My Social Security Journey Part 2, Holiday Nostalgia and Welcoming New Beginnings

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for a journey of introspection, nostalgia, and practical life lessons. This is Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older, and today, we're tackling the daunting task of applying for Social Security benefits. Yes, it's not the most exciting topic, but trust me, by sharing my personal trials and victories, I'll help you navigate this journey with more confidence and less stress. Plus, we're announcing a brief hiatus for the festive season and the exciting launch of a new show, "Tales From South Florida," on our return - you won't want to miss it!

As the holiday season approaches, we're also dusting off the cobwebs of memory and taking you down a cherished path of holidays past in South Florida. Remember those Christmas mornings unwrapping the latest GI Joe or Hot Wheels set? Or the family road trips to Walt Disney World and the festive picnics at wayside stations? Tune in as we reminisce these warm, nostalgic memories and discuss the importance of family and cherished traditions during the festive season. From the heart-tugging stories of visiting my grandmothers in Arkansas every Christmas to the community spirit in a school for the blind, this episode promises to stir a wave of emotions and nostalgia. So, pull up a chair, brew a cup of hot chocolate, and join us as we bask in the warmth of beautiful memories and the anticipation of exciting new beginnings.

Music Credit: Holy Night by Tomomi_Kato

Chapters

• 0:01 Guide for Aging and Upcoming Changes
• 8:42 Memories of Holidays in South Florida
• 15:36 The Importance of Family and Nostalgia

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older. Hey, this isn't about being old, this is about getting older, and no matter your age, right now you are getting older, whether you like it or not. What we like to do is just give you some tips and hints about how to make the whole process a lot smoother. So come on, join us. Hello, my friends, and welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older. You might notice a little bit of change. He used to be Bill Monty's Guide to Getting Older, but we started thinking about it and this is really about FOR getting older. As we just said in the intro there, it's not about being old or getting old. Old is a state of mind. What we wanted to do this season with this podcast was to give you the tools to help you as you age. There's no secrets here, but, based on my experience as someone who has been getting older for a long time, well, I just thought I'd like to share that with all of you, and so that's what we've been doing this year. We've been having fun since we started the podcast, and I hope you've been having fun too. Just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported us and and who has been there for us. So this podcast, my Social Security journey, part two, are part two. In case someone in France is listening, I'm happy to say that this actually isn't that exciting. Stay tuned anyway, because we got some fun stuff coming up.

Speaker 1: 1:29

The fact of the matter is, as I related in the last episode, I filled out the application, did it online, wasn't really that difficult, had some questions. I did have to call the Social Security office, was on hold for about 45 minutes so be prepared for that and I did speak to someone who, for the most part, answered my questions. Well, the day before Thanksgiving I received a call from someone in Social Security office in Birmingham, alabama, and she wanted to let me know that they were processing the application. She just had a couple of questions for me, very generic, very general, wanted to know if I had any questions and I asked the ones that I had. If you recall, I was a little confused about the starting date based on for retirement age. The agent that I spoke to had one answer. The website has another. Other websites have yet another answer, so she was able to answer that for me.

Speaker 1: 2:24

I'd say it wasn't that happy with the amount that I'll be receiving. So when you go on to wwwssagov to start this process, you can look up and see an estimate of what your earnings will be if you take it now. If you take it in the future, at what age, blah, blah, blah. So, based on that estimate, I thought I would be receiving a amount, an amount plus the 3. 2% COLA increase that's coming January 2024. When I spoke to the agent on the phone, she gave me a number that was more along the lines of about $30 to $40 less than what it said online, but it said that they would clarify that when someone contacted me. So I waited, and when the woman told me, I was a little disappointed because it was that smaller amount and that was with the COLA increase already figured in.

Speaker 1: 3:25

A little irritating because, you know, when I reviewed my earnings on that page online, it was pretty much spot on. You know, was it plus or minus a couple dollars here and there over the course of the years? I mean it goes back to when I started working, when I was 15, you know maybe, but it was generally correct and based on that I should be receiving about $40 more than I'm going to be receiving initially On the plus side, because I'm still working. They do a review every year. So, besides the COLA increase, they review your earnings from the previous year. But they can't do that until you file your taxes. So this review will probably happen for me sometime around the summer of 2024, but they have until December of 2024 to actually start any increase that they feel might be necessary.

