OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

Well, it's been two-and-a-half years since I was forced to retire and I'm finally beginning to realize just how much better it is not having to work. Oh, an occasional feeling of guilt filters its way through, but it quickly goes away.

It hasn't been easy. We had figured on 3 more years of salary, at least some of which was supposed to make it into our IRA. But it didn't happen. Two months without any money coming in at all did. That chewed up a bit of cash.

But we survived, I got my social security started early and we managed to scrape by (paying full price for individual health insurance for two people in their 60's is the pits). Ended up having to pull 11,000 out of our IRA, but we got through.

Then last year I got on medicare and my wife started her social security early. Which is all good, because all our saving were pretty well used up.

Then in April of this year I closed out our IRA completely (only 15,000 - did I mention 3 years of saving that we didn't do?) and put it into CD's. Which was good since the stock market fell apart in September.

We have about 3,000 coming from our tax return next year (they hold out 20% of a withdrawal just to make sure you don't cheat the government out of some taxes), so that'll cover my wife's medical deductible and we'll use a little of one of our CD's to make it through that year. No worry for another 14 months. :)

So, if Obama gets in and sends us the tax rebate he's promising everybody (even those who don't pay any tax), we'll have enough to eat out a few times. And if McCann gets in then we'll at least have the satisfaction that our country is in good hands.

I just thought of something. If I had stayed working for those three years, I might have saved more money but it wouldn't be worth as much as it'd still be sitting in an IRA invested in the stock market.

So, the way it went, I had almost 3 more years of retirement. If it had went the way I wanted it to go, I probably couldn't have afforded to retire at all. God is good.