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What Retirement Looks like for Me

Last spring, after my husband had to travel to Cleveland to deal with a medical situation, he requested that I start substitute teaching in a local school. As he would be missing some time at school, he wanted to make sure that our budget was covered.

It was a reasonable request, and I agreed. I ended up subbing about 2-4 times a week. I have to admit, I found it actually easier to keep up on housework and other things, due to the need to plan ahead. I could no longer procrastinate endlessly - I had to schedule tasks and writing, and meet my goals.

I was able to put out two short stories, and make a lot of progress on a new book.  In addition, I improved my physical well-being (all that walking around the schools and in the classrooms), and got away from the fridge.

This fall, I went back, primarily to get sufficient days in to get a qualifying year in Social Security. If I teach more than 53 days in a year, at $100/day, it meets the minimum requirement. Which does 3 things:

  1. Gives me a source of extra cash.
  2. Gets me a qualifying year, which increases my monthly SS.
  3. Reduces the amount of WEP penalty I'm hit with - it's not that much, but every bit ups my SS check.
So, I'm a lot busier right now that I'd actually like to be. I have to pick up about 20 more days before the end of the year. With November and December being short months, I'm going to have to take as many assignments as I can for the next few weeks, to make sure that I hit that necessary number of days.

I'm OK with this, for now. The schools are generally well-run, the kids are better than average in behavior, and I have sufficient free time (before school, lunch, and some "free" periods) to get calls made, finances dealt with, and writing done. I entered National Novel Writing Month again this year, and plan to use those bits of time to "get 'er done".

Start thinking about what retirement will look like for YOU. Will you change locations? Work part-time? Take over babysitting grandchildren? Take up a hobby? Attend to your physical fitness?

The choice is yours.

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