How Did We Get Here?

 Ah, I've been having so much fun that I haven't really been inspired to post a blog! I guess that's a good thing. To recap our journeys in the last month, we took a few days to beautiful Cape May and stayed at the Virginia Hotel. Then we spent a few nights at the Bogota Hotel in Atlantic City (no I did not win) and we had the most fantastic weather. Warm enough to walk on the beach with no coats! Then in Mid November we went spent 2 nights in Gettysburg, PA learning all about the town and the Civil War Battle. Last week we spent 4 nights in Williamsburg, Va. We had not been there in years and we had a fantastic time, good weather, lots of sight seeing and good food. 

In between we've gone to the movies, visited some wineries, had dinner with some friends and otherwise just been having fun bumming around. No other away trips are planned but we are thinking of perhaps an Island trip in Winter and perhaps Iceland in the Spring. 
We had a wonderfully relaxing Thanksgiving and we're getting ready to have a wonderful Christmas season.  It's been fun going through the holidays without the holiday oriented business, as you can imagine. The holidays were always fun but tiring! Ask any florist if they "love" to go home and decorate their home for the holidays and many will tell you that getting up the energy can be challenging. 

That brings me back to now. This week we signed the papers to sell a townhome that we have owned since 1989. We lived there for 6 years and when we wanted a bigger home, we really wanted to keep it as an "investment for our retirement". It was really hard to "resave" enough money to buy another home being we were not selling it, and selling it made no sense being we were like many others at that time - "Upside Down" on our mortgage. We had 2 one year tenants we were lucky enough to rent to the same couple for the last 25 years! Can you imagine just how fortunate we were?

Why do I bring this up? Because some people have wondered how Kevin and I can afford to retire. The truth is not very glamorous. It's actually pretty boring. The truth is that we have been pretty frugal. When others lived in big homes on big pieces of land, we lived in townhomes. When people leased expensive cars, we bought them with 3 years loans and then drove the hell out of them (Kevin still drives his very cool 1999, Mercury Cougar). We always took nice vacations and treated ourselves to eating out but on large purchases, we were always very careful. We were so "cash poor" when we first got married that we were just always careful about spending and getting into debt. We both came from pretty modest backgrounds so we learned to be careful from our parents. 

The other thing we did is that we always saved. Every single month without fail, we put money away. I learned this from my early days after college of "selling" investment plans. Dollar Cost Averaging - I think about it in my sleep!  We used American Express almost always because you had to pay it off every month, no revolving debt. When it was time for life insurance after buying our first home, we took the route of whole life policies. More expensive but allowed another avenue of saving. Luckily during the early lean years of the flower shop, Kevin had a very good job. I did get into a bit of debt with the business but due to his support, I was able to get out from under that. What a lesson that was!! Don't start a second business when the first one isn't fully secure! 

Years later, when we decided to have Kevin join me in the business, we simplified our financial life again so that we could live on less. Oh and that 2007/08 recession? That was devastating! Covid? Another hard time.  Those could be a whole other blog post but we made it through. This picture pretty much sums up the last few years of owning a business. Funny and sad at the same time. 

We always "planned" that the business would not sell. Not that we didn't want it to, as it should have been worth quite a bit but we knew it would be hard to find a buyer and we didn't want to be one of those couples that had their "retirement" in their business. We didn't want to feel trapped into working way past Kevin being 60. We wanted to sell our rental property, have our  home paid off (which it is) and have no debt (which is also true). 

No, we did not win a big lottery or hit it big at a Casino (although I have been known to dabble). We did not inherit a bunch of money from a long lost Uncle and Monday Morning Flowers was not amazingly lucrative. We were just living life the best way we could, working hard while keeping our eyes on a goal. Not very exciting but the truth! 

Will it all work out? So far so good but life has a way of throwing things at you that you sometimes don't expect. I'm mindful to be grateful for all that I had in the past, all that I have now and all that might have in the future. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy Holiday season!