Sue and Ken Yamashita: Live, Love, Laugh

Long-time friends and clients, Sue and Ken Yamashita, have so much to share and so much to teach us. Children of Japanese-American families who suffered greatly during World War II, they inspire me every day with their hard work ethic and ability to stay positive and focused on what truly matters in life. Sue, whom many of you may know as a former Contra Costa Teacher of the Year Finalist, and perhaps a teacher of some of your own children, is also a great believer of all things tech. So, delightfully for the first time we are able to imbed in our Blog a wonderful clip of her and her husband on an adventure in the Southwest. But I’m getting ahead of their story! Enjoy their journey, their beliefs and the wonderful family life and retirement they have crafted together.

Ken and Sue enjoying the Cherry Blossoms in Japan

Sue and Ken, it truly seems like just yesterday that we met!  It was during that time in my career when I visited clients in their homes to help with tax preparation. I was so fortunate to be able to see you with your brand new baby boy, KC, who is now all grown up with his own successful life.   You were already focused on long-term planning and were asking smart questions such as how much insurance do we need, what should our estate plan be like, how much should we start putting away for college for our child (soon to be two children when Todd came along!).   In fact you are one of my client families who really inspired me to pursue a career as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional.   How did you two get so smart so early in life about planning for your future?  Are these values instilled in you by your heritage and upbringing or did you come to it on your own?

Lynn I can still picture that day we met working on taxes together with a sleeping baby in his crib so many years ago.  Ken and I both came from Japanese-American families that emerged from internment camps with the clothes on their backs and little else, except the will and drive to succeed in the country of their birth.  With WWII, they had lost everything our grandparents had worked so hard for, farming the land they were forbidden to own, successful businesses they had established from the ground up.  From that wartime experience, always present was the possibility of “losing it all” despite diligence and careful planning. So we were raised in an atmosphere of thrift as our hardworking parents pursued the American dream.

Tell us a bit about your childhood, your families, where you grew up, and your educational background.   How did you choose each of your professional career paths?

We are both Bay Area natives and have not moved far from our childhood neighborhoods. Ken was born in Oakland and grew up locally in Albany, with his older sister, Mom and Dad.  Before WWII, Ken's father’s family had a small store/boarding house in Concord and are mentioned in the local book "History of Concord.”  His mother's family farmed land in Auburn, Washington, and sold vegetables at the now famous Pike's Market in Seattle.  With the Executive Order 9066, West Coast civilians of Japanese ancestry were sent to "internment camps.”  Ken's Mom and Dad were sent to Tule Lake where they met and married and Ken's sister was born right before the camp was closed.  His parents traveled back to Contra Costa County where they were taken in by an Orinda family as housekeeper, babysitter and gardener.  Eventually they moved to Richmond housing when Ken was born. Shortly thereafter they bought a home in Albany which was not an easy task with the anti-Japanese post-war sentiment that existed. Although the owner of the Albany house refused to sell to them initially, a strong-willed attorney supported them and they were able to complete the purchase and the attorney became a life-long friend.  The family lived in that Albany home for many years.  Ken went to Albany schools and went on to Merritt College and took optometric classes at UC Berkeley.  He apprenticed as an optician at Northwest Northern and American Optical labs before being hired by the Permanente Optical Lab where he worked for 35 years.

My Mom was born in the Central Valley of California, in the tiny town of Livingston.  Her family was farming the land and she was attending Merced Community College and her brother was attending UC Berkeley when the war broke out. They were sent to the camp in Amache, Colorado.  My father's family also farmed in the town of Newcastle, California, north of Sacramento.  He was the oldest of three sons and was attending UC Berkeley when Pearl Harbor was bombed.  He and his two brothers enlisted in the U.S. Army and their widowed mother was sent to camp.  Can you imagine what must have been going through her mind?  My grandmother could have lost all her sons who were serving their country, while she was held in barracks behind barbed wire!  My father became a Master Sergeant in the Military Intelligence Service teaching at language school training men to be interpreters, interrogators and translators of intercepted enemy communication.  The Japanese-Americans of the MIS and 442nd Regiment were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal last year to honor their meritorious service. Unfortunately there are very few of these men still alive to receive the long overdue recognition.  After the war my Dad finished college at UC Berkeley, he and my Mom were married and bought their first home in Berkeley. My brother and I were born in Berkeley where we lived until our family moved to El Cerrito in 1958.  I graduated from Kennedy High in Richmond and earned two scholarships to attend UC Berkeley where I earned a teaching credential.  I substituted in Oakland before being hired by the Lafayette School District where I taught elementary school for 33 years.  I think I enjoyed being a student so much that I wanted to continue to "go to school" for a career!  I must say, I learned something new every day during those many years in education.  And I guess I still can't quite let go of the educational field so I keep connected to the schools in other ways now.

