Thanks.

Need to vent a little about flying. I hate flying. Actually, I don't hate flying. I hate flying with people.

Apparently, you can now preboard if you have a little yapping service dog. In fact, it appears as if you don't need much reason at all to preboard. There had to be 30 or more on my flight preboarding. Hard to imagine there are that many that need to do this.

But, that isn't even close to being my major gripe. I had the pleasure of sitting in front of a couple with a less than 2 year old screaming child. Not only that, but the little demon kicked my seat the entire time. I get that it is hard to control the screaming, but it sure seems to me you can keep mini-lucifer from kicking my seat for 2 hours. Not only that, but the devil-child was hell bent on reaching between the seats to try to grab whatever it was that we were eating/drinking. It even reached around and closed my window. All the while screaming at the top of its Damian lungs.

/rant

My manager just put in his two weeks notice. Ugh. I really like him and I doubt I can cruise along like I do under anyone else.

So, I may have one more reason to retire.

Right now the biggest issue I have is healh insurance. I can go on my wife's plan but her job is a little iffy as well.

I'm seriously considering going uninsured. The cheapest plan out there for someone like me is around $900 a month with about an $8000 deductible. I would have to have something costing $20,000 for that to pay off.

I've looked into costs and something like an appendectomy isn't that expensive. Well, it can be. But the average cost is lower.

Additionally, I've found out that there are health care advocates that can help you with negotiating costs, and spotting unreasonable fees.

I know that health insurance is basically a hedge against something catastrophic. I guess an accident can happen. But my health is reasonably good. I definitely don't have heart issues, which is a biggie. The big C is always a possibility, but I'm at pretty low risk.

Even then, I think I could handle a fairly major event on some sort of payment plan. Seems like that would still be cheaper than the actual cost of insurance.

Urgh I was commiserating with your devil child post and then I saw your health insurance post The devil child story reminded me of being on a flight with this child of about 5 kicking the back of my chair. I very politely asked the child to please stop and the mother went off her head telling me I had no right to tell her child what to do. Anyway long story short it resulted in me scoring a new seat and extra great service from the flight attendants!

Regarding the health insurance I would be extremely reluctant not to have it in the US but obviously I am Aussie so maybe I have just heard too many horror stories regarding it.

New retirement target date. March 22.

We've been notified that bonus checks arrive in our bank account on March 8. I'll hopefully be putting in my two weeks notice the next Monday. You would be surprised how many people do this.

I figure I'm pretty close now so I might as well hang in there.

I'm certainly not guaranteed a bonus. My manager just quit and we probably won't have a manager that can have any reliable input before bonuses are decided. But I think he's put in good words for me to the people that make those decisions. Our company is kicking butt financially so maybe it doesn't matter.

Of course, if I don't get one, I'll be equally motivated to quit.

I sound like a broken record, but maybe I can get myself to really do it this time.

YOU CAN DO IT!

I think I can
I think I can....

Adding more uncertainty........

Biggerwife is officially burned out at her job. Actually, her profession. I've seen this coming for a while but she finally hit the wall.

It's a tough job. She loves caring for people but the negatives have finally caught up with her. Hostile patients, uncaring and inept coworkers, bean counters that only care about the bottom line. So many things. Like a lot of jobs, you can deal with the negatives for a long time, but the cumulative effect eventually leads to burnout.

She has earnestly begun looking but it will be tough. I think she would like a lot of things, but on paper she just isn't qualified. That's too bad because she would be an absolutely stellar employee, and good at anything she put her mind to. And, she would put her mind to it.

I think that, unless she gets a good job through networking or some personal recommendation, she will have to take a pretty drastic cut in pay. That will be tough if I, too, take a huge cut in pay.

Right now, our finances aren't really very co-mingled. We contribute evenly to a joint account for most expenses. I take care of the condo payments and we share the boat payment. We each take care of our cars separately, although she just paid hers off. But, if one of us took a hit financially, we would deal with it together. Having both of us removing what might amount to 70% of our joint income doesn't seem sustainable.

The elusive retirement may be becoming even more elusive

Took a day off because, well, I have days off to take. Use it or lose it.

