First I tackled my current retirement account, which, according to a guy at JP Morgan, needed a re-allocation. I took this account out twenty years ago - it’s a special small business account which apparently isn’t often offered anymore - and put pretty much nothing into it all the years I struggled just to make ends meet, only contributing in the last few years mostly as a tax shelter. I had to track down the advisor who set it up for me, and after much back and forth managed to set up an online account for it so I could start tracking it. Included in this online account is the answer to the question I’ve had for ages which nobody’s been able to definitively answer - how much do I need to put away each month to have any kind of survivable last quarter of my life? The website has a comprehensive calculator which helped me come up with a plan, one I can live with. But much like paying down my house, I need to get super aggressive about saving. This needs to be my main focus from now on.
The sad part is, the kids’ school funds will have to suffer a little. I just can’t put away as much as I would like for them. But honestly, I feel like I have no choice - I will 100% get old and be unable to work at some point; whether the kids will go to college and/or need any money from me at all is up in the air. In order to grow their accounts the most efficiently, I have to take out 529 accounts, and for those you can only spend the funds on education. So, I’m reluctant to rob myself to pay into these funds that may not even be used (and to be fair, even paying in the amount I had hoped wouldn’t even give them half of what they might need, so it all seems a little hopeless).
Two things happened that changed everything for me on the issue of saving. One, I had always assumed since my job - the event - isn’t physically taxing and only requires brief spurts of actual work, I thought I could just do it forever. This year changed my mind, however. I don’t want to be trapped into doing this until I’m in my 90s (assuming I’m lucky enough to even have an event for that long!). I don’t actually want to do this forever. It’s insanely stressful and unstable and exhausting. I can barely hack it now, in my 50s - how am I going to keep going twenty years from now? I need an exit ramp.
The other thing is, with interest rates plummeting, my plan to save money in a high yield savings account no longer makes sense. The returns just aren’t there anymore. So it really is better for me to have these accounts that invest for me and actually grow the money (for the most part).
I had some pretty massive freak outs this week about how little money I’ve managed to save, how foolish I’ve been, and how I’m going to get stuck paying the price. However, it’s not as grim as all that. If I can continue to make my full income until 70, I can absolutely have a nice nest egg, especially if my social security kicks in and the H’s kicks in (did you know there’s such a thing as survivor benefits to the spouse? I did not). There’s also the option of keeping my event but hiring people to manage it, something I can do as soon as I no longer need to keep every penny. Certainly by the time I’m 70 and the boys are in their thirties, this can start happening. And don’t forget I now have a free house to live in.
So I feel better that there are solutions on the horizon…but it definitely means no more big expenses. We'll have to get creative with the boys' schooling, too. But we're not rich people; never have been, never will be. We'll figure it out, whether it means two years at a community college and then transferring, or work-study, or scholarships, or me utilizing every extra penny I have to make their school dreams come true and living extremely frugally during their school years. It will be an interesting time in a few years, that's for sure.
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