iRetire4Him Show 144: The Two Shall Retire As One

Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years can be 30 years of purpose driven, fully funded ministry, years of making impact in ways and places you never imagined.

Martha Brangenberg: Welcome to iRetire4Him. We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg.

Jim Brangenberg: Hey, check us out online, iRetire4Him.com. That's I retire the number four him.com. If you're tuning in today and you've missed our last couple of podcasts, I think you should stop right now, go back and listen to what our two guests from today shared when they were alone, and they could say whatever they wanted to about their spouse.

Hey, we're talking about the man versus woman perspective on retirement. That's what we've learned so far. When a woman retires, much of her life remains the same, but when a man retires, most of his life is totally turned upside down or so he thinks. And in this case, the wife thinks her life was turned upside down when her husband decided to retire.

So what will we find out today as both Rodney and Donna Smith are back to share their perspective as a retired couple? Ever seen The Newlywed Game? This is gonna be better. Rodney and Donna Smith, welcome together to iRetire4Him.

Donna Smith: Thank you.

Rodney Smith: Thank you.

Jim Brangenberg: You guys both behaved very nicely when you're alone and even though I know that you were in the background when we were recording those other episodes, I never saw any tomatoes get thrown across the kitchen, so that was very nice.

Martha Brangenberg: You're just trying to egg em on, Jim.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, because listen to this first question. So Donna, how did you meet Rodney? I'm giving you a chance for you to tell your side of the story, not the one I made up.

Donna Smith: Okay. So we were, our parents were neighbors when we were growing up, and I'm a little bit older than Rodney.

Martha Brangenberg: (laughter) For the video watchers, they know what the number is now. Rodney held up his fingers.

Donna Smith: I saw that. (chuckling)

I had bought the house beside my parents, and so I was mowing the yard one day, and Rodney came home from work and parked across the road and stopped and started talking about maybe going bowling sometime. And that's what we did.

Jim Brangenberg: And that was when he was in seventh grade and you were in college? Is that what that was?

Donna Smith: I was not in college, but I was working, I was outta school. I graduated high school and he was..

Jim Brangenberg: She missed that one. It's okay. I was being funny.

I love the fact that you guys grew up in the neighborhood and married. That's just like everybody in the whole neighborhood's yeah, Donna and Rodney, they're getting married. What a great deal.

Martha Brangenberg: So how many years have you guys been married now?

Donna Smith: 34.

Jim Brangenberg: Still rookies, in our perspective, a little rookies. But that's good.

Martha Brangenberg: That's awesome.

Jim Brangenberg: It is. Congratulations. You got two great kids. We know one of your kids very well. We're gonna get meet the other one, hopefully next year.

So when you got married - Rodney, this is for you first and then Donna, we'll get your perspective. When you got married, did you ever imagine being retired together?

Rodney Smith: Not at the time. That was so far away. And we went directly into life full bore. In our first two years of marriage, with her being a handful of years older than me, we decided to go ahead and start a family. So within our first two years of marriage we had the home, we had two kids. We had two vehicles. So it blew up, in a good way. So retirement was not even a thought. It was like, I gotta go back to work. I got diapers to buy. There you go.

Jim Brangenberg: So that wasn't one of those things. When we grow old, Donna, this is what we'll do when we retire and get old together.

Rodney Smith: That conversation started probably 10 years ago.

Donna Smith: Maybe, yeah.

Rodney Smith: That we did start some more active discussion.

Jim Brangenberg: Donna, talk about it from your perspective about how you imagined being retired together, what it would look like.

Donna Smith: Okay, I agree with Rodney that when we first got married and had the family and all, we didn't think retirement really, but we actually worked with a youth group in our church and we would go to a camp every year with the youth group, which was down on the coast of North Carolina, is Camp Caswell, is the name of it.

And the last, I think three years that we went down there with them, me and Rodney went as the cooks, we would get a big house and so we would have breakfast and lunch and so we would have to go to the store every day to buy food. And so we would go kinda ride around the island and whatnot and we actually found out some prices on some homes and we were like, we could possibly do this one day. And I think that's really when we started thinking retirement. And we would still love to maybe retire, live maybe one day down at the coast.

Jim Brangenberg: Sure. The coast is a great place to live, except when there's a hurricane. (laughter)

It's really a great place to visit. We've done the coast living. We did our thirties, our forties, and our fifties living on the coast in Florida. It is awesome, except in September.

Martha Brangenberg: Yeah, so I agree with you guys. I think when we're thinking wedding bells, the last thing we're thinking about is really the reality growing old together. Yes, we are thinking about doing life together and family together and all those things, but where you guys are finding yourself now seems so far off, in the distance when you first were hearing wedding bells and all of that.

