My wife and I plan to retire by next summer. I will be 54. Leaving Massachusetts and going to Livingston MT, at least for a little while. We bought the least expensive home we could find this past August. One of my girls is living there right now. I need to unwind my business interests here and then I am gone. Not sure if we have enough for retirement; insurance will be a killer. But I don't care. We have been here all our lives and hate it, and we love Montana and the surrounding states. I will bag groceries part time if needed. My guess is we will need a lot less to live in Montana than here in Mass.
Plan to spend a year or two in the home we now own in Livingston, then hopefully figure out where exactly we want to live forever, then build. Maybe in a year or two, things will also calm down. Looking at home prices and land prices right now (what little there is) and you would think you were in Malibu. It's insane. I hope it will be as cold as you know what and snows every day; and all these people fleeing for country life realize it ain't all roses.
This Covid insanity has been a good test run for us. I like the slower pace and the ability to focus on living. Made us realize what a stupid life we live. We have been gentleman homesteading for years but have really kicked it up the past year. Not because we had to but because we enjoy it and now have the time to do it more. Even here in Mass we are able to harvest enough meat and fish to basically not have to purchase it in the store. Getting better at vegetable gardening. I have canning and bread making down to a science and I love to cook from scratch. That is basically all we require, and it is fun.
Retired from the military in 2001 and retired in 2019 from the state if Alaska. It’s been good and I have been truly blessed. My wife retires in 2 years. We plan to move to SD at that time.
9 more years of teaching for me. I’ll have enough sick days built up to pretty much not have to go in to work my last year. So 8 more I guess. I’ll always continue to do custom woodwork for people that want trophy displays though because I enjoy doing that. Not much work will get done in the fall though haha.
Retired at age 50 after 32 years military.
Great pension and health care. Zero need monetarily to work.
Realized I hate summer and needed to occupy 6 months of the year to keep busy.
Took the perfect job. Charter boat captain Mar 15 through Sept 30th. So I basically hunt/fish roughly 330 days a year.
I retired March 2018. My wife informed me, if she has to work then I have to work. So I began working on a second pension April 2018. Only 8.5 years to go.
Good evening guys I’d like to start by saying I respect all of you for getting out there and enjoying the great outdoors. How does one attain what you guys are doing. Honestly I’m a blue collar concrete finisher(27 years old) I’m in love with the thought of a backcountry hunt but it hardly seems possible as far as financial . There’s days I feel like I’m simply dumb muscle but I’d like to hear from some tradesmen up here. I want to have a balanced life family/work/recreation. Any advice?
@BuckeyeDAN Have you ever researched FIRE (financial independence, retire early) -- there are some decent messages boards and communities online, although a lot of the folks who aspire to "fire" can sometimes sound like lunatics, penny-pinching themselves into a joyless life until they hit their retirement number, but there's also lots of good tips for what to do with any extra money, how to think about where you live as part of the strategy, etc.
I'm nine years older than you and I can just say that even though I do very different work I was pretty sure I was going to die pennyless in a ditch when I was 27. Everything just felt stacked against me. It's kinda trite to say "things change" and I don't even know if that's true, but you're certainly very early on your journey.
Retired BUT, my wife and I started building our own dream home doing it almost all ourselves. The only thing we have subbed out was the actual pouring of the concrete slab and the under slab plumbing. We don't know how long it will take us but we keeping "hammering" every day. All we can say is that we should have it "our way" when we get done.
This is from a few months back but you can get an idea of what the inside will look like.
hey buckeye
here is what i did when i was a buckeye.
i learned to live on a very early paycheck and every time i got a raise i put it in the bank. it was not long till i could pay cash for my vehicles and get out from under the interest. i did not spend the money when i got rid of the truck payment i paid my self and i put that money back for a house.
the same with my house. i put a lot down and i paid it off in half the time i had the loan for, because i did not have a truck payment.
after that all those payments went to retirement. i was debt free 15 years before retirement. i went through a couple scary years of investment but it all looks rosy now.
i had all the toys i wanted too. from fast horses to rifles a nice truck and trailer.
Retired 14 1/2 years ago and time flies. Really enjoying it. Decided to head up to the shack for a couple days and cut firewood tomorrow. Hunted with muzzleloader this evening. Freedom.
Hey guys thanks for the reply. I do believe that smart money management is key and sometimes you have to go through “hard years “(saving and pinching pennies) and then it starts to turn around. My vehicles are payed for but there nothing to brag about( old toyotas) maybe the big hunt will come yet . I’ve gotta good buddy in Idaho so my foots in the door so to speak