Sunday, August 28, 2005

Be responsible

Never dreamed my previous post would cause a stir! Controversey is not my forte - I usually will walk away from it. But, not this time!

I worked hard all of my life and saved every penny I could over the years - only to have family members wipe me out - not once, but twice. My original savings account grew to nearly $90,000.00 (yes, ninety thousand dollars) - my parents stole every penny without my knowledge while I was living in Germany as a military spouse. What did they have to show for that money? NOTHING! Booze, booze, and more booze was their primary expenditure. They never had a pot to pee in nor a window to throw it out of all of their lives. Their existence depended upon what they could take from others rather than work for it themselves. I strove hard and mightily to NOT BE LIKE THEM.

Most of my working years (which were many, by the way) there were no such perks as a 401K, no company sponsored investments of any kind into which one could deposit funds. In fact, medical insurance only became available to me when I was 45 years old! I, along with many in my age group, were led down the proverbial garden path by wonderfully phrased spoutings from the powers that be in our government that social security "will always be there to assist the elderly."

Somehow, though, I managed to recoup and saved AGAIN. Put my savings into Certificates of Deposit, which afforded me some sort of security for my so-called "golden years." Another member of my family (and I promised I would NEVER cite the name or relationship to me) raided my accounts over the internet five years ago and wiped me out AGAIN. Rationale was "she will never find out because I can pay this money back before she knows it is gone." Suffice it to say, I did find out, the money was gone forever (spent on heaven only knows what), and I couldn't even afford an attorney to recover that which no longer existed!

To the two young men who posted their comments yesterday, I hope you return to my site and read this posting. I closely read your comments and appreciate your opinions. Thank goodness for the right to voice them! However, it is important that you know I have lived by the following premise: It's not worth having unless you work for it and earn it yourself.

The money I've received from social security hasn't yet made a dent in the funds I paid in over my productive years. Never, and I repeat, NEVER have I contemplated begging others to give me money. Even now, in my advanced years and with my declining health, would I give credence to the idea that begging for money from others would be an acceptable option.

In our youth, we think we know all the answers to all the questions. In our mid-life we learn how smart our elders have suddenly become. In our senior years we realize we must face the disdain of the younger generation because we dared to grow old.

During this process of growing from young to old, hopefully, we truly come to understand the meaning of responsibility. We, each of us, is responsible for ourselves - what we say, what we do, where we go, what we become, who we choose to be, how we act.

My opinion remains firm: Rather than beg from others, be responsible enough to do for yourself. The pride of achievement attained from doing so is priceless.

4 Comments:

Blogger Patty said...

Please go to this spot. http://rambles.modblog.com
I think this young man seems to be a very responsible young man, at least by reading his blog. Of course he is from another country I don't know if that is the reason, perhaps they mature quicker? But I go to his blog every so often. Makes me feel good and happy there are young people like him.

And really, there are a lot of young responsible people here in the States also, it just seems to me we only hear about the ones that aren't. Don't you agree?

8:25 AM PDT  
Blogger Mama Mouse said...

There are many good, honest AND ethical young people ... but the two that posted last night are NOT.

That being said one of my pet peeves is that young people have NO CONCEPTION of what it is like to be getting old. First there is the fact that our minds are young but are bodies aren't. That in and of itself is difficult.

But the BIG fact is that when we were young we didn't KNOW that we would need to have money put away for retirement above and beyond Social Security! It was supposed to be our security blanket for our 'golden years'!

Those that were wealthy or had a very good income COULD save, but the vast majority of people weren't in those circumstances and so we took the government at their word. Silly us.

My husband will have NO golden years. He can't retire until he is in his 70's ... if he lives that long. He will have to work well beyond the 'official' retirement age to supplement our SS payments so that we can continue to spend the hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month that HAVE to on medicine to stay alive so that we can CONTINUE to pay money and work to stay alive so that ..... you get the picture!

Maybe we should just lie down and die ... after all we ARE old ... and the young people know so MUCH more than we do.

OK OK ... that's a bitter way of looking at it. My own two young people are wonderful ... and I know there are others. I just wish they'd step forward and put the arrogant you know what's from yesterday in their places.

3:20 PM PDT  
Blogger Patty said...

Dear Mickey,
Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything you said about the young man asking for donations and the way you felt about it.

I just meant there are a lot of good responsible young people around, but we never hear about them, it seems like you said to me, the ones that aren't responsible are the ones that always seem to get the attention.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything you said on your blog.

And also what mama mouse said above. I didn't start working full time until I was almost 50, worked for 18 yrs. for a school system. While I was working, once I hit 65, I was able to draw half of my husband's SS, which made no sense to me, since we would need it more when I retired. And even though I was paying for hospitalization through the school, and it was our primary insurance, I also started paying Medicare when I hit 65, it was taken from the SS check I was getting each month, from my husband having paid into the system. But when I retired, that was cut off, true my state retirement reimburses me $45.50 each month towards the Medicare, but I have to pay Medicare direct for 3 months at a time at $78.20 a month. It seems like if you can save a little one place you have to turn around and use it another.

So what it amounts to is this, I now get about half what I did when I was working, plus I don't get anything from my husband's SS.

I was able to be a stay at home Mom, until our fifth child came along, our others were older, 11,15,16,and 17.

Husband decided to start a business and work at home, I helped him with that, then when the business started to fall off, I looked for a full time job so we could get hospitalization. When he started working for himself, we had to pay it each month out of our own pocket. With me working we got it a lot cheaper and the coverage was so much better. Some people don't understand if they are working for a company that offers a good hospitalization plan that is worth some money. Our 5th. child was about 13 when I started working full time. Well enough my my rambling on and on. I agree with both of you.

4:16 PM PDT  
Blogger ...just-rambling... said...

When I was working in retail ten years ago or so, I was appalled at the number of children who would whine, scream, or just demand that their parents buy them something and the parents always gave in. At the time, I though, "this is our future", and here it is.

Now we have young adults who feel that the world owes them, and they can get away with anything they want. It's a sad world we live in.

8:10 AM PDT  

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