Something Happened on the Way to Success

I have been working steadily for more than 45 years. During my working life I've neither been a spendthrift nor an extravagant spender. As entertainer extraordinaire Joe Walsh sings, I'm just an ordinary, average guy. But unlike him, I've had a modestly average income, like many Americans who just try to buy a home, rear the kids, put the best food I can afford on the dinner table, save for

retirement, and have a little fun on the way. But lately it seems that something has gone horribly wrong. Well, maybe not horribly, but just not as I had planned a long time ago. Unexpected expenses, the occasional high medical bill, helping a family member who needs a boost...it all just adds up, and takes away. This isn't a complaint post, just my observation about my life road map that has had hidden financial pitfalls.

I don't have a lot of 'manly' toys, no second home on the beach, no third home in the English countryside, no boats and RVs, no vintage autos and wines, no around-the-world cruises, no vacations in Germany where I once lived and promised myself to return and see even more sights. Even though I've never had these things and I don't feel deprived and all crunked up, I still consider myself fortunate and am thankful for what I do have, including my family.

Many acquaintances and friends my age have already retired somehow. My strange-behaviourist brother, who is just a couple of years older than I, has been retired for years. I'm still slogging away. It's not that I don't enjoy what I do and the contributions I make for the good of the company and myself. My employer has been good to me and I never have to dread going to work. I've done that and it's not fun. It's just that, well, working everyday just gets in the way of my valuable leisure time. Naps have to be weekend things and I love a good nap about mid-morning, or mid-afternoon, or both.

No, what I cannot figure out is how so many middle-class slobs have so much more money and stuff and have been able to retire. Money's not everything, of course, but it's how we all keep our own teeth in good order, take good medical care of ourselves, wear decent and clean clothes, drive a dependable vehicle, enjoy the occasional fine dinner, and more.

I've saved and invested like a good little American, while watching idiot murfs on Wall Street sit around picking their teeth and picking the next big thing to make their paydays even more inflated (but not as inflated as their egos). Their winds of investment change have raped and pillaged two generations of investors and I don't expect my portfolio to ever recover from the adjustments the markets have made in the past ten years, putting retirees back in the workforce. Good morning, welcome to Biggie-Mart. If you need help finding something or a store employee...good luck. This is the part of my road map that really, really, and really pisses me off. Bernie Madoff-like murfs fooling around with the economy and effing us all in the short and long runs. If Madoff had made billions with legitimate investments I would simply be envious. He didn't. Drawing and quartering is what that asshat should have to suffer. But only after some other devious punishment. Ahem.

Guys my age with hefty pensions and retirement accounts who just worked in a factory all their lives, or operated a backhoe, or simply worked for someone else. Rich. Wealthy. Taking around-the-world cruises. Good for them. I just cannot figure out what happend. I mean, I'm at Biggie-Mart buying band-aids, bread, milk, coffee's on sale, lunch for work next week, and there are regular joes with their car in the shop--getting the gold plating on their Porche shined up all spiffy. Of course they need it shined up before storing it while they're on the cruise. This is good for them. I don't begrudge them in the least; except for overpaid pro sports and rap thugs. I just can't figure out where I took a wrong turn. After working for so long I feel as if my wife and I are just treading water. Maybe shallow water, but treading just the same. I had envisioned something like this toward retirement time. Yeah, there we are!

Or these

I think somebody's been fooling around with my road map.