Continued from [2]

As it turned out one of their children moved back to California with their family and moved fairly close to their new home in Fresno. They couldn’t have planned it better if they had tried to speculate on where their children were going to move to. Their decision not to chase their children around the country was wise from the get go.

Now they have the perfect home with no mortgage and no monthly bills except for food, clothing, utilities, and telephone. They even decided to step it up a little bit more and invest in a geothermal air pump to save even more on their utility costs. Now they travel to Mexico three months out of the year and travel to Hawaii one month of the year.

They ended up selling their motor home altogether just to have an extra chunk of money aside for a rainy day. With the crash in September 2008 Brant cashed out all the money from the sale of the RV and kept the money in straight cash in in the walls of their new home. Betty was not amused by his stubborn decision to do so but with the economy in such a turmoil she thought that maybe her husband was not completely wacko.

Between Betty and Brant they have over $350,000 in their combined 401(k) for retirement. Because their business is still making them over $7,000 a month and they can work from home they don’t have any serious concern about having the money in their older age. Both of their 401(k)’s are conservatively managed and even with the slump to do the September 2008 crash and subsequent recession they are doing fine. Both of them work on laptops in their home which means they can work the rest of their lives and never really truly retire, and neither of them have any intention of quitting the jobs they love.

As far as their initial concern about the physical toll of moving all of their stuff (or as Brant says “junk”) they hired a reputable moving company to move all of their belongings from their home in Los Angeles to their new home in Fresno. They sold a lot of their old furniture and old items in Los Angeles before the movers even arrived to load up their belongings. When they got to Fresno they bought pretty well all new furniture and even new clothing.

It was truly a brand new start. They paid the extra money to the moving company so that they did not have to wrap or pack up any of their household items, and they did not have to unload or unpack any of their belongings when they got to their new home in Fresno. This costs more money but it’s worth it if you can afford to do it.

They bought a new vehicle which was a low mileage Ford Ranger truck for under $5,000 and it worked just fine for hauling some junk to the dump or going for a drive to the shopping center which Betty loves to do on Wednesdays. Brant took up golf again and played many of the public courses in Fresno and when they travel to Hawaii, Palm Springs, or Mexico, this is what he does with much of his time.

The truth is that Brant and Betty still love working more than they like traveling or just hanging around. The whole idea of a blanket retirement actually horrifies them both than they don’t intend to do it ever unless their health concerns make the decision for them.

So by the end of their pillow talk conversations a decision was made and action was taken. They were lucky because they found a buyer who really loved their house in Los Angeles and they paid $20,000 more than they should have.