What's On Your Bucket List?



WHAT’S ON YOUR BUCKET LIST?

Charlie and I were recently talking with a banker friend of ours about some of his clients who are planning for retirement.  Not surprising to us is that travel is the number one thing on most people’s bucket list.  However, most people don’t write down their bucket list of things they want to do, and have no idea how to budget for those big travel items on their list.

Omaha Beach in Normandy

Should you create a wish list of to-dos before dying as the characters Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) did in the movie “The Bucket List”?  Assuming the answer is yes (not sure why it wouldn’t be), what’s the best way to do that?

 

John Nelson, the author of “What Color is Your Parachute? For Retirement” said, “We create a bucket list because we want to be happy.  Some of the latest research on happiness suggests we need to pay attention to two very different kinds of happiness: ‘experiencing’ and evaluating,” 

I suppose I have two lists:  My I Have and My I Want to do…

If you haven’t written down your Bucket List, start out with what you have done and then move on to what you want to do.  Here some of the things are my lists. 

I HAVE…

      1.     Kayaked in Ketchikan, Alaska

2.     Written three books

3.     Stayed in a 400-year-old farmhouse in the Black Forest

4.     Watched a meteor shower from a ship in the South Pacific

5.     Taken our grandchildren to Disney World without their parents or siblings for their fifth birthdays

6.     Walked on Omaha Beach in Normandy

Eiffel Tower in Paris

7.     Learned to play the clarinet and piano

8.     Climbed Acropolis Hill to the Parthenon in Athens twice

9.     Viewed Paris from the Eiffel Tower

10.  Watched a lightning storm at sea

11.  Seen the Mona Lisa in Paris and the Sistine Chapel in Rome

12.  Visited the graves of Michelangelo, Dante, Marc Chagall, Rafael, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Mary, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Handel, and many others

13.  Ridden in a gondola in Venice.

14.  Seen Michelangelo’s David, statue of Moses, and the Piata  

15.  Started a business

16.  Visited Russia

17.  Gone whale watching

18.  Visited the White House

19.  Met someone famous – Most notably, we had dinner at Reba McEntire’s home.

20.  Visited 32 of the 50 United States, including Hawaii and Alaska

21.  Taught myself an art from scratch – first there was crochet, then knitting.

22.  Visited the birthplace of my ancestors (England and Scotland)

23.  Been to all of the U.S. Virgin Islands

24.  Visited Kiribati (the first place that celebrated the Millennium)

25.  Put my feet in the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

 I WANT TO…

      1.      Take a safari in Africa

2.     Go to the Holy Land

3.     Be the keynote speaker at a major conference

4.     Visit Iceland

5.     See the ball drop at Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve

6.     Take a river cruise in Vietnam

7.     Rent a villa in Italy for a month

8.     Take my grandchildren to Washington D.C. and show them why we live in such a great nation.

9.     Take painting lessons

10.  Lose weight (don’t we all that that ambition)

11.  Visit Antarctica

12.  See a volcano while it is erupting

13.  Write a cookbook

14.  Stay in a chateau in Provence in France

15.  Visit the Galapagos Islands

 

There’s so much more that I want to do, and so little time.  Now, you know what’s on my list.  What’s on yours? 

 

 

 



Big Tip for Pin Trading at Disney

When we took the first grandchild to DisneyWorld and found out about pin trading, we knew Disney had found an incredible way to separate people from their money. We bought Maeve a "starter" kit with six cheap pins to trade. Pins range in price from $4-$20, depending on if they have a "Hidden Mickey" or are a collector's pin. Here's how this works:
* Any Disney castmember (employee) MUST trade pins with any child.
* The child can trade the least expensive starter pins for a collectible if the castmember has one.
It's amazing how quickly the kids get into this. All three of our grandchildren who have been to Disney with us loved wearing their lanyard with their pins proudly displayed. They would be on the lookout for castmembers who had pins on their lanyards so they could trade.
Here's a really great tip that we learned after taking two of the kids with us. Go to E-bay and search for Disney Trading Pins. You will find literally hundreds of people selling "lots" of pins - anywhere from 30-40 in a lot. Cost is generally $30 for 40 pins.
We purchased a lot of these before we took Ian in April. Some of the pins in the lot were collectibles; some had Hidden Mickeys on them. Those we kept until Ian found out that there were other pins he wanted. Then we might trade one of the Hidden Mickeys.
This is great fun for the kiddos and we enjoyed just watching them ponder over the pins that they could trade.

It all started.....

....when my granddaughter, Maeve at 4 1/2 years old, got up in my lap at my brother's 50th birthday party to tell me that she was going to Disney World. Being the Grammy that I am, I was so excited for her and asked her who she was going with. Imagine my surprise when she announced, "Why, with you and Pa!" Of course, Pa and I didn't know anything about this, but the more we thought about it, the more it seemed like a great thing to do.

So, a tradition was born.

When each of the grandchildren reach their fifth birthdays, they get a 3-night/4-day trip to Disney World with us - just us. No parents. No siblings. No cousins. Just one child and the two of us. It's been so much fun for us to see the wonder in their eyes as they step onto the Magical Express that takes us to our hotel.

Four years ago, we took Maeve. What an experience with a little girl. It was all about the Disney princesses, getting character autographs and pictures, and spending most of our time at the Magic Kingdom. I thought she was going to hyperventilate when she saw Minnie Mouse for the first time. She was also the kid who wanted to spend time at Animal Kingdom.

Then two years later it was Truman's time to go. He was all about the Monorail and Epcot Center. I spent an entire afternoon just riding the Monorail to everyplace it would take us. He also loved "Talking with Crush" at Epcot Center.

This year we took Ian, and what a difference his experience was. It was rides, rides, and more rides. He especially loved the Buzz Lightyear ride at the Magic Kingdom, but his very favorite was the Star Wars ride and the Indiana Jones stunt show at Hollywood Studios. Ian is a big Star Wars and Indiana Jones fan, and he loved sitting atop a star fighter for pictures.

I'll be sharing some of our insider tips with you later. Stay tuned.