Hi again Jimbg, I imagine that you've had some interesting thoughts regarding your retirement nest egg during the last half year or so. I hope that you have not been so smitten with fear of the stock market that you've decided to stay out of it. There are losses suffered from time to time, which can be substantial ... but over the long term, carefully chosen stocks, ETFs, etc. have produced well for their owners. As have mutual funds ... but, despite their substaial claims to superior performance, about 85% of mutual fund managers are unable to produce a higher rate of return than their chosen portion of the market. As you encourage your friends to start a retirement plan, you can follow a savings plan that's specifically geared to setting up a payout system during one's retirement, but many choose to carry investment accounts that are not geared toward retirement, as well. If one chooses to build a regular investment program, with a view to having it available to fund one's retirement, though unwilling to be tied up with the restrictions that govern retirement accounts, there's an extra benefit that can be used during one's lifetime. When I own a number of stocks or mutual funds, I can have the certificates issued to use as collateral when I make loans, often allowing me to pay a much lower rate of interest that if I must use other kinds of collateral. For example, if I want to buy a car and use the car as collateral, if the lender wants to repossess it in case of my delinquency, there's a hassle to collect it, then advertise it for sle, or go through a brokerage, which charges fees, etc. and they must wait for their money ... plus, if I didn't take good care of the car, they may not be able to collect all of the amount owing, plus costs. So they usually charge high interest rates on such loans. If, however, one has some stocks or mutual fund certiicates to use as collateral and isn't able to pay, it's fast and easy to liquidate the stock or mutual fund collateral, so the borrower almost always enjoys a much lower rate of interest on the loan. Should one have an emergency, it is a great help to one's financial and emotional well-being if one has some assets on hand to either liquidate or, perhaps more frequently, use as collateral to make a loan to cover the need, and the interest rate will be advantageous. Such a cushion helps a great deal in case one suffers long-term layoff, as many have experienced in the past few years. When one uses money that one had planned for retiremen for either an emergency, or to fund one's living during long-term layoff, one should make a strong effort to replace the money withdrawn, plus allowance for inflation, when one's financial stability is restored. Good wishes as you proceed with your plans ... and encourage others to do the same. On the day that you began work, you had brains and hands at work ... but no money. On the day that you retire, you have brains and money at work ... and no hands. If you've set aside a substantial amount regularly over the years, and learned how to manage it for a reasonable rate of return, plus some tax savings, you may well have developed enough assets in order to provide you with sufficient money to retire early. Good wishes for increasing skill in managing your income and assets. ole joyful

