Peace on Earth

This is one of our favorite times of the year. It's not the presents and the hustle and bustle of shopping. It is the things that happen at Christmas that should happen all year but that don't seem to. It is the tiem with friends and family, good food and the time spent at home preparing them.


We love to cook, almost as much as we love to eat. A big part of Christmas for us is the time spent making the Christmas cookies. It is so nice to have a selection and I love to be the cookie inspector, removing any with imperfections and hiding the evidence. We made fruitcake, white chocolate truffles, chocolate bark, Nanaimo bars, buckeyes and cherry triangles. They are all good and we have enjoyed sampling them to make sure the quality is being maintained. Today we visited a few neighbours and delivered some of the cookies. A short visit to check up on everyone on the street is so peaceful and it is one of the joys of the season that can't be purchased.

Now we are getting ready to relax beside the fire and spend a bit of time reading. The presents are all wrapped, Christmas carols are playing in the background, the fire is crackling merrily and a good book is all that is needed to finish of a peaceful scene. Phone calls to family and friends are made and received, and best wishes are exchanged.

Night is falling and a few flakes of snow start to slowly drift to earth, illuminated by the Christmas lights in the yard. I can not imagine a more tranquil setting to spend the night before Christmas. There is complete peace and quiet, no traffic noises, no cash registers ringing, only the sounds of the blue jays and the squirrels at play to break the silence. Completely peaceful.

An evening spent with our small family, having a meal and a conversation before heading off to bed to wait for tomorrow morning. I can't think of a better or more peaceful way to spend Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas to all, may you find your peace and happiness in the season and in the new year.

Let it snow....

Snow day

Today is the kind of day that really reinforces one of the all time great joys of retirement, the lack of a schedule. The ability to change your plans at a moments notice, of having no or very few commitments that are carved in stone. Today is a Storm day.

The great part of having a storm in retirement is that you don't have to head out and shovel the snow to get the car out to head to work, you don't need to suffer the cold snow down the back of your neck in the predawn hours to go to your daily grind. You can sit inside and enjoy the view of natures artistry at your own convenience.

The roads aren't plowed so there is no need to shovel or work on the snow blower. The snow just changed over to rain and it is coming in horizontally, no problem, the fire is cozy and warm and the book is entertaining. It is a relaxing day much like the days of our youth when we could enjoy a snow day, not like the days of our adulthood when a snow day became an added chore in an already hectic life.

Having a snow day brings on the simple joys of a cocoa and a book by the fire, or the smells of homemade bread in the oven. It is a day without plans and one where we can take a devil may care attitude to what comes naturally. I know that we will eventually need to clear the driveway, but it can be done on my terms which is a truly liberating feeling. It is a day like today that really makes you feel that you are the master of your own destiny.

As the song says, "The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful".  So to all those enjoying the retirement years, lets all just say. Let it snow, Let is snow, let it snow.

Geocaching

When we decided to retire at an early age, everyone told us we would get bored in no time at all. While it is true that the time could get log, we have not had that problem yet. We have our home projects and our hobbies. Hobbies are an important part of having a successful retirement, but like our last blog post mentioned you do need to budget for your hobbies as well.

One of our favorite hobbies is Geocaching. Geocaching is a worldwide game played with a GPS or a smartphone to find containers or caches as they are known that hold a log book for you to sign. Geocaching is free to join although you can get a paid membership that gives more tools and options. Once you have signed up for your free membership you then enter your postal or zip code or a town name into the search and you will be shown a map with the caches in your search area. The unfound caches are represented by an unopened treasure chest. Once you find a cache in the real world, you go back to the site and log the find online and the treasure chest changes to a smiley face on the map.

Abandoned stagecoach road in Nova Scotia

  The real fun of geocaching, for us is the places that it has taken us. Geocaches are hidden all over the world, chances are you have walked within a few meters of one and never even known it. They are hidden in urban settings with much skillful camouflage to rural settings with many hiding places to choose from. We find that geocaching takes us to someone's favorite spot in their area and we have found places that we would never have known existed otherwise. We love the long walks on abandoned rail lines and discovering a new waterfall or seeing a spot that is off the beaten track in a tourist area.

