I'm Retired! Now what?

April 18, 2026

One of the hardest things about getting older for me is trying to determine what to throw away and what to keep.  We all hate to throw away those treasured family heirlooms, but just what is a family heirloom?  Your great grandmother’s crystalware?  Your dad’s baby shoes?  Or something I’ve recently discovered, my mom’s old tax forms.  My mom was a dedicated, professional bookkeeper, and in her mind tax forms were considered family heirlooms.

As part of my retirement, deep houseclean, I came across a bunch of my mom’s old financial records that had found their way into my house, and of course I had to check them all out.  Here I had envelopes and envelopes of property tax forms concerning the family farm up in Oklahoma.  Being a bit of a pack rat myself, I can proudly say that I have all my tax forms from the very first year I started working at Texas Instruments in 1989 to the time I retired, which stands at the moment, eighteen days ago.  I’ve always heard that the I.R.S. requires us responsible U.S. citizens to keep a seven-year backlog of our financial stuff, but with a quick internet study I’ve learned that we should stash away tax records for at least three years to as long as ten years.  There was even one site that suggested indefinitely, if you’ve never filed.  I’m guessing if you’ve never filed taxes, you probably don’t hoard financial records regardless of their age and probably shouldn’t be talking to the I.R.S. anyway!

My wife often rolls her eyes when I proudly tell her how my financial files stretch out over the course of thirty-seven years, but as I sorted through my mom’s envelopes, I saw dates from the 1990’s, 80’s, 70’s, 60’s, and yes 1950’s!  The form that held the record was a tax receipt that was dated, December 13, 1949!  Wow!  That’s only a few weeks younger than Bruce Springsteen!  Yes, I date stuff by using rock stars as references.  More importantly, it was nearly seven years before my parents were even married!

There were even farm tax exempt statements regarding a 1948 tractor.  Okay, I don’t remember that tractor, but a form that mentioned an old Case 400 tractor did bring up a few memories.  I had spent plenty of hours working the fields on that treasured piece of machinery.  I just never realized it was a 1958 model.  Indeed, this was all quite exciting for a few minutes, but then I was faced with the ultimate question, “What should I do with all this stuff?  Stash it or trash it?”  Of course, there was a certain level of historical coolness I felt from holding a piece of paper that’s nearly 77 years old, but is it cool enough to keep?  To help me ponder over this dilemma I bounced over to my wife Margaret to tell her of my outstanding archeological find!  The fact that she didn’t even acknowledge my presence pretty much summed up her feelings regarding the subject.

The fact that my mom held onto this stuff for over five decades while she was alive made me cringe a bit when the thought of tossing it all in my trash can popped into my mind.  But when I considered keeping all of these tax forms a more important question exploded in my head and that was, “Why?”  I’m assuming that all the farm equipment mentioned in these forms had been melted down for scrap years ago, and although I still own the land, it’s been rented out to one of the local farmers for the last twenty years.  So with all that in mind, I finally came to the conclusion that there are only five people who would give a darn about any of these records.   Such would be my mom and dad who had both left the world over a decade ago and my older brother Alan who has been gone for nearly five years now himself.  There is also my cousin James who my dad raised on the farm and was actually living there in 1949.  However, this guy is in his early eighties and now lives on the side of a mountain up in northern Idaho.  About the only things he cares about these days are his three dogs and a steady supply of Michelob Ultra.  With all of this in mind, I came to the conclusion that the only living person who would give a darn about all this aged paperwork was……….me!

As we go through life, we often stash stuff away with the idea, “All this worthless crap will be so much fun to look through when I’m older.”  Well, I’ve come to the realization that such a time is NOW!  I am older!  And sorting through these old tax papers was kind of cool, but kind of cool in a “one time cool” kind of way.  I have my serious doubts I would feel the same way when looking through them again five years from now.  I realize my mom thought these papers were all worth keeping for an eternity of coolness, but sometimes you just have to throw stuff away regardless how cool it is or was.  Instead of the trash can though, it all went into my paper recycle bin, so at least I could throw all this mess away with a little dignity.

As I tossed all of these papers I must have muttered, “I’m sorry Mom!” at least a dozen times.  If she was still alive, I’m sure she would have found a place to stash them all.  I did keep the 1949 form though.  It’s still kind of cool.