Speaker 1: 4:14

So I received a letter in the mail today from Social Security confirming the conversation that we had and confirming the change that I made on that conversation, and now I have to wait for the letter that tells me exactly what the amount will be and all the other information that they want to tell you. Kind of a quiet day-no-mah on this whole thing, if you will. I'm going to have to say that, based on everything I'd heard, I thought this would be a lot more traumatic. So good news for you, my friends when it comes your time, if you get everything in a row, you shouldn't have any problems at all, which is great. Oh, and one document they said that I would have to have when I did the application was my current certificate of marriage, and when I asked her about that, she seemed kind of surprised and she was like no, you've been married quite a while, haven't you? And I said, yeah, a long time. So she said no, no, we don't need any documents from you at all. So, pleasant surprise. And anyway, that's my social security journey Parts 1, parts 2, and the end, I guess.

Speaker 1: 5:16

So we have a lot of exciting things happening with the show. I want to catch you up on that and what's going to be happening in the future. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. This is being recorded about five days after Thanksgiving 2023. I hope you had a wonderful time with your family. As you all know, this is the start of the holiday season, right? Even though Christmas trees have been up in Lowe's and Home Depot since October 1st. This is really the start of the holiday season, so I want to wish you and yours whatever holiday you celebrate. I hope it's a grand one. I hope it's a great one. I hope it's filled with peace and love.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Other news regarding this podcast we will be going on a hiatus now through the month of December and when we come back so we're going to be launching a show called Tales from South Florida, and I think you're going to love this show, even if you don't come from South Florida. You've never visited. South Florida has a wonderful history Now. Granted, it doesn't have the history of Boston that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, you know, in terms of architecture, all that sort of stuff. But a lot happened between the late 1800s to today. In South Florida, we have been the focal point for a lot of change and I thought it would be great to tell these stories in a new and entertaining way. So if you grew up in South Florida, if you visited South Florida, if you have family here in South Florida, I think you're going to like the show. It's going to launch January 2024. I do hope you'll join us because it's going to be exciting as far as our show right here when it comes back or probably be rebranded.

Speaker 1: 6:49

We're going to change the focus. So this whole first season, the first 15 episodes, has been about giving you the advice that I've learned as I've gotten older. So, whether it's help paying your electric bill as you get older, whether it's talking about the memories and the things that come along, talking about maybe physical limitations or finances, that's what this was all about. When we come back, we want to try to change the focus of the show. So it's going to be more about living a healthy, great life and look if something else comes along in the middle of it. We'll still talk about it, but we want to really kind of focus more on the positive and how to get you there. No, monty's guide for getting older will be returning and we look forward to you joining us, and we'll be sure to let you know when that's happening. In the meantime, we hope that you'll stick around for tales from South Florida.

Speaker 1: 7:36

If you go to the website, you will notice we do have a website now. So when I send out the links and say we've got a new episode, you click on that link and you're going to go. Thank you to my friends at Buzzsprout, by the way, which is where I put this podcast out on the platforms it goes out on. So you'll now be able to select. So, instead of it just being a Spotify link, like it has been, it's going to give you options. You want to spotify Amazon Music, iheartradio, all the different places, or do you want to listen on the website? So if you don't have a Spotify account or any of those other things, you'll be able to just go to the website and listen to it like on a browser. Isn't that easy and when you go you will see that now it's easier to communicate with us and hopefully you will help us out. We now have a support button on there.

Speaker 1: 8:24

You've been so supportive here, but it does cost a little bit of money to do podcasts. So anything that you can do to help our podcast in its infancy will translate to this show and to the new tales from South Florida. It starts as low as $3. If you can do that, that's great. If you can't, hey. Still, we hope you'll stick around for us.

Speaker 1: 8:42

All right, we're going to come back in just a few moments. We'll talk a little bit about the holidays and then we will wrap up our first season of Bill Monty's guide for getting older. Hello friends, Bill Monty here, and I'm inviting you to join me with our new show coming in 2024, tales from South Florida. Whether you grew up in South Florida, you still living in South Florida, or you think about South Florida, there's a lot of stories that you need to know about, from Al Capone to Meyer Lansky, from the haunted theaters of Fort Lauderdale to the Hollywood Sportatorium, from the Fort Lauderdale Strip to stripping down at the nude beaches we've got it all for you coming in 2024. Tales from South Florida with Bill Monty. We will see you on the flip side. Thank you and welcome back my friends.

Speaker 1: 9:33

So I wanted to first off be in the holiday season. I want to give you a gift as a thank you for all of your support, all of your kindness since we started the podcast so I was talking before about Tales from South Florida will be launching in the in January of 2024. I'm going to put a preview of that, of a preview of one of the episodes, on the Facebook page for you so you can listen. We've already got two episodes wrapped up and we're going to hopefully record and release five once we get to January. But I want you to get kind of a taste for it and I'd love your feedback on it. So remember you can always write to us at BillMonty04@ gmailcom, or you can call us. I'd love to hear your voices too. We can leave a voicemail for us. That number is 754-800-3170. And let me know what you think about this show. We think about the preview that we give you a Tales from South Florida. That would be your gift to me.

