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My exercise usually starts between 11:30 to noon, 4 days a week...and I get paid for it. Not much, but I clear about $200 a week, and I've dropped 20 pounds in the last 3 months working at UPS in their package sort operations at DFW airport.

I see my grandson 4-5 days a week, he will be a second grader when school starts.

For those retiring from the federal government, make sure you have 4-5 months of bills in the bank prior to retiring. OPM will take their sweet time, and will likely screw up the file at least once. My wife retired at the end of last month, and she's still waiting on her payment for accrued leave.

If you are planning on applying for a home equity loan, do it at least three months before you retire, to let the process work, and save everyone from the extra stress of getting it funded before you retire. However, it's a relief that ours is funded in time to proceed with several remodeling projects and a new roof (thanks to being hit with baseball size hail a few weeks ago).

If you were in the military prior to working as a federal civilian employee, pay off your military deposit before you retire. If you don't, you risk losing the value for retirement of the time you spent in the military. In my case, my 8 years in the Army is over $800 a month for the rest of my life.

In 18 months, the earnings limitation for SS goes away, but I have no desire to return to accounting. I'll give substitute teaching a whirl, perhaps getting a history degree.

My wife has been on edge for the past month, fretting over our financial situation...needlessly. I finally sat her down, laid out our income and current expenses. It opened her eyes, as what she thought was a deficit turned out to be a surplus of about $1500 a month. That will be diminished when school starts, as our youngest son has two more years of high school, and he's in the marching band, football, and basketball.

Having said all that, I am happy to report "retirement is underrated!" lol