Zoomie, Congrats on retrirement! My bud (former tractor tech) runs the L&G shop in Phoenix. If you dont like the road, its an alright job. if you are sharp and listen and read you can get better fast in the shop. Its just the small stuff. If you can listen and take notes you could become an oniste service tech. I do L&G and then move more into garage door openers in the winter. I also do grills and power tools. Most techs with this specialty do exercise equipment as well. Field tech = more stress, more money, IMHO more of a challenge and MUCH more satsifying. I have done both, and would only go back to the shop for a VERY good manager who was opening one for customer service reasons. Or cuz my body couldnt take the road anymore. Field L&G is a mutha when its hot, or cold, or busy. See the HR peeps at the nearest district HQ. --or-- If you see a sears or A&E tech, ask them for contact info for the local unit. ps-the website sears dot c might link up to HR.

Abby1930, In some pension systems, your contribution toward your pension is a percentage of your annual income and your pension at retirement relates to the amount that all of those years' contributions totalled out to, plus the amount of growth that all of those invested dollars produced throughout the period. I hope that you can find some source of income which will be such that you can continue to enjoy your new home. Lay-offs have become an increasingly common problem in the economy these days, where many companies feel that employees are as disposable as the machines that they use. Should we call such an approach "Kleenex staffing"? They like loyalty on the part of staff - but if it isn't a two-way street, that rather traditional loyalty situation will be eroded. In fact - it is, these days. Few employees feel as loyal to their employer as was true a generation ago. Telecoms have certainly been volatile in recent years - and increasingly so? While talking to my recently laid-off daughter (who had for several years been a counsellor to people being laid-off), she said that she'd like to have two or even three streams of income - so that she wouldn't be up the creek without a paddle if she suffered lay-off, having depended totally on one income. She's a rather independent-minded person. Who was able to carry on her recent work wherever she happened to be - all that she needed was a higher-grade connection to the internet. She used so much bandwidth that one couldn't call her and have the call go through while she was using the line for corporate-related internet work, as one can do with most internet users using high speed connection. Good wishes to you as you work through your situation in the days ahead. joyful guy P.S. to others: If you should find yourself in this situation (say, next week?) - wouldn't it ease your concerns a great deal if you knew that you had enough assets rather easily available to enable you to survive without too much upset should you, having suffered the trauma of lay-off, find yourself unable to find other work for half of or even a whole year? Personal financial advisors for many years have been recommending 3 - 6 mos. emergency fund to enable minimum survival. Such a plan is much more necessary in the employment climate, these days. Don't you think? I remember a song that was popular when I was young, ... "Wishing, will make it so, just keep on wishing, and care will go." "Dreamers tell us dreams come true, it's no mistake and wishes are the dreams we dream while we're awake". Baloney. Visioning has its place. So do dreams - and wishes. The problem is that quite a number of us allow the dreams and wishes to take the place of reality, rather than encouraging and impelling us to implement them - to change them from a figment of our imagination into a real part of our lives. Dream the dream - then make it work. ...

"To be picky, I doubt that we're all on a fixed income, which is: "An income from a pension or investment that is set at a particular figure and does not vary (as a dividend) or rise with the rate of inflation." Of course, people don't have unlimited income, but that is not the opposite of fixed income. " Well, in the US, nobody is on a "fixed income" by that definition. SS etc is all indexed, so not even retirees are truly fixed. In terms of budgeting though, most people have a fixed income for any reasonable budget period - months, a year etc. It is a lot simpler to budget on that type of income than for people with sales jobs etc that work on varying commissions. I think there is a big difference between asking "How do I budget?" and "How do I spend less?" If you've planned properly for retirement, then you still need to budget but don't necessarily need to cut spending. Example - you need to put emergency purchases on a credit card, but you have the cash flow to pay that card off during the year. In that case, you actually have enough money to save/spend, you just need a more organized way to do it so you save BEFORE the expense, not AFTER.

Greetings rufus doofus, There are two rats that eat your cheese. There's an agency, the partner in many of your financial affairs, that asks you a question each year, and makes a statement. The question from the income tax people: "How much did you make, last year"? The statement: "We want part of it". You can keep only that part of your income that remains after you've paid that income tax to your financial partner, the income tax people. I wasn't sure from your message whether the interest on your mortgage is deductible, or not. If not, another reason not to pay off most or all of the amount owing. The other rat that eats your cheese? When you put money into a CD, you have that guarantee that you referred to - that the guys using your money will pay back every dollar that they got from you, in addition to the rent on the money. There's another guarantee that they never mention - they won't pay one dollar more than you gave them, either. BUT - the value of each one of those dollars shrank, every year since the early 30s. When you put your money into a bank account, a money market fund, a bond or a CD ... you're not keeping the full after-tax amount of interest that the borrowing agency's paying you. You must put part of the earnings with the amount invested, in order to maintain purchasing power of those dollars. Your actual earnings are what's left. And, don't forget ... the rats eat first. Good wishes for making increasingly wise use of your income and assets. ole joyful