Thinking about retirement has me thinking about my extended family and how long they lived or are still living.
.....
Now about the money that we have stashed away. Should we hoard it, keep it safe for worse times. Or should we spend it while we are able to.
I would hate to live on white beans and rice for the last twenty years of my life because I did not save enough.
But even worse would be to turn eighty, be in bad health, and think "****, wish we had gone to Aruba scuba diving when we were younger", as I sit in my wheelchair and count my money.
...
Any thoughts on this depressing topic?
Not really depressing but necessary.
Both sides of my family are long lived. All of my grandparents and great grandparents lived into thier 80's and some into their 90's with one exception. The exception was my grandfather who was in USMC in WWII and Korea. We are not real sure what he did in WWII but he seemed to have a somewhat easy time of it guarding Nimitz. Though he might have done some "things" early in the war that we cannot track down. In any going for the long winter walk at Chosin did not help his health.
Now I have to disagree about eating white beans and rice. :laughing: We love rice and beans.:licking:
But we have had to leave out the rice because of the carbs and calories. :laughing: We at ALOT of black and white beans this time of year. :thumbsup: But of course it is one thing to like to do compared with have to do...
Until we bought land and built our house we lived VERY much below our income. Now it is somewhat below our income.
When we bought the land it cost twice as much as our city house but we did not have much of a city house. :laughing: And that was planned since we wanted to buy land. We were saving up to buy the land, pay off the land, and to build/buy the new house...
Along came kids so there goes the money.
Then the economy tanks and offshoring goes full throttle and the wifey looses her job to India.
Since we lived on one pay check we were ok.
By now we wanted to have paid off the land. And we are close even with all of the bumps in the road. We had the kids and there were certain things we wanted to do with the kids that cost some money. Enough money over the last couple of years that would have paid off the land. We want the kids to have certain memories with us and the grandparents which requires us to spend some money on vacations that the wifey and I would not be doing as we are with the kids. As it is now we will still be paying off the land MUCH earlier than the end of the loan.
But here is the rub. If I am lucky enough to have a death bed that allows me to think back on my life, I will not be wishing that I had paid off the land a couple of years earlier than planned. Instead I can think of the good times we had with the kids and the grandparents. That is FAR more important than my time of "owning" the land.
Life is short even if you have a healthy life and make it to 100. And you do not know if you will have a healthy life and how long you will live. You can drive off in the car today and not get home to work. Only a fraction of a second can change or end your live. That is a depressing fact.
If someone has the dream of going on a Cruise, <YUCK>
, and if they can afford to get on the ship even if it means eating white beans and rice for a while, take the Cruise. :thumbsup::laughing:
My two cents is to enjoy today as much as you can. Spend as much time with family as one can. Spend the money reasonably to have that family time. Time is finite and priceless since it cannot be bought so use it wisely.
Later,
Dan