Long Term Plans
I'm hopeless when it comes to short-term plans. I never know what I'm going to have for tea, I don't have a diary to tell me what's happening next week (though I usually remember) and I have no-idea what I did last week.
However, my life has usually revolved around some quite long term plans, most of which happened almost exactly as I expected with some leeway here and there.
For example:
- I knew when I started work that I would come back to New Zealand to work - it took 4 years instead of the original 2 I expected
- I paid off my Graduate and Student loans before I travelled again - which took 2.5 years instead of the planned 4 years
- I bought my house before I turned 30, two weeks before in fact
- my next plan is to travel around NZ for 6-12 months in a campervan sometime between 2011-2014
Since I bought the house I've been saying to everyone that I planned to pay the house off by the time I was 40. Some people gave me interesting looks when I said that but seriously, that's what I'm planning.
In fact, I'm planning a lot more than that. Recently, I have decided to go from a normal five day working week to a four day week. I remember exactly when this idea came into my head - last Christmas/New Year - since it was a good time to work a couple of days, have a day off, work a couple more and have a couple more days off. It just felt right!
In January, I asked at work if I could do this magical four-day work week. Luckily for me they said yes though between us I delayed it twice due to curent project needs. Finally, 9 months later, it's now happening :-)
This has made me think though. Now that I'm earning less I need to spend less. It's something I've been thinking about for a while but finally I am having to do something about it. As I said, I cut down some expenses when I bought the house but now I'm earning less, I have to cut down more. Already I made changes earlier this year when I moved from Seatoun into town ... it's cheaper rent and I don't have to buy a bus ticket either. Already I'm saving a lot which offsets against my lower income.
But here's another twist to the tale. As well as still wanting to pay the house off by the time I'm 40 I also now want to retire at the same age AND at the same time as only working 4 days a week.
Crazy? Yes. A little bit mad? Of course. Unobtainable? Probably. But here's the interesting bit - if I aim for 40, I might just get there by the time I'm 45.
Financial independence by the time I'm 45, I suspect anyone would want that.
To help my on that road, to make it open so that people can see my progress, I shall be keeping a blog which will include my ideas, some facts and figures but mainly my tricks and techniques to making it happen. I'd been thinking of doing it for a while but now that I'm 4 days a week, the time is ripe.
I also know that having the support of another person also helps you along. Stephen and I have already discussed a couple of things to do with Frugality/Savings/Retirement Plan (call it what you will) so I thought it would be good to get my blog up and going too.
There are only two articles so far but please subscribe to the RSS Feed for further posts.
- Retire at 40 Blog
- First post: Introduction
- Second post: Budgeting
As I say in the intro: Wish me luck!
This post originated on http://chilts.org/.
Email me on andychilton -at- gmail -dot- com.