Did my retirement plans go according to plan?
I would say not quite as expected!
I loved my job and hated the thought of not seeing my work buddies daily as there always was much bantering to and fro.
I was blessed with awesome work mates, but that season in my life was soon ending as I would be reaching the awful unavoidable sell-by date; really felt dejected as if I was one of the bad apples being thrown out!
Hubby retired about a year before me and we always thought by the time we both stop working, we would simply sell our large home and move down the coast to a smaller house by the sea; add the capital from the sale of the big house to a current investment, BUT as the time drew closer, we realised we were not ready for that by no means, so came up with plan B about six months before I retired.
We have a lovely home and garden, in fact we were the first and only owners and every blade of grass was planted by us; friends and family just around the corner, everyone in the neighbourhood knows us by name, have two staff members to consider, and...and...and...
We had a garden cottage which Mom & Dad originally lived in, but it would soon be empty as our son who lived there at the time, was moving to another province.
Something had to be done about the disappearance of that monthly corporate package if we wanted to stay on and maintain this big house.
We just needed a little extra income so gave the cottage a face-lift and Lily's Cottage was born after listing with Airbnb.
A face-lift I could do with now as well;) Just kidding, I'm REALLY not that vain!
I had visions of the occasional guests booking, with me just meeting, greeting and overseeing the cleaning; but this soon turned into a fully fledged business as more and more guests started booking, and a local bnb owner subtly warning me that one could get a hefty fine if not registered with various authorities as a bnb!
She actually did me a favour, as those organisations helped grow our business.
We soon had to expand by turning one wing of our home into a guest studio apartment complete with a kitchenette as I shared Turning unused living space into a full-time bnb with the Architecture Community recently.
SO, did plan B pan out as expected?
Not quite, as registering a bnb was a load of work for both hubby and I.
Fortunately hubby is an engineer and could easily do the floor plans, parking layouts, reports etc etc while I was doing the applications which required stuff like a motivation report, getting consent from neighbours, specific bnb insurance with huge public liability cover, plus a host of other requirements.
Was this my vision of a little Airbnb on the side while in retirement?
Certainly not, in fact I do not have enough hours in the day, but love this job as I get to meet people from all spheres of life and from all corners of the world, although we now have to keep our distance ever since Covid.
Hive also came to the rescue and filled the void left by not interacting with my workmates daily as I met many kindred spirits here on Hive and am earning Crypto.
Hive has become my passion; I've learned a ton here about blogging, food photography (using/abusing my cellphone!), learned how to turn my Crypto earnings into rands and cents during Covid Lockdown, and the opportunity to learn more about Cryptocurrencies.
The running of our bnb has gotten easier as we now make use of an online portal that updates our availability and rates in the many online booking sites we're on now; we seldom get bookings via Airbnb now as another bigger online site gets more traffic plus we receive many direct bookings by returning guests.
A local training centre have made us one of their preferred providers, so they keep us real busy as well.
We're able to take breakaways with friends or family during the low season and leave our very able and trustworthy staff in charge; I am blessed indeed!
To the sea
To the mountains
When will we retire fully?
Not sure, as we're still not ready to face that big change although our name is on the waiting list of a really nice retirement village down the coast. We were quite happy when they told us the waiting list is around 5 to 6 years, suits us just fine!
One thing I know is that while these fingers can tap away at the keyboard, and the Silver hairs don't become too tangled, Hive will still be part of my life and I thank you one and all for your friendship!
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