Rodney, back to you. Now what did you think retired life was gonna look like when you guys started having the conversations about, especially because you had a job that was gonna have an end game, not everybody has that same privilege or that benefit that you had of saying, okay, I know this is gonna come to an end at this time. What did you start dreaming about retirement looking like for you guys?

Rodney Smith: Relaxed more... I typically got up at four o'clock every morning. So I didn't have to do that anymore.

Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.

Jim Brangenberg: Wait, I gotta stop. You worked with trees. Why you gotta get up at four o'clock at morning to work with trees? (laughter) They're just fine at 6:00 AM. They're fine actually at 8:00 AM. They don't even care what time you come out and see 'em. Why did you have to get up at 4:00 AM?

Rodney Smith: We had a wellness program. I did a lot of walking, and we had a wellness program walk around the region and it was a challenge to see who could walk the mileage distances between all the 13 states and counting Puerto Rico, and so I did a lot of walking. So I would go into work and usually walk for an hour before actual work started. And we have to, we had physical fitness requirements as part of our job. And so that helped me stay in shape.

Jim Brangenberg: Sorry, I just had to ask cause you're working with trees. (laughter) I don't understand why get up four o'clock. It's just a terrible thing.

Martha Brangenberg: This explains a lot though, even just right there about your schedule. 'Cause we talked a little bit in both of your separate episodes about just the, the reality that, scheduling when you're both in the home, both retired, can look different and have different expectations.

If you were getting up at four in the morning for any period of time, let alone possibly up to 33 years, that also meant you were probably going to bed much earlier than the average person might go to bed so you had some adjustments there.

Jim Brangenberg: That means you guys never got to watch Cheers together or ER, or any of those really cool shows in the eighties and the nineties.

Rodney Smith: Yeah she likes more of the television shows and stuff. And I'm not a big TV watcher.

Jim Brangenberg: That's because you couldn't, you had to go to bed when the sun was going down.

Rodney Smith: Yeah, that's very true.

Donna Smith: That's true. He went to bed early and got up early.

Rodney Smith: I like my mornings. It took me, I started probably I really don't know how many times I started reading the Bible whole, through. But I would do that. I finally did do that. It's been a few years back now, but with my early morning I learned to appreciate the peace and quiet a little bit more. And so even now I make it a point to get up before she does - because it's not a great length of time and that differs. Some days it's oh, 15, 20 minutes. Some days it's an hour. But I'm up before she's up, but I like my morning to start off... that's my quiet. That's my quiet time before she turns the music on and everything else.

Jim Brangenberg: So you're saying it Donna's noisy?

Rodney Smith: Her, yeah.

Donna Smith: I like noise. I'm not noisy. I just like noise.

Rodney Smith: She likes her background music.

Martha Brangenberg: I'm guessing maybe she needs some air pods for her birthday or something like that. I bet you the kids could help with that. (laughing)

Jim Brangenberg: That's right. If your kids are listening, buy your mom some air pods, but just... you and Martha should have some time together, this early morning loud thing that you do. (laughing)Mornings we're meant to be quiet.

Martha Brangenberg: Oh. It just depends on who you are.

Rodney Smith: I'll tell her that on occasion she'll have her background music and she'll say something and I said, I'm sorry, I can't hear you. What? (laughing)

Martha Brangenberg: Wow. Wow. I'm guessing we're not the only two couples that deal with this.

Jim Brangenberg: I can't hear the music too loud.

Martha Brangenberg: I think these men need some counseling.

Jim Brangenberg: We might need some counseling. Hey, and maybe you, our listeners need some counseling too, or maybe just wanna talk about retiring or pre retiring. Like how do you get ready for all this stuff and what should it really look like and what does God have for an idea of retirement?

Martha and I would love to come speak to your retiree group, your pre-retiree group, your church, have a retreat. Do whatever you wanna do. Bring us out. We can have a good time just like we're doing on this podcast. We can do it live and in person. Email me Jim at iwork4him.com and let's chat about making this happen. Jim, at I work the number four him.com. We'd love to come and see you.

Martha Brangenberg: All right, Donna, so you know, I don't want to, I don't want this to be a, we're not trying to make dissension. We're not trying to, but the reality...

Jim Brangenberg: who's making dissension? We're just drawing parallel comparisons. That's all. No dissension, this is, everything's fine. These guys are fine.

Rodney's moving farther away from Donna right now, but it's okay. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: Donna, as you knew the time was approaching when Rodney was going to hit that retirement day and be home full time, did you think about what it was gonna look like in the house to have him there all the time and how that might make for some adjustments?

