u/WingZombie

Just felt like I wanted to share with some folks who understand. Plan for the last 15 years or so has been to retire at 55 which for me is 2029. The last 15 years of life have been filled with lots of challenges. I suddenly found myself a widower at age 44 and had to put my life back together. I’ve worked the same corporate job and they have stood by me through the challenges of my life while my position has moved both up and down the corporate ladder. I saw my daughter get married without her mom there. I’ve also started a new chapter and remarried last year.

Last week I had my annual spring meeting with my wealth advisor. I know many on these sub credits don’t believe in paying someone to manage their finances, but I’m so grateful that I do. They charge me a flat fee that is very reasonable and it allows me to create some mental space to not have to deal with these things. During our meeting, he let me know that we are perfectly on track for 2029 and then as we were looking at the data, he said to me “if work gets really challenging you can tell them to pound sand in 2028 if you want to“. It’s amazing how much seeing that data and hearing him say those words changed my perspective on my job. Things at work have been really stressful lately and I expect that they’re going to be even more stressful in the near term, but knowing that I have a timeline when work becomes optional has really helped lift that off my shoulders.

Stay the course, trust the data, ignore the daily weekly monthly swings, time will make it all come together.

I was raised by silent generation parents. They themselves grew up in a very rural town in northeastern Utah. They grew up in a place where replacing things and buying new things was not even an option. One of the results of how they grew up is how they raised their kids. I grew up in a household where we always owned 20+-year-old cars, decade old appliances, and various other used and aged things that they had collected along the way. We never paid anyone to do something that we could figure out how to do ourselves. I distinctly remember one time fixing something and while standing there with my father as we tried to get the job done I asked him “is this how we’re supposed to do it“, to which he replied “I’m not sure how you’re supposed to do this, but I know how I’m going to do it“.

I was fortunate to be able to leverage my learnings of how to fix things into a lucrative career that has served me well. As part of my career, I see the newer generations coming in with no concept of basic troubleshooting. There lacks the basic ability to “ figure it out “. There is an explicit expectation that there will be a guide, video, directions for every possible scenario that one could encounter to fix troubleshoot or repair something. Maybe it’s the YouTube effect or maybe it’s the ease at which Amazon can deliver a new widget to my door.. When I see people talking about how expensive it is to live today I see a lot of things getting thrown away and a bent towards convenience.

Maybe it’s just me being a grumpy old man 😂