Hey LouiseDawn, I can at least offer a silver lining of hope that I see in your situation. If SS is in college and SD is in grad school, there is at least some hope that they will be successful and eventually make enough money to finance their own lives. I also believe your situation will get better with time. I look back and I don't know how in the world I got through the last six years with my husband's family, but I did which is the important part. Having no prior experience at all in a step situation as step mother or step child, I was CLUELESS and felt guilt for the feelings of resentment I had and still sometimes have towards them and their father. I at least feel better to know that I am not this evil person for having these feelings anymore. That's a start. It seems that the biggest hurdles towards happiness in these situations most of the time are SDs for SMs. SSs seem to have a different relationship with their fathers that doesn't trigger that "drop everything and go be a hero" button in their fathers like SDs. I finally won the trust of my SD (I think) and she doesn't try to push my buttons anymore to create conflict. She had a bad experience before me with SM #1 so I have tried to take all that into consideration to cut her some slack and focus on the long term goal of all of us getting along. These days SD's biggest offense is using the guilt her father feels to manipulate him into openning the checkbook for her whims. All children manipulate, but steps have an easier time because they can use the guilt of their broken home life to loosen the purse strings. This has been the core of my own turmoil but has nothing to do with the purse at all. There is no reason for their father to feel guilt other than simply building a life with me, which hurts me because I have no regrets and his guilt feels like regret to me. BM left them all when the children were toddlers. There were 12 years between the time BM left and I met my husband so that breakup can't be put in my lap. He's paid for their tuition solely and provides for them to be more than comfortable. Why should he feel guilt? I FORCED him to discuss these feelings this week and it seems to be helping. He's finally recognizing that his guilt isn't all meritted here. Sometimes his children just didn't go to classes that we paid for and sometimes they told us stories that sounded good while they just did their own thing. They are in their 20's and should have some accountability in their lives. Other than walking them to class and doing their homework, I really don't see what else we could have done. He finally seems to also understand that my concerns aren't dollars and cents but the part we are playing in a pattern that insures failure in the future of our children, who just aren't prepared for the world. The biggest part of our job as parents is to prepare our children to become adults in this world (I think women get this where men don't. Men seem to want to be providers or heros.). If they aren't prepared, their growth is stunted and they lack confidence in themselves and their decisions in life. I am hoping that now he is getting past the guilt and focusing on helping to prepare them for the world (NOT dump them, just set boundaries and expectations that aren't forgotten later) we can work together to repair the damage. Is that such a terrible thing to be want for your children? I want that for my own bio son so how can that be a bad thing? I do not "know it all", but I feel like in your case, you should hang in there, support your husband and insist that you communicate on these issues together. Divided you fall, after all. Try to look at everything with honest objectivity. Yes, it is normal to have these feelings of resentment, but then take that knowledge and do something positive with it by feeling a new liberty to discuss it with your husband and grow from it. Understand that your stepkids also have their own feelings they aren't sure how to deal with. (I've found that it has helped me to read some of the few posts on here by stepkids, to understand their perspective.) We should look at what drew us to our husbands in the first place. What we loved about them from the start can't also be a reason to break us up now. In my own case, I had to offer him my trust that he would do the right thing for all of us. I just assumed he would go and make some terrible, crazy decision that would stunt all of our lives. I was asking him to trust me with his children, when I didn't trust him with his children. Again communication helps to work together. Hang in there, girl. I know you are hurting from the behavior of your stepkids right now and you are justified in that. Stepkids are notorious for behaving aggressively towards us at least in the beginning. Be the bigger person, gain their trust and when they have grown enough to hear you, explain your side to them and hear theirs. This takes time and doesn't happen overnight. My husband is a good man. He's worth the time and the strength it takes to get through it. His children are too.

OK how many people will be living in the home. What are the ages? How often do you plan to have guests? How often do you entertain? Seems like it will be a lot of work to try and furnish it with all those round curves. I looked online at the floor plan and the photos and honestly, it reminds me of 90% of all the mid-large homes in FL.

Being retired, I don't want a lot of floor space and rooms to clean. I agree. I HAVE 40' OF 3' deep closets just for 'stuff'. Kitchen. Towels. Sheets. Cleaning. Vacuums. Sewing. Whatever. !! I LOVE LOVE their M. bedroom closet. Hmmm, this makes me want to measure my proposed closet space. I'm not sold on the idea of 3' deep closets though ... too shallow to be walk-in closets, yet they take up square footage and must be heated/cooled. As I am a homebody, and just fully retired I do not need all the 'good' clothes I have. I'm remembering cleaning out my grandmother's house when she moved out /went to live with my uncle at age 99. She was holding on to SO MANY "good clothes". She loved her job and enjoyed dressing professionally; plus she and my grandfather "went out" often and took fancy vacations, so she had piles of evening gowns ... all so tasteful and so "her". At age 99, those days were past, yet her clothing filled the closets of all three bedrooms in her house ... filled them to the point that it was difficult for her to store the comfortable elastic-waist pants and embroidered sweatshirts that became her standard everyday fare in her elderly years. She was NOT open to getting rid of ANY of those clothes, even though she had lost weight from a size 12-14 to a size 6. She had good memories attached to those clothes, but she was never going to wear them again, and no one else wanted her business suits, though they were very stylish (and expensive) in the 1980s. To make her happy, I purchased plastic bins and carefully put all those things away (wrapped in white tissue paper, boxes labeled diligently according to her requests). We all know that this makes NO SENSE. Sometimes having LOTS of closet space just allows you to build up /save clothing that, in all honesty, you know isn't going to be used again.