Funny how different the walmarts can be. In south OC, they have some fancy ones. No Mc. Donald's in thoes. It feels just like a Target store. They have some things you won't find in the lower rent area walmarts. Another Walmart in a higher priced area in North OC has a beautiful garden department and the store always looks perfectly clean and well stocked. In a lower income area just 15 minutes away by freeway, the kids run wild, aisles are a mess. Shoppers crash you with their carts and the sales people look as though they're on their last nerve. It just depends on which walmart you go to.

Here in Montreal, over the last year, there has been a seachange from disposable to reusable bags in grocery stores. One store started providing high quality cloth (or plastic-impregnated strong paper) reusable bags for a dollar. The bags were so gosh-darned useful that people started buying them and using them not just for groceries, but for carrying stuff all over the place, advertising the name of the store as they went. The other stores quickly got involved, and started competing to make more and more attractive ones, so it was their bag that was being carried, not the competition. The plastic bags are still available for people that want them, but carrying one makes you a pariah on the street. This time last year, you would see hundreds of those bags stuck in trees and streetlights, breaking down in alleys and filling trash cans. Not any more - the combination of real utility (the bags are actually very good - I use them to carry things to work, for luggage, in the garden, lugging tools in my workshop, and for storage when homebrewing), low cost (the bags are printed with the store's name, so it's free advertising) and social stigma seems to have corrected this problem in a very big way. One unexpected problem that has arisen is that I used to use those plastic bags as trash bags. Now, I find myself buying real plastic trash bags, which is a habit I have to break.

Usually the owner of the money gives a pot of money now, or makes regular payments over a period of time, to usually an insurance company, in exchange for a benefit that the insurance company offers. The insurance company agrees to begin paying a specified amount to that person, beginning at a certain date and, often, continuing for the rest of the person's life. Or, at a lower rate of regular payout, to include a surviving spouse. However ... some people found that the original owner of the money often died within a few months of beginning to receive the annuity ... and that was the end of the contract: the full amount paid was kept by the insurance company (except for the small amounts paid out). One financial advisor that I knew had a client over 80, with no dependents, that considered buying an annuity (i.e. was in the process of being sold an annuity by an agent). He, cancelling another appointment, travelled some distance to meet with the two, and when he asked how much of a benefit there would be if the lady died in a couple of months, was told that there was no such provision in the proposed agreement. Many people who were much younger than that lady, when considering a proposed contract, didn't like that idea, so there's an option available for the original purchaser to have a provision in the contract where the payout period will be for his/her life but, should s/he not live long after the payout begins, the annuity will continue (at a reduced rate) for a 10, or 15 year, or other length, period. The rates that insurance companies offer regarding annuity payout lebvels usually bear some connection with current interest rates. When rates are high, often the rates of payout offered by annuities are higher than average, but usually not comparable. When rates are low, as they have been lately, payout rates offered are usually low. The reason being that the insurance company has guaranteed to make payouts at predetermined levels, but don't have certainty as to how much they can earn on the invested assets in the meantime. The insurance company doesn't give a guarantee to make a level of payout that is going to hurt them in the end. In the case of life insurance, the owner of the policy bets that s/he's going to die prematurely, when some non-employable dependents require an income for them to live on for a number of years, but leaving no one to provide it. The insurance company bets that the buyer of the life insurance is going to live to an advanced age, paying premiums throughout. The insurance companies are the ones with the actuaries. In the case of an annuity, the buyer is betting that s/he is going to live for a long time ... collecting that annuity payment regularly through to, say, 104. And the insurance company bet that s/he's going to die before they've paid out a bucket of money in total to that person. And if they're covering a spouse, as well, or have given a guarantee that they'll continue paying for, say 10 years, even if the owner dies a month after payout begins ... the amounts of the regular payout the the company is willing to offer is lower. As their risk is greater. I confess to a bias against insurance companies' practices, largely because they marketed whole life insurance policies for ages, telling ofthe great value in having some value build up in the policy over the years. But, in order to collect that "extra value" ... ... the owner of the policy pretty well had to arrange to be alive and dead at the same time. For many, who want to spend some time learning how money works, and are not going to get all bent out of shape if the value of theri assets drops for a while when there are corrections in the equity markets, I think that they can likely do better investing on their own, if they do it skilfully. For quite a long time, I said that no one cares as much about your money as you, so it's wise to learn how to manage it well. But in recent years I've changed the tune somewhat, to ... no one cares as much about your money as you ... except some folks that would like to shift some (most? all?) of it from your pocket ... ... into theirs. Your job is to keep that from happening ... unless you get good value in return. Enough for now. Good wishes for making themost effective coices, given your circumstances. ole joyful

