Lesley wrote:
On Jul 15, 2:46 pm, "EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)"
wrote:

Indeed! The idea of "being retired" sounds great when you're a young
wage-slave - especially if you don't particularly LIKE what you do for a
living - but unless you have really GOOD "retirement benefits", it not
only means curtailed physical abilities, but curtailed income, too!

I know I often say things like "One day nearer retirement" but at the
same time I can't imagine not working- my ambition is to retire from
the NHS and maybe take a part or full time job back in bookselling - I
have retirement funds piling up but the longer I wait to take them the
better off I'll be when the time comes and I can combine my
booksellers wages (never good) with my retirement funds to give myself
a moderately comfortable living

I took retirement benefits at age seventy (one is required to begin
withdrawing from one's IRA funds at seventy and a half, so I opted for
Social Security at the same time). However, I continued working three
days a week until I was seventy-five. That gave me enough income so I
FINALLY got to do some overseas travel - at least five trips to Europe
(a tour that visited Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary; a month with a
week each in Brussels, Vienna, London and Paris; additional trips to
Brussels, Paris, Zurich and Vienna, plus several to New York City and
the Metropolitan Opera). May traveling days are over, now - both for
financial reasons and growing physical limitations - but I managed to
collect a lifetime's worth of memories in those five years!