I can feel a change coming soon...
Nothing important for the world at all, just for me.
Im feeling less and less inclined to stay working for my employer much longer... and in fact working for anyone for that matter is a real option too. Im feeling strongly inclined to "retire" ( well work a whole lot less or at something I enjoy much more anyway)... within two to five years.
Now of course there are some pleasant things that come with "retirement" - like not having to do something that I dont particularly enjoy (although I dont actually hate it either... its just I dont like working mostly for someone else's benefit), but there are two distinct challenges with that idea.
The first is of course, "do I have the financial security to make that decision", and the second is "what do I do with myself after I decide to make that decision... And these are both very difficult questions for me to answer.
The financial security question is I think very tricky to answer for anyone... I think if I had children then it would likely be simpler at this stage in that I certainly wouldnt have enough savings etc at this point to consider retiring... so Id just have to keep working, and that would be fine cos life would toddle along like most people raising a family with the kids lives basically driving my own choices... But of course I dont have that blessing/burden... and there is just me in the calculation which means its somewhat earlier in my life that I get to consider the option of retirement. But its still hellishly tricky to decide what to do... There are so many unknowns in the future and my lifespan and the things that could happen between now and when I die are so divers that its difficult to "plan" for....
How much wealth is enough?
How long will I live?
What will happen with my health?
What will happen with the global and local economies and how will retirement investments and property values change over the next 40 or so years?...
The answer to all these questions is "I really dont know!"
Base guess though is that Ill likely live for another 30-40 years, and I think the rule-of-thumb is that you need about a million dollars invested outside of your home to be "comfortable in retirement" (whatever comfortable means?)... And I certainly dont have that much money, so how can I be considering retiring?... The answer is, as Ive mentioned before, that I plan to downsize my house and use some of its equity to live on in my later years.
So I of course have a spreadsheet that I made that projects all sorts of income and taxes and expenses and investment and property growth etc... and its absolutely full of "wild-ass guesses" at every single calculation. So, its a big worry and the trade off is that every year longer I spend sitting here doing my current job is another year that my body deteriorates and further limits the sorts of physical things I can do. But every such year I stay working also adds financial assets for about 2 years of time that I can live in retirement. But if I retire now, then its very unlikely that I would be able to find another similar job in the future if I decided I wanted to go back to work later for a few more years... Employers dont really want to hire new employees who are over 55yo because they know they will be retiring soon and they will just have to train someone else up into the role again in the near future... Its a conundrum indeed.
But, at the end of the day I think I just have to say, my financial planning is reasonably conservative and that even though I will be wrong on many of my calculation estimates by some amount, on the average Ill be about right... And based on that, I think I have about enough assets to be OK in anything but a complete catastrophe of a personal future... And that is the basis of my current outlook... I think I have accumulated enough at this point.
And when I combine that with the view that the company I work for is flat-out making big profits for its self but at the same time is cutting back on sharing that wealth with its employees and has shown zero inclination to reverse that trend, then , well, Im inclined to stop helping them do that...
So that brings me to the second challenge, which I often express in my Blog here... I fundamentally dont know what to do with myself, and that makes retiring a real challenge... cos my usual behavior of stating expensive projects to keep myself amused when I get bored is likely to be a very bad idea going forward into retirement... Fixed fund base to work with and no external sources of income as I get older.
So, whats my plan?... Well I have several things to pursue but fundamentally Im willing to take the risk that Ill figure it out as I go along.... But I have a starting point at least.
First thing is to keep doing what Im doing now while the whole Covid virus thing blows over... probably another year. Then I plan to gear up and prep for what will likely be my last big Moto-tour.
Which is through Eurasia (since I feel I have at least had a look at the Americas and Africa, and I really enjoyed all of them, Id like to do the same for Eurasia). Im not sure of all the details but Im thinking of doing a reverse circuit - which means ship a bike to Vladivostok on East coast Russia then ride west through Russia, Mongolia and probably some of the 'stans, then into northern Europe and Scandinavia in late summer, then South through Western Europe and along the North coast of the Mediterranean then through the Balkans and Greece and Turkey then maybe Iran and on to India if possible and then probably ship the bike back to Canada from there... Probably a 9 month trip or so... lots of planning to be done and Carne' and visas etc... But that only occupies about 18 months of a 30-40 yr retirement.!
I figure I get the hard physical stuff out of the way first then consider further options.
There is also another big "walkabout" Id like to do in Australia by 4WD which is probably another 2 years of effort to plan and prepare and then do. And I would be happy doing another run through of North America in a van (which would be slower but much more comfortable than on motorbike), which would be another year or so... So Ive probably got about a decade of journeying interspaced with sessions at home and maybe doing some contract work to replenish funds.
After that Im expecting Ill slow down a bit more but Im considering trying to live for longer sessions in foreign lands like Mexico or Greece or Thailand... Lots of western retirees do it as their "lifestyle" in retirement and while Im not sure I could just do nothing and just sit around, Id quite like to design and build a house somewhere in a warm climate and there is no chance of being able to afford to do it here in Vancouver... So, while Im traveling around Ill be looking out for places that I may want to live for a year or two... I figure I can spend a chunk of money if I can be reasonably sure of being able to get 75% of it back when I sell... Not easy to be sure of that in foreign lands but I think I can at least spend some time looking into it.
Its of course all rather speculative at this point, but Im feeling like suppressing the uncertainty and money worries and embracing the unknown again and giving myself the chance to "encounter new opportunities" and trust that Ill find my way as I have done in the past.
So, I think Im on a count-down to leaving my current job at this stage, and the more I think about it the more enthusiastic Im becoming... which is a good sign I think :)
Lets see how my thinking progresses in the next 6 months or so.
