Retirement seemed like a much closer goal prior to 2008. Then our economy took a dump and it affected our business (as it did many other small businesses)
Yet - we plug on. I save a percentage of each check, best I can, towards my annual trip to Jamaica plus another travel type thing in the summer (working my way back to Paris in August hopefully to see my family).
I'm always "cutting back", reviewing all my expenses. I have a bad online shopping habit but that's been cut back too, and with my discovery of eBates I even get a little back when I splurge. Always looking at TV expenses, how to cut back on energy bills and water bills...hub is on the phone with AT&T pretty regularly to lower both land line and cell phone bills.
What kills me are work related travel costs that keep going up even though I can't really raise my prices - in my field of work there's always the eediat out there with a $1,000.00 DSLR that they learned to use at a friend's wedding that convince the very occassional potential client they can do what we do CHEAPER.
I am sitting on my retirement as we speak. My house was the best investment I ever made and probably will ever make. Even though it is a ways away from being paid off it has doubled in value even with the housing market collapse and even with another 15 years of mortgage payments I have a tremendous amount of equity in the thing. So here I sit until its time to move on...
I haven't paid for a plane ticket to Jamaica in a good 10-15 years. Between all the flying I do for business and my handy-dandy American Airlines Platinum credit card I only pay the taxes for each first class flight we do there.
And when we are in Jamaica we are spending just about the same amount of money on food and entertainment as we do when we are here (well, maybe a little more on entertainment and a little less on food, but not much when it all comes out in the end). The only additional expenses I incur is my rent down there and the times we rent a vehicle there. I'm blessed to have a great house sitter who lives REALLY lightly on the land so my utility bills drop considerably while we are out of the country.
God forbid if hub or I get sick or injured we would be up a creek...my health insurance SUCKS.
I live for each day that way, a throw back to my freewheeling Grateful Dead touring days...and even back then I always paid for my own ticket and my own way to go, even if that meant stuffing 10 of us in one little hotel room. I am going to enjoy life and its joyous moments each day so if that means $45 comes out of the "fund" to see some good music in San Francisco...I'm there.
