Dudley and Betty had gotten pretty good at retirement. They had a plan. They knew what they had, what they wanted to spend and roughly how long it would last. More importantly, they were actually living the life they had planned. The money moved when it needed to. The bills got paid. The world had not ended. One morning, Betty sat at the kitchen table with her coffee. Jingo was beside her, watching with the intense devotion she normally reserved for Betty and anything that mi

Bonnie made quilts. A lot of quilts. Dudley had occasionally described this as somewhere around a hundred quilts a year. This was not true, but it felt true. She hadn’t even been quilting her whole life. She picked it up after she retired. A hobby. But Bonnie did not have hobbies. Bonnie had production capacity. One day Dudley was visiting his parents when his mother said, “Hold on a second. I have something for you.” She disappeared downstairs. Dudley followed. In the baseme

Wednesday was errand day. Dudley wasn’t entirely sure why errands required their own day, but he had learned that retirement worked better when certain things happened at approximately predictable times. Betty made the list. Dudley drove. This was the system. On this particular Wednesday, the list required Costco, Home Depot and the grocery store. Dudley considered this an ambitious three-store itinerary. Betty considered it Wednesday. They started at Costco. One of the thing

Ray had owned a pool. Ray had also gotten rid of a pool. These two facts gave Ray a level of confidence about pools that Dudley found difficult to challenge. Ray had pool opinions. Some came from experience. Some came from things that happened in 1995. Others appeared to come from the general principle that if Ray had once done something a certain way, that was now the way it should be done. So when Dudley’s pool started acting up, he called Ray. Eventually. Dudley had alread

\Betty liked flowers. Dudley liked projects. This was one of the more successful arrangements in their marriage. Betty could look at a bare patch of ground and imagine flowers. Dudley could look at the same patch and imagine lumber, drainage, electrical service and several weeks of unnecessary research. Eventually, Betty got flowers. Dudley got a project. Everybody won. The greenhouse started this way. Betty wanted somewhere to start plants earlier in the spring and keep them

Dudley and Betty had been married for three years when they realized they should probably have wills. This was not prompted by illness, a financial crisis or a sudden awareness of mortality. They had simply reached the point in marriage where enough of their lives had become connected that dying without instructions seemed irresponsible. They had children. Retirement accounts. A house. Insurance. Thirty years of accumulated possessions, some of which might actually be worth s

Ray had always been healthy. Frighteningly healthy. The kind of healthy that made other people wonder if perhaps they were doing life incorrectly. Ray retired around sixty and decided he should start running. This was a reasonable retirement activity. Then Ray decided he should start running marathons. Less reasonable. Then he started riding a bicycle. Then he started riding it farther. Eventually he decided he should ride it in Colorado, apparently because Iowa did not conta

Dudley had spent a lot of time trying to figure out retirement. Probably too much. There had been spreadsheets, Monte Carlo simulations, tax projections, withdrawal strategies, Social Security estimates, healthcare assumptions, advisors, accountants and more time on the Internet than Dudley cared to admit. Eventually, Dudley and Betty answered the three questions. What do we have? What do we need to spend for the life we want? How long will it last? The answers weren't perfec

The morning after Dudley concluded that retirement was really living, it rained. Not a gentle rain that made the flowers look grateful. A steady, gray Iowa rain that eliminated every outdoor activity Dudley might have used to justify getting dressed. The greenhouse was fine. The pool did not need him. The grass was too wet to mow, and even Dudley understood that starting a yard project in the rain suggested a problem deeper than lawn care. Betty had plans. “Lunch with friends