It's so weird, I know that I lurked here even before I started my blog (peeking over at the stats - 2015). I recall before CeeJay and her family had children, when they still lived in the small condo and oh my goodness, their oldest is 15!!! I can't believe I've been here this long.
I had read all about how much you should be investing in retirement but as a single parent, I couldn't even imagine that. Money was too tight back then, in the beginning. I recall a supervisor telling me to at least get the retirement match.
I food preppped, never took out car loans, just had the mortgage, always took my raises and put them into my retirement accounts. Slow and steady wins the race. I also had a tragic loss of my father and all the inheritance and small insurance payout went straight into retirement (it was blood money ðŸ˜). That was 18 years ago and you know what they say about compounding interest.
*I was also told that most folks spend out their inheritance within 8 years. This is shocking to me but I guess that's what folks who like to spend money do. ::shrug:::
And I still have and some really wonderful experiences in my life, travel to NZ/AUS, Costa Rica, so it's not like I've penny pinched and lived on beans and rice my whole life but like Paula Pant says - you can afford anything, just not everything. I truly am the millionaire next door, I remember reading that book.
Honestly, I'm kinda shocked at where I am now, financially. Next fall, I will be switching to part time work and fully retired in 6 years. If the online calculators are correct, we could potentially have more money in retirement than what we live on right now. I'm starting to loosen the reins. We purchased a new bed, 20 year warranty. We have looked at taking our first cruise next year to Alaska. I'm starting to lean into things that I've not allowed myself to do...consider hobbies and what those might be. I feel like the time is close at hand and because I know life can be unpredictable, I hope I can make it to the land of leisure. As I feel like I'm in the afternoon of my life and it's been good but busy and I'm ready to slow down to my own pace. My dad only had a few short years before his life was cut short, I want to live fully as I know he would want me to. Money is just a tool to get there.
I've been feeling so much gratitude these days which is kinda incredible to me despite the current state of our country. (us) Thank you to everyone here who's shared their lives in this space.
September 27th, 2025 at 11:08 pm 1759014488
September 28th, 2025 at 07:41 am 1759045305
Regardless, I too felt hopeless for a long time… but here I am now living with an actual hopeful attitude that perhaps things can still work out in the end. I suppose perhaps there is a wonderful lesson here, which is that it’s not too late, if we just get it started and keep at it.
September 29th, 2025 at 06:08 pm 1759169307
Time to loosen the reins. I am a work in progress over the past 12 months. But in the past 4 months since June 2025 i definitely have. Mostly it really was the wealth ladder and hearing what I had been feeling put into words.
October 2nd, 2025 at 04:10 am 1759378209
For whatever reason, it's genuinely surprising but also very welcome to read that a lot of y'all are having similar shifts to me, and these ruminations match some conversations I've been having with AS lately about gradually downshifting the mindset into a more relaxed, (somewhat) freer-spending mode. We've all earned it with our decades of thrift, dangit!
October 8th, 2025 at 02:35 pm 1759934108
We are also in the afternoon/early evening of our lives and are starting to let loose of some things. We took a cruise to Europe last spring and it was absolutely amazing. We are planning a cruise to Greece and Italy, life long dreams of mine that I never thought would happen. I'm doing more hobbies, but still trying to save money by not going crazy.
Well done, Good Living!
October 23rd, 2025 at 04:16 pm 1761236198