The goal of being able to retire in your 50s is one that many Americans can’t even fathom achieving.    The two main things you needed to do to make it happen were: continue in your respective career paths due to excellent retirement and other benefits, and live below your means while you raised your children so that you could invest as much additionally as was needed to supplement your pensions.  And congratulations!  You did it!!!  Tell us about the focus it took to accomplish those goals.

We didn’t start out with early retirement as the goal.  When you are young, retirement isn’t something that is forefront in your mind.  We made daily financial decisions in our early years based on what we could afford at the time.  Simple vacations of family camping trips to National and State Parks, hiking, boating, biking and fishing were things we enjoyed doing together.  Road trips to visit relatives in Washington, jaunts to Disneyland and the occasional air-travel trip were budget friendly. 

   

Todd and KC at Crater Lake, Oregon

Todd fishing at Burney Falls, California

Although teaching provides the weeks of summer break, there was no paycheck for me from mid-June until October 1st. Although I tried to set aside money during the school year, with kids there are always unexpected expenses. One summer we ended up relying on the credit card to carry us until that October 1st check.  It was an uncomfortable time of paying down that debt and dealing with the accompanying finance charges (which I hated to pay!!).  We learned from that mistake and have never carried a balance on the cards again.  I began having automatic deductions taken out of each paycheck and put into a separate account to get us through the summer.  It was a relatively pain-free way to save since it was deducted BEFORE any money went into our household checking account. The added benefit was if we didn’t use up that set-aside money, there was some left over for emergency expenses or some “fun money!” I think the trick to staying financially sound is to learn from your mistakes and do everything possible to make sure you don’t get into an uncomfortable situation again. We used the same automatic payroll deduction strategy to fund an IRA making it much easier to save in the long run. It’s too easy to spend money once it is in your hand, so “out of sight, out of mind” was the best way for us.

Coastal camping in the Airstream nicknamed "Spud"

So let’s switch gears and talk about my favorite “sermon” --- living within our means! Doing so meant making many sacrifices while your young men were growing up.   I never heard about many extravagances in our meetings.  To this day you do much of your retirement travel from a camper! Wait --- news flash --- camper was just upgraded to an Airstream --- your big retirement splurge! Tell us how you were able to stay focused and not buy into the need to spend money on things that would derail your long-term goals.  Did you encounter a lot of pressure to spend more than you did? How did you handle that?

There was a time when my fellow teachers were having babies and left the classroom for many years. We truthfully needed both incomes for stability, so it was not a real option to quit teaching. But I never once felt deprived or guilty…. which, I believe, is the essential ingredient to success as a working mom. Those were busy times, but those years fly by in the blink of an eye. Our sons were great kids who grew up to become wonderful adults! And by the way, those teachers who took time off to be home raising kids are working hard now, well into their 60’s, to put in the years for a decent pension. They envy me for being young enough to have an active retirement after those 33 consecutive years in the classroom.

Having grown up in frugal families, we were not accustomed to lavish spending or pricey trips. Our love of the outdoors led us into snow skiing when the boys were young.  BUT, that can be quite an expensive hobby when paying for equipment, lift tickets, meals and lodging for a family of four.  We figured we could buy a ski boat with the money saved from snow trips and switched instead to water-skiing!  So our family trips extended to boat-in camping and house-boating.  Winter sports got traded for summer sports…pack a picnic lunch, swimsuits and towels and off to the lakes or delta.  We did take an occasional airplane trip too:  Hawaii, Mexico, Orlando, Caribbean cruise…. looking for bargains.

Ken and Sue relaxing after a challenging hike to Agnews Lake in the eastern Sierras

I don’t think it EVER occurred to any of us that we were “sacrificing” anything…. our lives were filled with activity, family fun and a lot of togetherness.  Judging from how close-knit our family is today, I’d say our lives were pretty darn rich!

I think one of the reasons you are such successful cash managers is that you have done so much of the improvements in your home all this time yourselves.  Ken, walk us through all the remodeling you have done to your beautiful home in Pleasant Hill over the years.  How much were you able to do yourself and how did you decide when to engage contractors?  How did you learn to do all this?

