Oh, Enough Already

 

One thing that has come to light since I retired is simply that I don’t need near as much of anything as I thought I would when I was preparing for retirement.  I had stockpiled quite a bit in order to ease the financial stress of no longer having full time employment.  I retired in 2022 and shortly thereafter became an empty nester.  Once that happened, the consumption rate in my household dropped exponentially.  Everything, and I do mean everything, just lasted so much longer.  I had to backtrack and realize that I needed to make some changes or things were going to get wasted.

 

The first thing to work on, and my greatest struggle, was all things kitchen related.  I quickly found I no longer needed all of the dish towels and dish cloths, cloth napkins, dishes, silverware, glassware, baking pans and food storage containers I currently had so I ended up doing a big purge and reorganization of my kitchen drawers and cabinets.  And then I went back a few months later and did it all over again.

 

At the same time I was also relearning how to cook.  I was making way too much food to eat and buying way too much when I went to the grocery store.  I had to learn how to scale back and buy everything in much smaller quantities or not at all.  I think this was the hardest part.  I also found I had too much food in my pantry and long term food storage so I donated and shared quite a bit in year two.

 

All of my adult life I’ve been in acquisition mode.  I’ve been a long time stockpiler and during the pandemic I became a bit of a small time prepper.  The way people were behaving at the stores with all of the panic buying scared me so I wanted to make sure I was better prepared and could take good care of my family.  I completely understand that a pandemic could happen again, or something else entirely, so I still feel that need to be better prepared, however now it is only me I truly need to take care of so I’ve had to adjust and readjust to what is most practical and realistic.

 

Often I find myself thinking I need to purchase or acquire something, but after some careful thought I will realize that no, I actually don’t.  I have enough.  Where I used to stockpile to bank things I’m now in more of a maintenance mode and on a much smaller scale than what I used to do.  Along with adjusting what I do in the kitchen I’ve also made major adjustments to my wardrobe as well as toiletry and housekeeping supplies.  I even took a Bath & Body Works sabbatical because I had way too many of their products.

 

It has been a process, but I’m now able to think about things and make better decisions based on how things are now.  My life is ever changing, but thankfully my circumstances are stable.  The key to my success is, and always has been, to be flexible and pragmatic.  As long as we are willing to ebb and flow, making adjustments as they are needed, we can take good care of ourselves and be well prepared which makes our retirement years so enjoyable.