What Does Your Future Look Like

As kids, we often dream about what we’ll be when we grow up. But as adults, we spend hardly any time thinking about the later stages of our life. So lets do that. What DO you want that stage of your life to look like? Do you want to be working? Do you want to travel and see the world? Do you want to reside in a tiny home? Do you want a lavish beach front mansion? Anything is possible, it’s up to you and the decisions you make (or don’t make) now.

You work too hard to not enjoy the later years of your life. Let me say it again, YOU WORK TOO HARD TO NOT ENJOY THE LATER YEARS OF YOUR LIFE! Planning ahead now is going to drastically change your quality of life down the road. Ask yourself:

1-WHEN would you like to retire (stop earning a paycheck)?

2-WHERE do you see yourself living (while this may be a moving target, you still need one to work towards, it’s ok if it changes).

3-WHAT do you want to do with your time?

4-HOW much do you need to fund this lifestyle?

When we first started to see what painting our retirement picture looked like, we didn’t even know what brush to pick up! For us, working with a great financial advisor was a necessity in sorting out how to get to where we wanted to be. For some, you may be more DIY and prefer learning on your own and that’s OK too. There is no one size fits all answer, the only wrong answer is doing nothing!

My husband and I want to retire early. For us that doesn’t mean that we’ll no longer be working, it just means that we’ll be in a place financially where we can choose what we want to do based on it being a passion rather than how much it pays. The way we’re getting there is to invest, invest, invest NOW.

The best piece of advise we ever got was that our investment dollars are worth WAY more in our younger years than our older years! The power of compound interest is amazing. To understand this better, check out the two links below and see how starting at a younger age with less $ can actually still put you ahead of starting later with more $!

For fun, check out these two retirement calculators and see where you’ll need to be to reach your goals! It’s your life-make it what you want!

Dave Ramsey Investment Calculator

Smart Asset Retirement Calculator