Like Russ. I am a bit north of fifty. Actually I am past hump year and now closer to the big 60. Life has truly been a journey. There is little in my life that has went as planned. This is not a bad thing. it just turned out that things are much different than I ever imagined.
For some people there are things that are difficult to focus on. Even when you know those are things that you will need down the road you are looking to travel. Right before I was 25 I went to talk to an investment planner with a friend of mine. He was 21 at the time and while we were talking to the planner he told me that at almost 25 it was too late for me to reach certain financial goals. Being young and naive I took that to mean that there is no use in making a financial plan then.
How we got here
- Early career did not save
- Had Jobs that did not offer much in retirement savings
- Changed careers several times
- Bad advice that led me in the wrong path
- Life happens
- Got in a bad financial situation that led to filing Bankruptcy
All of these things led to where I am now. While this is not necessarily a bad thing. It helped to contribute to not having much saved up for retirement. Changing careers may be good for peace of mind. Or maybe not. Depending on you. With my situation it really did not help financially when looking to the future. This is where I never would have fit the FIRE model. I was not in a position to be able to save a large chunk of my income for future use. I would hazard a guess that there are a lot more people that fit this model than the FIRE model. Again not a bad thing but just a fact of life.
Things we did right
Very little we did right here. We survived and that was a bout it. This is where we need to work the most. Get on the right track and get things going.
- Stayed Strong
- Raised our kids to be self sufficient
- Dealt with the issues we had the best we could
- Found a comfortable living situation
None of these things fit the retirement mold. Do you see a theme here? Yes how we got here and the things we did right are mirroring each other a bit.
Things we did wrong
NO Savings – we got to a point where we had nothing to fall back on. we were truly living pay check to pay check. When we got to out lowest financial situation we actually had to use money that we had collected and sell items that we had just to pay our bills.
This is not a sob story. We are using this as an example that things in your life can get off track but it is almost never too late to right the train. While the train was falling off the rails it was very difficult to see why we were in this situation. The important part is that at some point you can take a breath and look at how any why things are going the way they are.
Where we go from here
The goal here is to be realistic about what and where we can go from here. We do not want to get to a place where we do nothing. In order to do that we have to outline what retirement is for us. I am sure there are people that want to just retire and do nothing. I am relatively sure that is not the goal of a vast majority of people.
The goal that we are looking for it to be financially stable with options. We are not very materialistic. Don’t get me wrong we like to have stuff. We are just not extravagant in that area.
The idea here is to:
- Look for alternative forms of income
- Cut expenses
- Focus on jobs/hobbies that we enjoy doing and have the potential to supplement income
This is a little about me and my family and where we are at this point. Bit O Java is going to be about the journey. I am sure that it will not be a straight line. There are going to bumps, curves and some pot holes along the way. I am confident that this journey will be successful and hope that you want to go along for the ride.
You can find Russ’s revelations here.
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