I spent the day trying to work on my website. I really don't want to pay someone to do this because, even I'd just as soon not see another computer in my life, I'm capable and I'll be on a fixed income

I think I mentioned I use Bluehost for my domain hosting. Other than the debacle of trying to get my account back, they are really responsive and have great customer service. Huge selling point for me.

They partner with several other companies that provide various services, including web design. I think I also mentioned I chose ****** to get started. Although it is fairly easy to use, I just could not get the look and feel right. There were so many things that would have required modifying the html and css files and I really don't want to go there if I don't have to.

So, I spent some time with Wix. It gets some pretty good reviews. It, too, was fairly easy and I got great results. But, they do not partner with Bluehost, and in fact are a competitor.

I called Bluehost to sort of pick their brains on using Wix. They said it wouldn't be bad, but some of the things on my site bluehost would be responsible for and some Wix would be responsible for. I've seen this in the tech world and it always gets into some finger pointing game when things go wrong. Furthermore, to do this I would also have to pay a monthly fee to Wix. Not something I want to do. I could conceivably move everything over to Wix but I don't want to do that either.

So, I decided to try Wordpress. However, when I tried to load it, it crashed. While I was talking to the bluehost rep, I told her this and she took a look at it and referred me to tech support. The tech support guy spent about an hour trying things but he couldn't get it to work either. He "escalated" the issue. He thinks there are some corrupt files somewhere in my "area". That actually would make sense since I remember creating a site a loooooonnggg time ago from some defunct web development tool. At any rate, he put in a ticket and I will need to wait until they clear things up.

cliffs: web development sucks

Today at work

to retire fully you are going to need like at a minimum 50,000 a year income from pensions and investments and no debt. more needed if you are carrying debt. otherwise you will find yourself tight especially with inflation.

We need a dilbert story if that is the scene at work.

Yeah, that's about the number I've come up with. Certainly doable but scary.

Just the typical. Some muckety muck decided that a project is now an emergency and everyone is running around waving their arms because nobody really knows what to do. It's like throwing a bunch of people into a pitch black room and let them try to figure out how to get out.

Typically, they keep trying to toss the responsibility my way since I'm the programmer. Fortunately I've developed a pretty good return swing through the years.

I think what makes me the most uncomfortable is that traditional retirement planning requires drawing down principal on savings. My brain has been programmed to increase savings, not decrease them.

Most of my spreadsheet scenarios have been to try to live solely off of dividends. I've set up my account with bonds and dividend stocks. It's going to be kinda tight going this route. If I can get out of the mindset of not drawing principal I think I'd be fine.

Of course, what is really behind this is my refusal to believe I'm mortal.

your still to young to draw down principle. you could draw down a % of what your portfolio has increased each year leaving enough to keep up with inflation. your dividend stocks should grow over time modestly to keep you in the ballpark. few realize how much you spend in retirement. it isnt like you stay home and watch tv all day and dont spend money.
plus you can also do things to bring in some income on the side thats fun. like maybe do some fishing guiding under an outfitter or just some side work on contract.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing you may be underestimating is that you may likely make some sort of other $. I mean, maybe not, but you probably will.

I definitely will be getting a part time job for a while at least. Hopefully my books make a little money, but not counting on it.

I got pushed a little closer today.

As usual, I got a project dumped on me that is already way behind. On top of that, I've been spending most of my time on another project that is way behind. And, as usual, I know almost nothing about how either app works or what it is supposed to do.

The PM for the new project that is way behind sent out an email to a bunch of muckety mucks telling them that I have not been attending her meetings. However, I had no knowledge of such meetings before yesterday, and I attended yesterday's meeting.

LOL. Just got off that call. QA is asking me for details of what I'm going to do. I informed the group that I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do, either. Lots of handwaving and general running around with fire-hair ensued.

Another day in Dilbertland.

My latest project that is super duper important and way behind is due to be in production no later than 1/1. The app creates a file that has to be ftp'd to the state. However, it seems that nobody has set up the ftp and it takes at least a month for the state to approve the paperwork. Fun times.

It will be a miracle if I make it three more months.

On a lighter note...........

My 91 year old mother gave my 55 year old recently divorced sister a negligee with a note indicating it might help her to get another man.

It's 4:00 Xmas eve. Still working. Good times.

Maybe you should watch Office Space sometime soon?

Only 61 more days. I really mean it this time.