidewalk when you run out of pesos. Most of you won’t want to take the chance. Most of us would rather … yes, work, than risk becoming a bag lady at 95, eating from dumpsters and sitting at the freeway exit soliciting alms. TOO EARLY RETIREMENT, ANY $$$’S WILL HELP. GOD BLESS.

If you’re that kind of planner, forget about it. Retiring early requires a leap of faith. You either believe you can make ends meet or you don’t. It helps to start early, the earlier the better. That way you can make adjustments. Worst case, you can … well, there’s no gentle way to say this, you can go to work. The Lean Fire people may not tell you, but I will, if you retire before you made any money, you will have to find some means of accruing greenbacks for food, clothes, dwellings and the like. Sorry, but it’s kind of a Law of Physics.

The trick the Lean Fire Folks keep to themselves is that you have to work, you just don’t have to work for the Man. Swell, right? They also won’t tell you working for yourself is hard. The pay is crap, the boss is a jerk and the retirement you already took isn’t offered in the self-employment package. Neither is health care, vacation, sick leave, all that stuff you walked away from. Check the Lean Fire Fine Print if you don’t believe me.

But! If you’re like me and Maynard, take the gamble. Beats the odds at the casino and way better than Lotto. Worst case, you have to go back and do what you hated in the first place, but you got a short vacation. You might even learn to shop Goodwill and buy generic. You might find that the America that isn’t nose to tail in the rat race isn’t so bad after all. You might discover you actually have an imagination and that imagination might take you places you never dreamed possible. Even without that 150K budget….

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