Well, yeah, i should appreciate my tiny success. But i dont. It was way more fun to be young, stupid and broke and see so much potential than to be old and narrow with a cash buffer, but to have eaten the bitter truth.
. I used to blow $$$ on a housekeeper 20 years ago and we were broke. I was an idiot. I even had my shirts pressed at 2 bucks a pop. No way in hell nowadays.
401k? Haha! Why?
Its difficult for me connect my current self with the blithering young idiot who HAD A BALANCE ON hiS CREDIT CARD.
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Sounds like you’ve went from one extreme to the other.
Here is what I’ve done:
a. Calculate how much money we’ll need monthly in retirement
b. Calculate how much money I need to save to reach that goal
c. Put back enough each month to reach the amount saved goal when we retire
d. Spend the rest!
We’ve had someone come in once every 2 weeks to clean the house for 30 years, to mow the lawn for 20. We work hard during the week, I feel we deserve to use our weekends for enjoyment, not more labor.
As far as possessions go, we are pretty close to where we want to be. I can only think of one more big purchase we want to make, after that the only semi-major expense will be vacations. Some people buy vacation homes, I don’t give a sh!t about that…I like going to different places each vacation, not the same place. I would find that as boring as staying home, frankly.
I’ve seen too many friends and relatives save like mad and not spend anything, banking on retirement. Then they die before reaching retirement. I’m not going to be one of those people who didn’t get to enjoy life along the way. I decided that a long time ago.
It is getting close to the point where we’ll have excess cash each month, and that may be the time I need to evaluate whether going part-time may be a better option. We’ll see. Life throws us a curve ball every few months. I may never get to the point of going part time, and that’s fine. Roll with the punches.
