An early morning commenter on the blog this morning was none other than Alan Beggerow, recently featured in the New York Times story on "Men Not Working," on which I posted earlier this week. It turns out that he has a blog that provides some additional details on his situation. My excerpts:
When the mill closed I was eligible for unemployment, but chose to retire instead. I have not collected one dime of unemployment since retiring.
When the mill closed I was eligible for retraining money. I chose to retire instead.
I paid off my house years ago. We took out a second mortgage to assist in the payment of medical bills not covered by insurance after my wife's accident and to purchase another vehicle, as hers was totalled in the accident.
There is so much more to life than bustin' your butt, my friends. Money is a necessity, but you would be surprised how much you can get by on if you have to, and if you want to. I got to the point where I no longer owned my possessions. They owned me. The material side of life no longer has the spell on me it once had. Even with things getting tighter financially, I know we will get by with the basics that we need. Our life is frugal, but good.
I'm glad to read more of the details. My one remaining question is, "Why doesn't Alan include Google and Amazon ads on his blog?"