In the latest in our Finances after 50 series, we talk to Sharman Buckle, who sells eggs from outside her Karaka Bay, Wellington house every Sunday to help ‘eke out’ her retirement savings. Sharman talks to Anna Harcourt about grief, divorce, repartnering and second careers.
I have three sons. One I lost to suicide when he was 25. Chad would turn 50 in a week’s time if he was still alive. So that's always incredibly hard to get over.
I married a very talented man, and we had a good life, a comfortable life, and we went through that crisis together and grieved pretty similarly, really, but I think it took a toll on me. I can't explain it, but I don't think I've ever got over it. We were married for 49 years, we were pretty comfortably off, and we had medical insurance and some investments, and we were living in Oriental Bay.
But I hadn't been very happy for decades, really. And what makes him happy in retirement is being frugal and investing his money. What makes me happy is home and garden, it really gives me a buzz, and I love that. And I think, why not? You know, I've worked hard all my life, and I need to enjoy some of the trappings. So we separated five years ago.
I came from a very working class background. My mum, she was a bit entrepreneurial too, in the sense that I can remember her breeding dogs, and breeding Rhode Island Red chooks. And she was a bookkeeper, she never qualified as an accountant or anything like that. But she was a bookkeeper, and then she started a shop.
My father, he'd been a prisoner of war for four years in Poland. He was actually in hospital in Greece when he was captured. I think he got shot in the foot, and then they took over the hospital and put them on a train up into Poland. Once the war ended they were repatriated back to London, and he was celebrating the finish of the war, and he fell off a balcony. After surviving four years as a prisoner of war, he broke his leg in three or four places!
He and mum got together maybe 12 months after the end of the war, and they had a son first, and then me. He worked for Fletchers as a carpenter, he was a blue-collar kind of person.
Growing up in West Auckland I initially went to a little public primary school which was down the road. But when I got to standard four my mother decided to send me to a private girls' school, which was quite a distance, and so of course I did start mixing with people from more prosperous backgrounds, and I think it was good for me, to be honest. I think it helped me focus a bit more on what education would do for me in terms of careers.
I went to university and trained as a librarian. And I met my (now ex) husband through my flatmate. I worked for a couple of the biggest law firms in New Zealand as their head of research and library services, and managed that while bringing up the boys.
Then the internet happened, and I embraced the technology, embraced intranets and everything.
When I was approaching 65, by that stage I was at Te Papa, and I was what they called the Knowledge Manager, so I had probably four or five departments under me. And we'd had a series of changes of directors, even in the five years I'd been there, I think we'd had three. I was coming up to 65, so I put it to them that they could use my salary, which was quite a good one, in a way they thought could embrace the technology. Even though I had embraced technology, times had moved on, and they were looking to do lots of displays very technically and so I took early retirement only about five months before my 65th birthday.
I'd also stumbled across the game of lawn bowls about six months before I retired, and I joined the Victoria Bowling Club. And I love playing bowls with passion, and that's where I met my current partner.
He works in food distribution, and we were offered the opportunity to distribute fresh eggs. They come from Hastings every Monday on a big truck. We formed a company, registered it in January 2024. We've got a good clientele, we supply many cafés and bakeries across Miramar, Kilbernie, Khandallah, Kelburn.
It's not been a great two and a half years for hospitality for sure, so it hasn't been that easy. But I learnt Xero, I thought that would be good for my brain, and I went out and did a bit of marketing and sales. We're doing OK, but more important to me is the fact that it's given me this interest, and kept my brain busy. It's been challenging, but good, taking on something like this. I never imagined I'd be in business before.
Selling eggs from the roadside was a bit of a side hustle because we primarily sell to bakeries, cafés, and restaurants. But in the first summer that I was here [in this house in Karaka Bay], I couldn't believe the number of people that walked by, rode by, ran by, and went to the beach. So I started in that summer, and thought I'll just see how it goes. But now I've just finished the second winter, and it's become like a real local icon.
I'm called the egg lady, and I've met so many people. It's been fantastic. We also sell halloumi and oat milk, but primarily the eggs, and I think people like supporting local. They like coming and having a chat to me. I've met so many wonderful people who've embraced me, and if I go to the local bar there's so many people down there that know me as the egg lady and come up and talk to me.
So it’s a way of eking out my retirement. When my ex-husband and I split, I was able to use my part of the separation to buy this house in Karaka Bay, and a bit more. But the maintenance here is huge. The rates are huge. The insurances are huge, and so it is something that, even in my position, you worry about how can I sustain that if I live for another 10 years here? So for the moment, it's OK because I’ve got the business. But I do wonder, where to from here?
And who knows how long I can keep it up. I got to age 75 and I was lifting these egg boxes, six trays in each box, and I used to hold my core in and think, this is good for me. But one Sunday this May, I picked up the trestle table and I turned quite sharply and I felt this searing pain through my hip. And it turned out I had slipped a disk in my back. And then I got vertigo, and then I got an atrial flutter. So I turned 75 in April and then in May I had three things all at once. you realise that life can change just like that, where I was priding myself that I had such good health and I was really fit, but you just don't know.
One thing I haven't got now is private health insurance, and with my slipped disk, if I have to have a back operation I've got to go into the public health system and you can wait a year, two years. So I haven't made provision for that. Things like living here, it's wonderful. But there are trade-offs all the time.
I love homemaking and gardening, and so I do spend… I am a bit nutty about that and I think what the heck.
It's striking that balance where you can enjoy some of the trappings of the hard work and what gives you pleasure, and also balancing that with the fact that you don't know how long you're going to live.
Has that attitude been shaped by the loss of Chad? I'm sure, I’m absolutely sure. I miss him every day.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
SHARE ME