Sacrifice and Save for Retirement

Heading into a downsizing-imposed early retirement, I only wish my wife and I had shown discipline to save a little bit more money.

Denise was always a spender... not on stylish clothes, or luxuries, but on home improvements. So in these words I do not mean to criticize my first and only spouse. She has been a well-intentioned spender. I just wish I had put some checks in place. This is not to say the man should rule the house as the "bread winner" the dominant male. Sometimes the man in the house is the spender, and it is up to the wife to try to bring some sense of fiscal perspective.

You may read this and surmise that in our marriage we didn't experience money problems, so much as communications problems. It seems like it. Maybe I should have tried to say, "I love you, Denise. I wish I could provide more for you to perform the home improvement that you believe are needed. But somebody who loves you will think of what our retirement years will be like. I don' mean to be the square peg here, but we must think of our security."

When Denise wanted to make improvement to our living quarters, I didn't have the heart to throw up stop signs. She had grown up poor, sharing a bedroom with three sisters. Now she wanted her home to look just right.

We needed to rent at the start of marriage, to save for a mortgage down payment. Denise just could not seem to stop decorating or improving at the rental duplex. The landlord did not see fit to reimburse.

My salary was the equivalent of $50,000 in today's money, but we could never seem to get ahead. Finally, with a friend's personal loan, we scraped up a mortgage down payment and moved into our own place.

Again, decorating took precedence over common sense thrift. Instead of properly insulating our drafty old house, decorating took priority...first the living room, then the kitchen, then the sun room.

One move I made toward retirement was to establish a 401(k) payroll deduction. In contributing 4 percent, my company matched with 2 percent. This was back in the days when companies would do things like that.

Also, it proved wise to choose a conservative or "safe" 401(k), as the stock market has demonstrated. For anyone planning retirement, I would suggest T-bills and so forth. Heck, I'm so conservative I almost want to stash cash under the mattress.

Our world has a really shaky financial system, which makes planning and saving for retirement all the more important. I only wish my own family has built more of a nest egg.