Social Security is the foundation of most retirees’ financial plans. According to Pew Research, Social Security payments made up at least half of total personal income for 63% of retirees. Perhaps the biggest puzzle for retirees is when to begin Social Security payments.

The Statler Brothers had a hit song in the 70s (The Class of 57) that had this line, “things get complicated when you get past 18.” Well, if you think things get complicated at 18 just wait until you turn 65. That’s when Medicare begins.

During my teaching career, I had the privilege of teaching an undergraduate course called Theories of Teaching and Learning. One topic I covered was Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. Erikson theorized that each person went through these stages of development and each stage came with a crisis that had to be managed for the person to develop in a healthy way.

We spent the majority of our career in education teaching at private Christian schools. While there are many benefits of teaching in private Christian schools including class size, parental involvement, better discipline, and excellent curriculum; there is also a major disadvantage which is comparative salary. In general, private school teachers are paid on average from 25 to 40 percent less than public school teachers.

Our 6th goal is to keep our minds active. As retired educators we strongly believe that education is a life-long process.

In the three years since we have retired, we have tried a number of activities that we had never done before. Trying new activities keeps our minds active and keeps us physically active.

One of the blessings of retirement is being able to spend additional time with family. We have increased the contact with family members through phones calls, visits, and lots of grandchild activities.

Our third goal in retirement was to get in better shape. For me this goal had two parts. First, I wanted to lose weight. A couple of years before I retired, I had reached a new high of 210 pounds.

Our second goal during retirement was to travel. Our Travel and Activitiespage documents where we have been. Currently, our travels can be divided into several categories:

Our first goal in retirement was to get more involved in our local church.

We began our retirement adventure in 2022. After more than 40 years in Christian education I retired in May of that year and my wife retired in December. Part of our preparation for retirement was researching what a successful retirement looked like.