Donna Smith: I really didn't, to tell you the truth. I've probably had the honey do list ready for him. I was thinking things would be getting done that we have had to put off or whatever. But we did, we actually, when he retired, we did some traveling the very first day. For the first, what, probably five weeks? We were probably gone three, three of those weeks. But no, I've never really thought about it, tell you the truth.

Jim Brangenberg: Did it feel like he invaded your space?

Donna Smith: It did. It did. And not terrible. It wasn't terrible or anything. It was good to have him here, and I enjoyed having him here and cooking him breakfast and stuff like that but now it's not cooking breakfast every morning. It's okay, we'll be on our own this morning.

Martha Brangenberg: So there you go.

Donna Smith: But no, I think in my mind we were gonna just kinda redo the whole house and get everything in place and situated. And that's not coming near as fast as what I thought.

Jim Brangenberg: It's been three and a half months. You have to take a deep breath and it's summertime, so it's hot. Come on down to Southwest Missouri. We can help you learn how to do those projects together. 'cause Martha and I have lots of experience. All right, so Donna, you first. What do you think God's telling you about how the two of you should spend your retirement time together?

Donna Smith: Okay. I think God is saying, and actually it kinda came out in the sermon at church this past Sunday. Because we keep talking about doing some volunteer stuff, meals on wheels - taking elderly people meals, the soup kitchen, do different things. But we just keep talking about it and I think why don't we just do it? What are we waiting on? And it's always, we're getting ready to maybe go here or go there, but volunteer opportunities, you can make your own schedule pretty much, for the most part. But yeah, I think we need to just pull the trigger.

Jim Brangenberg: There's a song like that. "What are you waiting for?" I think it's something like that. Yeah. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: That's great. Okay, so as you look at how you spend your time together, just give us a little background. Do you guys have hobbies and things like that you like to do together, and then some that you do separately, or what does that look like in your home? In the hobby category.

Jim Brangenberg: Oh, Rodney's got a funny look on his face. Rodney, you answer first one.

Rodney Smith: The one hobby we do great together, as we do spend as much time as possible at the beach, and as I, I jokingly say with everyone, I love to fish. I can fish all day long. If they're biting, that's great, but I can fish all day long and she does a great job of holding sand still.

And she loves that. She can do that for hours upon end. And she'll have her music so that the majority of the beach can hear it, but she'll have her speaker playing and she likes to listen to her music and just enjoy the beach. And like I said, I have found out, that I can walk as much as five miles from my chair back to the pole and back to the chair and back to the pole.

Martha Brangenberg: Wow.

Donna Smith: I help watch his poles. So I'll say Rodney, you got one.

Rodney Smith: She actually, I got a brand new fishing pole given to me at a retirement party, and I had it out the very first time out. And lo and behold, I was down the beach looking at jellyfish or something, and it caught a fish and she reeled in the first fish on my brand new pole.

Martha Brangenberg: Very nice.

Rodney Smith: Yeah.

Jim Brangenberg: A true retiree, though, wouldn't be counting his steps.

Rodney Smith: I let the watch do it.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. I understand. Take the watch off. You're not on the clock anymore. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: He's still got his challenge in his head probably from all those years of work.

Rodney Smith: Actually they're allowing me to continue that. I didn't get finished. I'm on my way to Puerto Rico and then I gotta make it back to Atlanta and I'm done.

Martha Brangenberg: Wow.

Rodney Smith: But I'm still tabulating my mileage each month.

Donna Smith: And talking about, we actually... what day was it? Maybe three days ago. What's today?

 (laughter)

Donna Smith: We just rejoined the senior center gym here in town. So we're getting more steps now.

Martha Brangenberg: Very good. And is that something you're hoping to do together?

Donna Smith: Yeah, we do that usually together.

Jim Brangenberg: How hard was that to join the "senior" center? (laughter)

Donna Smith: Nobody's ever there.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. But they call it the "senior" center.

Donna Smith: It is the senior center.

Jim Brangenberg: But do you feel like you're a senior citizen?

Donna Smith: Yesterday I took him for his first time to the senior center to play bingo.

Jim Brangenberg: Oh, wow. And how did we do?

Rodney Smith: I was the youngest participant by decades, probably a 135 people playing bingo. It's actually, yeah I've told her I didn't mind going, 'cause we were going to exercise after that and I'm a little bit more in the exercise world 'cause my job required it of me.

And so we're slowly turning the curb on getting a little more involved in exercise together. And she said, Hey, we can go to the bingo and then we can go work out after 'cause it's right there beside each other. And I said, oh, that sounds good. Enjoyed the bingo a lot more than I thought I would've.