Fishing boat and fish house, The Tittle, Nova Scotia

Fort on Lokrum Island, Dubrovink, Croatia

    

Finding the geocache requires you to load the coordinates of the cache into your GPS or use an app for a smartphone to do this. Once you start your GPS, a pointer will aim you toward the cache location and there should be a distance indicator to tell you how far away you are. Most GPS units are accurate to 3-4meters(10-12feet), so in searching you need to have a radius of search about that wide to account for the accuracy of the hiders GPS as well. The next step is to search for the cache. The majority of caches hidden now are listed as a micro, which as the name suggests are small. They are easier to hide in urban settings to remain hidden from the general non-caching public(muggles). Inside the container is a slip of paper to sign you geocaching nickname and the date to prove you were there. Other sizes for geocache are regular, which could be an old ammo can or peanut butter jar, a small which could be a tupperware sandwich keeper to a large, which could be as large as an oil drum.

In Nova Scotia, we have the first geocache hidden in Canada, it was hidden on June 28, 2000 and to date has been found by almost 1500 people. It is on most people's must do list of caches. It is an easy cache to find as it is along the highway and only a short walk to get to this spot.

Geocaching also has different types of caches to appeal to different types of cachers. There are multi-caches which require you to find different legs of a journey to find the final location. Puzzle caches as the name implies have yo solve puzzles at home or in the field to discover the cache coordinates. There are geocaching events, where geocachers from far and wide come together to share their experiences and put faces to nicknames. CITO events are Cache In Trash Out events where geocachers get together and do a garbage cleanup in an area. There are also Earthcaches which have you learn about the geology of an area to claim your smiley face on the map. Letterboxing is a sport that predates geocaching by many years and has now been incorporated into geocaching. In letterboxing a person is given dierections to follow, like a story to find the final container. This container will hold a stamp and pad. A letterboxer will stamp the pad in the box with their stamp and stamp their pad with the stamp in the box.

Geocaching is many things to many people and there are as many ways to play the game as there are people playing it. It is a good combination of hobby and exercise that does not carry a huge price tag. We love this hobby and hope that others can join in and enjoy it as well.

Balance

   In life as with everything else, balance is everything. Nothing can stay out of balance for any significant amount of time without a major correction.  In retirement, finances are the subject of much of our work to maintain balance. Unfortunately this balancing act should start well before we retire to keep the situation stable and a long term success.

  The main tool we can use to achieve balance is a budget, and to be successful in retirement our budget must balance. We all need to have a budget to plan for retirement, if we don't know where the money goes, we won't know if there is enough to retire comfortably. We need to start a budget early to plan for our retirement and we need to project a retirement budget so that we can determine when the money available will give us enough to maintain our desired lifestyle.

  Determining the lifestyle that we desire is a key element in retirement planning. It is what will determine how much money we need to retire. We need to take a realistic look at how we envision our retirement to have any hope of building a realistic budget. Decide what you want to do in your golden years and factor in the costs associated with that choice. There are blogs and websites beyond counting that can be a good resource. One of my favorites is Gail Vaz-Oxlade's  blog. It has many tools and tips for budgeting.

  A financial planner is a must have if you are planning your retirement. It is important to do some research to find the right planner for you. Financial planners paid in different ways and you have to look at the rates to determine what you will pay for the service provided. You also need to find a planner who is in tune with your unique retirement plans, because one size does not fit all. Be realistic in your plans for your retirement and make sure your adviser knows your plans to tailor your portfolio. A good planner will ask what you think you will need in retirement, instead of telling you, so your retirement budget comes into play here.

We all need a hobby in retirement, you will have a lot of time to fill that was formerly taken up by your workplace, and all these will take money to do. Realistically it costs a lot less to live in retirement than it did while working, but you have more free time and filling that leisure time can be costly depending on the activity.  If your goals are to hike the walking trails near your home, your budget would be smaller than if your goal was to hike the Alps or the Outback of Australia.  You need a realistic goal and have to budget accordingly. A hobby is a must in retirement, if you don't have one yo will become bored early on in the process and won't have the fun that retirement should bring.  It also seems that people without a hobby don't live as long in retirement, so find something you like and get out and do it.

My suggestion is to start budgeting early on in life to prepare for retirement and find a financial professional to help you realize your goals. Many banks and savings institutions have low cost financial advisers on staff to help customers with advice. Don't be afraid to change your financial adviser if you are not completely satisfied, it is your money and you need to protect your money and your future.

A good balance in my opinion is to have a plan that lets you put some money away to retire on your terms, but also allows you to have a fun life now.  Giving up all your present enjoyment for a gold plated future could be a mistake if health concerns pop us and derail your plans. Living solely in the present with no thought for the future can come back to haunt you  if you want to maintain a certain quality of life in retirement. Living in the future can lead to regrets of missed opportunities and living in the present can lead to regrets when your goals are unachievable.


Seek a balance in your life and hopefully you will achieve a happy life and retirement with no regrets regardless of the path that life places you on.