It had been a really lousy day at work for both Jett and me.\u00a0 Which is not to say it was an unusual day… we were both wallowing in a dreadful stretch of really lousy work days.\u00a0 This particular day happened to be in mid-July of 2011 and we were dining out in an attempt to brighten the day.\u00a0 After the usual exchange of war stories and as much commiseration as each could muster for the other, Jett said – not for the first time – “I would *so* love to just up and quit.”\u00a0 But this time, rather than issuing the standard “yeah, that would be great” reply I instead said “So why don’t we?”\u00a0 And, much to my own surprise, I discovered that it wasn’t just the margarita talking – I actually meant it!\u00a0 Just as animals know instinctively that it is time to wander off to die, something was telling me that the time had come to give up the high-paying software job and wander off.\u00a0 Not to die, I would hope, but to enjoy what was left of my life.<\/p>\n
Jett looked at me suspiciously, trying to figure out if I was serious or maybe drunk.\u00a0 But a suggestion of retirement was music to her ears, so she wanted to believe it was possible.\u00a0 Hell, I<\/strong> wanted to believe it was possible.\u00a0 But was it?\u00a0 The grand scheme for retirement that we had formulated when we first started living together some ten years back, which pretty much centered on us becoming slumlords, worked great for a while. We made a lot of money on our first investment property. But all of our real estate investments since that time had been financial failures.\u00a0 And the real estate bust of 2008 took whatever equity remained in the two properties that we still owned.\u00a0 We really couldn’t count on getting anything out of those investments in the short term.<\/p>\n What was left? An IRA which was the accumulation of a lifetime of not-very-frugal savings and rolled-over 401K and SEP accounts still had some value, despite the stock market downturn.\u00a0 It wasn’t enough to fund retirement in Central America, which was what we had talked about for years.\u00a0 But maybe it would be enough to live on until Social Security could be tapped.\u00a0 I was 62 and could, if I so chose, start drawing.\u00a0 Jett was 60 and had nearly 2 years before she could go on the dole.\u00a0 But I really didn’t know the rules and didn’t know if it was truly going to be feasible.\u00a0 But I was damned well going to find out.<\/p>\n For the first time in our lives retirement was something more than a distant possibility.\u00a0 With more certainty than was justified, I told Jett that we should target July 1, 2012, as the day we both retired.\u00a0 That would give us a year to plan and deal with all of the complexities that come with upending one’s life. It wasn’t going to be easy. But, dammit, it was going to be possible!<\/p>\n Cheap retirement living, but with travel…<\/p>\n Maybe we should live in an RV. It was an acorn of a thought, but the more we talked the more it sprouted and grew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It had been a really lousy day at work for both Jett and me.\u00a0 Which is not to say it was an unusual day… we were both wallowing in a dreadful stretch of really lousy work days.\u00a0 This particular day happened to be in mid-July of 2011 and we were dining out in an attempt … Continue reading