Retirement and the dollar bill game

Retirement — even the word sounds relaxing. Most folks have definite ideas of what they’ll do when they reach those golden years. Some will retire just so they can open their own businesses, working harder and longer hours than before they retired – nope, not me.

I have a friend (shocking that I still have any after two and a half years of writing weekly articles, but I haven’t written anything about him ... yet), and when he retires he’s going to travel.

That’s all he and his wife plan to do is travel. They’re going to sell their house, buy a mobile home and travel around the country. Fighting traffic and buying high-priced gasoline — nope, that’s not my idea of retirement either.

Others will retire but will have underestimated what it actually costs to live and end up as a greeter at the big chain discount store with the blue roof. That’s not in my future, thanks to my Dad.

Trust me, I’ve heard about planning for retirement since I was 5. He spoke about the importance of time and starting early to save for retirement, the power of dollar cost averaging, the pros and cons of investing in the stock market vs. real estate, no-load mutual funds, rule of seven, and on and on, ad nauseum.

Yep, thanks to Dad, I know all about what I’m supposed to do to prepare for my golden years except for one thing: where to get the extra money to do all that investing! A concept, as of yet, my dad has failed to realize.

Seems lately every time I speak to my dad, he has some new hot stock tip to invest the extra monies I don’t have. “You know, I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but ...”

There always seems to be a “but” when I talk to my dad. “You need to invest more money in your retirement.” I keep telling him that if I had any extra money to invest, I’d invest in something like groceries.

It’s kinda hard to invest in newest stock tip if you’re constantly scrounging around the change jar for lunch money. Maybe I’m the only kid out there who has a dad sending him newspaper and magazine clippings of investment tips. If so, send your address this way, and I’ll send you a stack of latest, greatest stock tips.

Dad does mean well, and I’d tell him how much I appreciate what he is trying to do. That is if I could ever get him on the phone. He’s been retired now for the last 20 years, and he’s busier now then when he was working. I ask myself, “Why did he retire?”

After meeting with our CPA and his sharp pencil, yours truly has come up with a retirement plan of his own. The Wife and I have decided that when we retire, we will do absolutely nothing. If something needs to be done around the house, we’re just gonna hire someone to do it.

Yep, when the laundry needs to be done, we’ll hire someone to fight that monster. When groceries need to be bought and meals need to be cooked, we’re gonna hire a gourmet cook. Who’s going to pay for our lavish life style in retirement? The Boy, of course!

The way I see it, after four years of college, we will have taken care of him and paid for everything for 22 years – the least he can do is pay for our retirement for the same amount of time. It would be only fair.

But just in case he doesn’t go along with our retirement idea, we have a back-up plan. It’s called the dollar bill game. Read on; this is one brilliant idea.

Never spend a dollar. It’s that simple. If you buy anything, pay for it with a five, 10, 20 or 50, but never with a dollar.

When you receive dollars as change; don’t spend them either. At the end of the day, take all the dollars and place them in a shoebox in the closet. At the end of the year, take all of those stock tips your dad’s been sending you and invest in one. Better yet, ask your dad which one he recommends. He’ll love you for it.

Or you could just do what The Wife convinced me to do — use all of those dollars to pay for a really great vacation.

We’ll be spending Christmas in Ashville, N.C., this year. Thanks to two shoe boxes of dollar bills.