Speaker 1: 10:46

So, as we enter the holiday season, you know one of the things that we talk about getting older is certainly. The memories are so strong. Now they they're just a part of us and you start remembering. For me, you know, when you grow up in South Florida, you, you don't have the cold weather, you don't have the snow, you don't have the change of seasons.

Speaker 1: 11:18

We moved here when I was a young boy and every Christmas we would go to see my grandmothers in Arkansas, in Little Rock. Those were magical trips Even back then, even though I was, you know, a young boy, I think eight years old, nine years old when we first did it. But that was up through my teenage years. We went there every Christmas and every summer. We were a small family. Both of my grandfathers passed away before I was born. It was my mother, my father, me, my brother and my two grandmothers, plus distant relatives on my father's side, that also lived in the area.

Speaker 1: 12:05

I remember one time, driving up, we were outside, we were on the turnpike and we were outside of a town called we didn't know how to pronounce it. Really, kiss Me was the best we could do and my father turned to us and pointed out the window to the right and said boys, that's where Walt Disney is going to build his new Disneyland. That was amazed. I looked out on this that's Swampland really and tried to imagine what that would be like. It would be several years before that would open, but my father did make sure that the first spring Disney World was open. We were there.

Speaker 1: 12:50

We were teenagers by that time, though the drives up were always magical as we drove further north, always a few days before Christmas, maybe a week before Christmas, the weather would get colder. We'd start bundling up a little bit more. We didn't have a lot of money, so my mother, for the first day at least, would pack sandwiches and meals We'd stop at I don't know if you remember these. They were called wayside stations back then. They were basically picnic tables on the side of the highway. We'd pull over to one and we'd open up the ice chest and pull out the ham and cheese sandwiches and the potato chips and the potato salad and coleslaw. It was just as grand as the Thanksgiving dinner. Imagine being eight years old and you're sitting on the side of the highway, the trucks rolling by. My brother and I, after we ate we'd run to the side of the road. How dangerous was that? We'd start putting our hands up and pulling them down and the truckers would honk their horns as they went by.

Speaker 1: 13:55

We'd drive up through Georgia, through Atlanta. We'd hang a left somewhere around there. We'd take us through Tennessee. We always stopped for a while at a place called Granny's or Grandma's outside of Knoxville, had great food. Then we'd arrive at my grandmother's house, my father's mother. You'd walk in. It was always gas appliances, gas stoves. The smell was very unique. You'd always walk into the smell of a pie cooking. Maybe the Christmas tree would be up, maybe it wouldn't. The joy would start right then. It was all quite magical for us.

Speaker 1: 14:37

For many years I wasn't here in South Florida celebrating with my friends the holidays. We were celebrating with the small family that we had. Of course. Back then, if you were a young boy, the best you could hope for for presents was the stockings were full of socks and underwear. You'd get the GI Joe. You'd get the Hot Wheels man. We loved Hot Wheels. We'd build the tracks. I think the one gift I always wanted that we never got.

Speaker 1: 15:12

In September the Sears Robuck catalog would arrive. My brother and I would tear through it looking at it. There was always that tabletop pinball game, electric pinball game. I didn't get that until I got married. Actually, my father was right Quit playing with it after about the first week, so I guess he was good not to buy it but always hoped that would be in there.

Speaker 1: 15:36

But it wasn't about that. Looking back on it, it was about the family. It was about the fact that my maternal grandmother always had this one bowl. I have it now. I still have it carnival glass type of bowl, but it was filled with the old brocks kind of chalky mints kind you would see in restaurants back then as you paid your bill, and she always had the chocolate-covered cherries out for us.

Speaker 1: 16:06

She had a sadder life, so her house wasn't as joyfull with joy sometimes, but it was all mystical and wonderful and I miss it now more than I ever thought possible, not just the youth but the embracing, the time as it was. I know we hear this all the time and as older people when we say that no one likes to hear it. But it was better back then. There was a closeness that isn't here anymore. When families get together and everyone's face is buried into their phone, they're messaging all the time.

Speaker 1: 16:46

We would gather around after dinner and sing songs. We'd perform for each other, my brother and I at my maternal grandmother's house. There was a school for the blind close by and we would sit on the curb during the day and watch as the teachers would bring the students by, teaching them how to walk with the cane. I think back on it now. I think what wonderful people they were. They were also like these kind of ghosts that were passing by us. Those days are gone, right, but they live in my heart and I hope that your past memories live in your heart and in your soul, and I leave you with these words when I was in high school and course, we used to sing a song let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. Keep that in mind, my friends. The opportunity for peace and kindness always lies within you. I hope you have a happy and safe holiday season and I look forward to speaking with you again in 2024. Be kind.