We both grew up in homes where there was a lot of do-it-yourself upkeep going on.  If the house needed painting, out came the ladder and brushes.  Saws and hammers were gathered when the fence needed fixing.  Lawnmowers, rakes and shovels were tools needed for yard maintenance.  From early on, Ken was not afraid to tackle a do-it-yourself job, starting from rebuilding the engine on his first car, a 1967 Mustang.  It may have taken trial and error, steep learning curve, but he is a real “hands-on” kind of guy.  Nine times out of ten, if there’s something not working in our house, he will figure out how to fix it. Never having done any carpentry before, he planned and built an incredible play structure in our yard for the boys. When the kids were grown and gone, a lovely multi-leveled deck took its place.  He has installed bamboo flooring and picture windows to customize our home.

With no dog in our yard any longer, he took out the lawns and created our beautifully landscaped yard based on plans our son drew up.  As I type this up, he is outside sawing wood for a new gate to our side yard area. I think our vehicles could auto-pilot to Home Depot!

Backyard before Ken's handy-work...

So although Ken’s quite an all-around handy guy, we hired contractors for the major remodels, plumbers for the pipes, electricians, and craftsmen for skilled work like tiling, taping texturing walls/ceilings and concrete work.  There is a point when our blood-sweat-and-tears can’t replace the professionals.

... and after!

We resisted the idea of moving to a larger house and taking on more debt when the boys were growing up and stayed in our modest home.  We paid off the mortgage before we retired and have no debts to cloud our lifestyle.  We are so happy that we stayed in a home that has been lovingly cared for and remodeled, perfect for just the two of us!

Both your sons are hard workers, successfully employed, and very good at living within their means as well.  In fact, we hope to include them in future Blogs!  How were you able to successfully teach that skill set, especially in the Bay Area with all the costs and pressures of life?

Our hardworking sons have also become do-it-yourselfers when it comes to auto and home care as well. They are in beautiful homes with lovely yards and push those lawnmowers and change car oil themselves.  They search out great deals on (gently) used cars.  I guess growing up, like we did, in families that live within their means has influenced their choices in spending.

Now that you are retired, have your hobby interests changed?

With all the digital images we are collecting on our travels we are rapidly gathering more than we can handle.  We are both busy editing those digital images and creating iDVD slideshows so we can enjoy and share those trips on the TV.  Those DVDs are much easier to store than the boxes of photos buried in the closet.  One of our long-term projects is to (ideally) scan all those old yellowing photos to restore, edit and preserve digitally…. that is if we can stay home long enough to make a dent in them!  The short little video clip you are including with this blog is a sampling of some iMovie work with our Southwest trip pictures.

As I mentioned above, I still have not yet completely left the education field.  I recently provided in-service training in iMovie creation for some of Lafayette School District’s teachers on their Staff Development day.  For the past five to six years I have had fun working on digital projects for the Contra Costa County Office of Education.  The Teacher Cadre creates online interactive standards-based lessons for Contra Costa County teachers to utilize on the Ed1Stop website.  We search the internet for videos, games, activities, literature and lesson plans to support the instruction of the California State Standards and create web pages that bring those resources to classroom teachers for whole class or individual instruction.  I loved using technology in my classroom and received a grant to bring an interactive SmartBoard into my room.  My students were so excited to use the technology and loved lessons that grabbed their attention and stayed in their minds.

What adventures await you next?

Our camping years reflected our life journey:  starting out with a 2 person tent in our 20’s, gradually upgrading to 4-6 person tents, pop-up tent-trailer and finally treating ourselves now in retirement, our Ritz-Carlton-on-wheels the Airstream named “Silver Spud”.  (Can you guess why that name was picked?)  So I guess we will continue to explore the natural wonders of the USA and Canada with "Spud" for as long as we are able.  We also have future plans to travel to other continents and see the world!  Ken continues to fish in lakes, rivers, streams in the Sierras and saltwater fish in Mexico. He and our neighbor fish and crab in the Pacific Ocean. Coveting spring and fall travel for the last 33 years, we are finally getting to explore many places during the best times of the year. Avoiding school holidays is a treat we have been waiting for!  We are frequently hitting the road to explore the USA and have camped in ten of the western states.  We look forward to camping up through Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier National Park, then across Canada soon with “Silver Spud” our cool Airstream trailer!

Ken and Sue relaxing during a hike at Pinecrest Lake

Huge thanks to the Yamashitas for sharing their journey and family history with us! Their affordable and well planned retirement is inspirational to all.  If you would like to get in touch with Ken and Sue, they said to reach out to them via e-mail: s.yamashita@comcast.net.