Retire to Something

When we were planning our retirement, I thought it was important to retire TO something rather than FROM something. So we looked into running a bread and breakfast and into setting up an antique business. The antique business proved more interesting to us, and in 1991 we set up our business and started doing antique shows. A friend in the business suggested that we could do better if we opened a booth in an antique mall, and we started out with a space that was 10 x 10. We quickly outgrew this space and kept enlarging our operation until we ultimately had one of the largest booths in the entire mall. This business gave us reason to attend estate sales, visit other malls, and go to every garage sale we could get to on any free weekends. When it came time to retire five years later, we were fully entrenched in the business and constantly looked for ways to extend the business, including doing antique fairs throughout the country. This led us into buying a trailer which could be pulled behind our Suburban, and shortly after that we traded this rig for our first motor home. Now, two motor homes later, we actually live full time in our motor home.

We started out doing antiques and ended up traveling full time. This past year we finally closed the business and sold all of our antique inventory. It was time, as doing shows was getting hard for us, and the bottom seemed to have fallen out of the antique business if you wanted to make a profit. However, the sixteen years that we were in the business were fascinating, and we never tired of buying or selling. We made some wonderful buys over the years and especially enjoyed finding new homes for the fun items we found. Some of the items were indeed one of a kind, and sometimes it was hard to part with when the time came and it was sold. We made our share of mistakes along the way and still own hundreds of commemorative plates that we bought before that market dried up completely. We started many collections, from cranberry glass to clocks, and when finally tired of them began to sell them off. Our nephews used to enjoy counting all the clocks in our house and quit when they discovered sixty or more just in the living room.

The best part of the business was the people we met along the way and the friendships formed. We still love to go to antique shows and see who is still in the business, although we seldom buy much today. So, if we have any advice to a person thinking of retiring, it will always be, "Retire to something rather that from something,"