Donna Smith: And we have a daughter that stresses to us that we need to work out.

Martha Brangenberg: There you go. You know what? And let's just talk about that for a minute, because I do believe that there's so many benefits to doing that and staying active and active can look different for everyone.

Jim Brangenberg: For us, it's construction.

Martha Brangenberg: It is construction. And just staying active, keeping our muscles going so that we can enjoy all of those years that God gives us. You know we, our doctors told Jim's parents motion is lotion and just keeping things moving is what keeps you to be able to keep moving.

It is a great goal to have that and to be able to do it together. And if your adrenaline is up from playing bingo, then you're going to do a better job exercising. (laughter)

Jim Brangenberg: There are other things that get your adrenaline up, but if motion is lotion, what is lotion? Bengay, when you're older. That's right. That's what that is. (laughter) Okay. All right. So have either of you thought about going back to work yet?

Donna Smith: Nope. No.

Rodney Smith: No.

Jim Brangenberg: That's awesome.

Rodney Smith: I play "work" with my brother. That's another thing I intended to do. I didn't mention that earlier, is my younger brother is a surveyor and so he has his own business. He works for a company, but then also surveys on the side. And he and my dad and myself we work together every Friday that I'm home. So I still, that's as close to work as I get. And actually it's a blast. We have a great time. It's, it really is fun. And make a dollar.

Martha Brangenberg: There you go.

Jim Brangenberg: It takes you to Brewsky's to have "coffee," I'm sure. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: And like you said, having a dollar, you're making some resources for yourself and just like that. We love having resources that can change perspective on retirement, and that can be so very valuable.

IRetire4Him is a valuable resource in the form of this podcast, both the one you can listen to or watch on YouTube, email that has resources listed in it, and the book iRetire4Him. You can order your copy today at iwork4him.com/bookstore.

Jim Brangenberg: Alright, we've covered this, but now that it's been a reality for three and a half months, were you really prepared for retirement as a couple? Donna?

Donna Smith: Like I say, we never really thought about it that much, but we've done very good with it. So that answer the question?

Jim Brangenberg: It's vague, but sure. If that's what you wanna be. Vague, that's fine. It's just airtime. Don't worry about it. (laughter)

Rodney Smith: I tell her, I said context. (laughing)

Jim Brangenberg: I know that you guys prepared financially. I know that you prepared financially and Rodney's got a government pension, which is phenomenal and he was able to tolerate working for the government for 33 years. Praise God and bless you and bless your heart, really. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: In full Southern style.

Jim Brangenberg: Were you prepared Rodney, for retirement as a couple, or you just kinda have to figure it out as it goes?

Rodney Smith: Yes. I think we're prepared. While we do not have the specifics we might thought we would've had, we actually work well together and we're enjoying figuring it out as we move forward. We have the same intentions and thoughts and desires, I think. And I think that we, again, I spoke that I think we've been, some valuable connections have been made through the past few years, several years now that will make it very easy for us to reach out into the community and say how can we help? What can we do? And then, yeah, I think we're doing well. Donna mentioned it earlier. It's been a little bit of a slower process than we thought.

We we re gonna retire, go do, see our daughter, go visit our son, and then buddy, we was coming back and we're hitting the road and let's do this. And it's not happening that way. And things that are requiring our attention and time necessarily, so that's been great, but at the same time, we are slowly getting more involved in things with our own church and our community. So I think we're doing well.

Donna Smith: We're taking a lot of fun time too, though.

Jim Brangenberg: Isn't that okay? Don't you imagine Adam and Eve in the garden, they were having fun, I mean back then they weren't talking about retirement. And just think about that. They lived to be 950 years old. They weren't talking about retirement. They were just like, how can we have fun together? God created work to be fun. He gave us husbands and wives to be fun, that's our best friend, to hang out with. It's okay to have fun. You don't, your to-do list doesn't have to always get done.

Martha Brangenberg: Okay. I'm gonna make a presumption here, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but just by listening to the two of you talk, you before retirement were enjoying spending time together. Is that a fair statement?

Jim Brangenberg: You put him on the spot. (laughter)

Rodney Smith: Yes.

Martha Brangenberg: But I see that the two of you enjoy life, each other. Maybe you had separate schedules in some sense because of work, but I think that you've had a better transition because you enjoy being together. And I will say that there are some couples that haven't practiced being together prior to retirement.

Jim Brangenberg: See, that's why it's so good we spend so much time together. We're practicing.

