This is the third in a series of columns about retirement by former AARP Publications deputy editor Neil Wertheimer. Read his first and second column here.
Many years ago, an earthquake rocked the Southern California newspaper building where I worked, just as my colleagues and I were meeting with an earthquake-preparedness expert to discuss upcoming stories. To our surprise, rather than revealing his know-how, the expert totally panicked. He had to be coerced to come out from under a table after the shaking had ended. It became a newsroom joke for years.
I took it as a bad omen that this long-forgotten memory popped into my head when an earthquake of a different sort shook my world shortly after I retired: a dramatic, weeklong stock market plunge. After decades of work as a journalist who often covered personal finance, would I react to suddenly losing a big chunk of my retirement savings like a calm expert, or like a scared child?
The honest answer is: both. In the weeks and months after retiring, I thought about money all the time. If leaving work was supposed to help separate me from my computer, money drew me back to it like a magnet. There I was each morning, monitoring my checking account balance as if it were my blood pressure after a heart scare, following the up-down ticks of my home’s estimated sales value on real estate websites (knowing full well how inaccurate they are), updating my planning spreadsheets, tallying bills, you name it. I tried to prove to myself 18 different ways that at least from a money standpoint, I was fine, just fine!
And I became hyper-frugal. Digital coupon-clipping to save on groceries. Lunch dates, not dinner, and yes, water will be just fine. Ushering at the local concert hall so I could see shows at no charge. Playing the thermostat like it was a Stradivarius. Comparing matinee movie prices at five theaters to save three bucks. Driving an extra 10 minutes to save 10 cents a gallon on gas. My monthly spending on discretionary costs (most everything other than housing and insurance) tallied under the poverty level the summer after I left work. Yes! I will survive!
I was proud, even boastful, of my efforts. Until a true dear friend finally whupped me upside the head. “Neil, you are being obsessive, and you’re being an idiot,” she said after having to listen to even more stories of my frugality successes. “The shows you’re skipping, the adventures you’re postponing, that’s just small money. You’re retired. Stop sweating the small money.”