The time at sea can give us a time to think about matters seldom thought about at home. The seas are still heaving by the way and it is difficult to walk down the long, narrow hallways.

We are living and traveling at a much slower pace here on board and that can give us a chance to to examine our lives more closely if you have that desire.

I am very lucky. I have a wonderful wife of thirty-five years who takes very good care of me. I also have a son of forty who is quit capable of taking care of himself.

My wife and I started talking about the plan before we married. We promised each other that we would fulfill our vows and just as importantly, we agreed on, “The plan.”

It was simply an outline of where we wanted to be financially, when we retired and how we were going to get there.

Nothing works out perfectly and we had setbacks. Health issues and a changing economy hit us now and then. But we had “The plan” to help us make our dreams come true.

What was the plan, you might ask?

In our case my wife wanted to be a nurse and had started school for that, but continued to work at her job at the supermarket that she had already started a few years before.

Because I had no health insurance due to being self employed, my wife stayed at a job which was not very satisfying, mentally, because she had great health insurance.

We paid and still pay for that insurance by the way. When people say they have free insurance, that’s nonsense. She was paid her wages minus what ever the insurance cost was. The money was taken out before she received her check. We still pay a monthly fee as well.

I had a son from a previous marriage who had some possible medical issues in the future and so these issues had to be resolved. My wife had a great retirement plan and I had none. You might ask why she married me with these issues. My answer is, I was really cute.

So we had to create a retirement plan for me. We did this by buying California Realestate. Yes, there was risk involved, but life is full of risks. If you let risk stop you, you will accomplish nothing.

All or most of my customers were average working people who created wealth through slow, methodical, real estate purchases. I repaired their buildings by the way.

I lived in my working cloths. I worked six days a week for thirty-eight years. Was it fun? Not always. But we had a plan. We had made promises to each other.

So we just did what we had to do for over thirty-five years. We often struggled to pay all of the mortgages and normal household bills.

However, we always found the time and money for traveling. It is very important to us to see the world and learn all we can about different peoples and cultures.

Now we have arrived at our retirement years and they are as wonderful as we had PLANNED.

I say that I am lucky, and I am. But my circumstances did not come by way of luck. Every part of “The plan,” was discussed often and in great detail until we were almost sick of it, but that is the secret to success.

Call them company meetings if you like. They were just as important to our success as those meetings that giant corporations have or should have had, in some cases. Those meetings kept us energized and on target to keep up the hard work for as many years as necessary.

Being financially successful is hard work and full of planning. “The plan” most be revisited often and changed when necessary. If you sit back and just go with the flow, your retirement will be a disaster.

Do you have a plan? Do you have a budget? Do you put money aside for long term investments and security? Why not?

Don’t be like so many people who fail to plan and then need the rest of us to bail them out. Be an adult and start your plan.

By the way, we donate money to a few causes. One helps children get facial surgeries and another helps children around the world to school.

Why should I have to take care of you too. You live in the richest country on Earth and didn’t plan for your retirement. Shame on you. I know things happen, but come on, I can only do so much.