Martha Brangenberg: Okay, I'm gonna just say, people will say things to us like, I can't imagine working with my husband all day. It's, I married him. I love him. I wanna be with him. And so one of the realities of being retired is that you're with each other, and sometimes that means you gotta re-get to know each other, re-get to figure out how can we do things together? Whether it's sitting on the porch and enjoying each other or going and playing bingo or working out, whatever it is, but being intentional about those things so that you can rebuild up that commonality, that relationship.

You used to have work as part of your schedule every day, and now you don't have that. And so speak to the people that are listening that are either preparing for retirement or they find themselves in retirement and they're just really struggling with how to do this and make it work and enjoy each other as a couple,

Jim Brangenberg: and finding meaning and purpose along the way.

Martha Brangenberg: There you go. If you have a pulse, you have a purpose. If you're not dead, you're not done. And speak to the retirees right now, Donna, you go first.

Donna Smith: Okay. Oh my goodness, I'm drawing a blank.

Jim Brangenberg: Okay as a couple perspective as a couple, speak to the retiring couples out there and encourage them as they prepare.

Donna Smith: The together time - and you were correct that we've always pretty much done things together, but having that separate time is very important too. Like now with him working on Fridays with his brother, it is just, I think it's a good thing. Because that gives me a whole day here at the house to do what I want, when I want but yeah, spending time together and whether it's volunteering or, like you say, sitting on the porch or working, cleaning out the basement, it is, it just works for us. We just enjoy being together. I think we're best friends, yeah.

Martha Brangenberg: Aren't we? (laughter) Rodney, what would you like to add to that for the listeners?

Jim Brangenberg: Another awkward moment right here on iRetire4Him. (laughter)

Rodney Smith: She's right. When we discuss things and I prepare her more for some of my outings 'cause I am the more adventurous, go do things, and I'll tell her that I'm going here and there'll be a change in the gearing.

What is it you told me? What's my first love?

Jim Brangenberg: Trees. (laughter)

Rodney Smith: No. I had to do, we met in November.

Donna Smith: Oh, hunting.

Rodney Smith: Yeah. Deer hunting, I love to hunt. And so come August, things will gear up for preparation for going to the woods and doing things. So she will see a little bit less of me then. But my job prepared me for this. Again, you don't realize hindsight with what God does for you, with you, through the years. My job took me away a lot. And I'd be gone for 16 to 25 days at a time and be home sometimes two or three days and gone again depending on what the season was going.

But whenever I'd come home, we always intentionally, the four of us, especially when the kids were here, we spent time together. And I would show them that, yeah, Deddy's gotta go do this, but it's for y'all, because of y'all. And I didn't come home and oh, I've been out, so I'm going to go golfing, or I'm going to go do this.

It was always the four of us. And even in the last 10, 15 years of it with our children grown and gone now, that still, I would come back off of it. I'd call her, from the convenience now, cell phones and everything, alright, I got my flight, I'm coming in here, I'm landing here. You have the bags packed to be ready to go. We're going somewhere else. And it'd just be she and I. And typically another good thing about my job is I would always get R&R time when I got home. And so I'd have a day or three off, and so we would spend it together, and that became a routine. And that's helped now that we enjoy going and doing things, having a good time.

But then, we do separate. She spends a lot more time over at her mom and dad's than I do. And it gives me an opportunity to do things around the house. I've got a garden this year. I've not had a garden in... I don't know. Yeah, it's actually just good open conversation.

Don't surprise the morning of as you walk out the door, I'll see you later. I'm going to do this. It is something that, especially for the scheduler here, it's good to have it on her calendar.

Jim Brangenberg: Now, is that a digital calendar? A paper calendar?

Donna Smith: It's paper. For me, it is paper.

Martha Brangenberg: Yeah. That's okay. That's good. But knowing, those are just little tips that can make a huge difference. And keeping the other informed, keeping in communication. I was thinking about it. It's a lot like when we go through the empty nester stage and having to readjust.

Then retirement is another readjustment stage at home and it sounds like you guys are handling it very well and you've given us some great perspective and some great advice. So thank you so much.

Jim Brangenberg: Rodney and Donna Smith, thanks for being on iRetire4Him today.. Thanks for sharing on these last three episodes, just your retirement journey. We're gonna check back in a decade and see how things are going.

Donna Smith: We look forward to that.

Jim Brangenberg: Next time we'll do a show together right here in southwest Missouri, or maybe on the beach in North Carolina. I like that idea way better.

Martha Brangenberg: There you go.

Jim Brangenberg: We could do that fishing. Yeah, that'd be good.

Martha Brangenberg: I'll help hold the sand down. (laughter)

Jim Brangenberg: That's right. You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Retirement, it's a state of mind and a stage of life. So say it with us and mean it - iRetire4Him.