Fourteen Years Ago in July

Almost a decade and a half ago, my wife and I purchased a 24 foot round above ground pool, a Hot Springs Prodigy Hot Tub and had a deck built around the pool and the hot tub for HALF THE PRICE of what it would cost us to have the same thing done TODAY...

In my neck of the backwoods, we call that INFLATION...  and, it typically means our financial situation is getting worse not better.

My Hot Tub has been worked on a couple of times because I was not told by the salespeople NOT TO USE powders for this particular type of hot tub and its internal components...  but, the cost of repairs has still been way under what we paid originally.

As far as our pool is concerned, we have had to replace the motor and the regulating device that sits on top of the pump sand container...  plus, the liquids and tablets that we have to put into the pool to balance the water quality.  Additionally, we have found that a pool cover only lasts two years...

All in all, we have probably come close to doubling our investment, not including the price of materials and labor to build the large deck.  However, every 3 years or so, we have been staining our deck which typically takes about 7 gallons or so of stain.

This year, we discovered that during the winter our pool had lost an additional 5-6 inches of water which means that we have a slow leak...  and, will probably have a new liner installed this Fall.

My wife and I figure that we only have about 10-12 years more or so to enjoy our above ground pool and deck, before we will be too old to climb up and down the outside stairs to get there.  So, we have concluded that it is still worth the financial investment to maintain our outside leisure area for another decade or so.

That would put me at the age of 83/84 and my wife at the age of 78 and at that time we will probably sell our house and move into a smaller house or an apartment to live out our final days.  We also believe that we will continue traveling to Myrtle Beach, SC every summer each month for the 5-6 months of warm weather until we move as well.

We currently have and will continue to have a comfortable retirement regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.  In fact, the Democrats would probably benefit us more than the Republicans because they like to give away money.