Hi judy jay, Can you spell "F-R-E-E-D-O-M"? In the western world (some parts of it, at least) we talk a lot about "freedom" ... by which we usually mean the "political" and the "social" kind. Funny, isn't it, that we hear only a very little about the "economic" and "financial" aspects of our highly-vaunted freedom! I hope that you and hubby have built assets, whether pension-based assets or of another kind, that enable you to enjoy that freedom as you look forward to retirement. One major cautionary note however ... don't forget the ravages that inflation inflicts on your investment system, having an effect on your potential income stream. Also, inscribe it in letters as firmly in your mind as those engraved on a gravestone ... that that inflation component *increases* every year. At least, it has, every year, since the great Depression of what many call the "Dirty Thirties". Those effects are cumulative, and have an increasing effect as the years go by ... and many of us live for 30 (or more) retired years, these days. Some years ago a highly paid professional in the city where I lived asked me whether he could retire early ... and was *substantially* disappointed when I told him that not only could he not retire early (as he had both an institutional and a private practice, and wanted to cease the private portion, as well) ... but that it would keep him busy to retire appropriately at the regular retirement age! Possibly he, a psychiatrist, thought me slightly crazy ... but when I explained to him that he wasn't giving adequate consideration to inflation, he began to look at the retirement picture from a whole new light. (Think how mind-expanding it can be to help a psychiatrist look at life in a different light?) Perhaps you've read my thread posted here recently about the difference between a pay cheque and a pension cheque ... that you must be physically, mentally and emotionally able to go to the workplace and fulfill your obligations when there ... or you don't qualify for the pay-cheque. Plus hope that your position stays intact here ... not shifted overseas ... or integrated with another when your employer is bought out (with you either "downsized" [read "outsized"] or loaded with additional work) ... or dies when your employer goes broke, etc. Such changes have a major effect on paycheques, as well! When you receive a pension cheque, apart from the potential insolvency of your carrier, all that you need do to continue to qualify is ... ... stay topside the grass! That is, more or less a guaranteed income - until you draw your last breath! If it's adjusted for inflation - what could be better than that? Which means that, if you so choose, you can invest some of your other assets in ways that help to offset those inflationary pressures. If it isn't so adjusted - such offset becomes even more important. Think of your investable assets as in about half a dozen, 5-year blocks ... several of them to last for 10 - 20 years (if you eat them earlier, you might live to regret having made that choice). My ex-, who'd been head of food service in a substantial hospital for 20 years, took early retirement at age about 55 when there was talk of closing hers or another nearby. She, who'd fed millions over those years, contracted colon cancer ... and died, at age 66 - ironically, it was her gut that did her in! Our kids noted with appreciation that, had their Mom retired at the usual time, it would have been the year before ... and I offered that she'd have been sick for most of that year! That is - she'd had 10 years to enjoy retirement ... and she'd had a ball, throughout ... including, as a U.S. person, visiting relatives and newly-developed friends as she, living near here, travelled in her RV from FL to TX in winter. You've received a number of good suggestions here for things to do during those retirement years! Don't approach it with some trepidation, please. Look upon it as starting out on a great new adventure. Visit your bathroom ... look in the mirror ... smile ... tell yourself that you're about to open a wonderful new door in life. Bring hubby in there with you ... look in the mirror together ... smile ... wink ... tell yourselves that you're about to start a new adventure together! There's a great, fine, wonderful world out there! Go out and explore it! Start planning now ... beginning with sitting down with hubby and talking about the things that you'd like to consider. And that'll be an ongoing discussion, as different ideas come and are considered by both, then discussed further later. Some things you'll want to do with him, some of them each of you will choose to do alone. Finally ... can you spell, "E-N-J-O-Y"??? Go for it!!! ole joyful