I might’ve mentioned that Brian and I decided to put ourselves on a five year retirement plan. That sounds like it’s sort of right around the corner—maybe even worryingly so. But then I decided to put that date into a countdown generator, and discovered that it’s 1921 days away. Sounds like a long time away when you look at it like that, but maybe that will give us enough time to actually have things under control.
Not that I’ve ever been much on living within a budget, and that’s the real worry, because we don’t just have to get to retirement—which includes paying off the house as the major stumbling block—but we also have to survive in retirement, without salaries. Frankly, the idea is a little bit terrifying.
But, we’re committed to the plan. We have the memory of two sets of parents always in the back of our minds—mine, who both died far too young and never had a chance to retire, and his, who retired (and retired in pretty good financial shape) but then still always worried about money rather than simply enjoying their remaining years. We don’t want to go down either path. And while we obviously can’t control the date of our passing, we can try to plan so that we can quit working before we are too old, and we can also try to plan so that we have the wherewithal to live the way we want once we leave the 9-5 life behind.
So, without completely abandoning a style of life currently, we are now in the mode of actively planning for a lifestyle in the future. But, one of the other things that entails is that some of the larger household expenditures we’ve been putting off need to be contemplated while there still is an income. It’s counter-intuitive, to think that while we’re trying to maximize the old nest egg we might also have to be spending a few larger chunks of cash, but it’s all a balancing act at this point.
So, maybe there’ll be some minor household changes to talk about on these pages over the coming months, or maybe what I’ll be talking about is the re-evaluation of what sort of improvements actually need to be made, or maybe I’ll just be stressing out loud about trying to plan for a major step in our lives, because the truth is, 1921 days really isn’t that long at all.
