Posted by Robert on May 27, 2013
I love to travel. Traveling with kids, however, is more difficult and more expensive. In the past, we’ve taken our three kids away on vacation. They enjoy the novelty of traveling by plane, but what they really enjoy is the opportunity to go new places, to try new things and to get their parents’ undivided attention. All those things are possible right here at home.
Last weekend, I took the kids downtown for the International Children’s Festival. We hardly ever go downtown, so this was a chance to explore a new place. Better yet, there were activities to try that were specifically geared to the kids. As an added bonus, we all spent some time away from the computer screen.
Over the summer, I plan to do more travel in our own backyard. Spending less time traveling to a destination means we can have more short trips. It also means spending less money on transportation and lodging. As an example, we’re planning a road trip through the nearby mountains, with some camping. Because there’s no cost for air travel, we’ll spend more to stay in a bed and breakfast and make the trip more comfortable than if we were to camp every night.
In my mind, saving money is a great benefit. There’s also the benefit of being able to travel more often, since its something we love to do. I can foresee the day when we decide to travel more often and choose to sell our house and buy something smaller, since we’ll spend most of our time outside of it. When we do that, we’ll also need to sell much of the stuff we’ve accumulated. This might help to find our travel, but is more likely to help us ensure that we spend money only on stuff that is necessary and useful.
How do you engage in meaningful activities for less money? Is there something that you’d like to do full time in retirement?
Posted by Robert on April 8, 2013
This is a guest post by Robert, who lives in Calgary and worked as a financial adviser before retiring at age 35. He is married, has three kids and has returned to school with the goal of eventually living and working overseas.
My dad loves his work. He is a small business owner who works 60 hours a week and whose favourite place to spend his time is in the office. I think it’s pretty typical of successful small business owners, since they have to invest so much of their time and energy to make it successful. He will celebrate his 60th birthday next month and he’s starting to have thoughts of retirement. For him, retirement isn’t something to he anticipates, it’s something that can’t really be avoided. I think he’d work the rest of his life, if he could, but my mother doesn’t agree.
In a conversation yesterday, though, my mom admitted that she can’t really imagine what retirement would be like. How could they stop doing all the things they do now? How will they stay busy and feel like they’re doing things that are worthwhile? To me, it seemed a little humorous because my mom has never worked full time. She helps out at my fathers office a couple hours a week, but she still stays very busy. My wife and I don’t work, but we stay very busy. And we feel that the things we do make a meaningful contribution.
My mom referred to retirement as “the end”. It is certainly a transition. But it doesn’t have to be the end of doing things that are worthwhile. My mother spends a lot of time with her children and grandchildren. My wife is furthering her education by working on a Masters of Education degree. I have taken on volunteer projects with social advocacy groups that I think make a positive difference in my city. My father-in-law would like to spend more time taking friends hiking in the Rockies.
It seems to me that there’s a distinction between being happy and finding meaning. Being happy means meeting our own physical, social and emotional needs (see: Maslow’s hierarchy). It’s important to meet our own needs and be happy before we can effectively reach out to others. But finding meaning, for me, is when we work for the benefit of others, especially if it fits with our unique talents.
What will bring meaning to your retirement? If you didn’t spend your time at work, what would you spend it doing?
Posted by Robert on January 28, 2013
This is a guest post by Robert, who lives in Calgary and worked as a financial adviser before retiring at age 35. He is married, has three kids and has returned to school with the goal of eventually living and working overseas.
Time is money.
Who has never heard that before? Usually it’s used by a self-important executive who values money more than anything and uses it as an excuse not to make time for other considerations. But there is some truth to this well-known saying. Time and money are both scarce resources in that it is impossible to have an unlimited amount of either. Most of us only have access to a finite amount of money and in many cases, it feels “scarce.” While it’s true that some people have access to far more money than others, that’s not true with time. Each of us only has a small amount of time in life and, even those who will live longer only have slightly more than others.
I think it’s fair to say that a person’s life can be summed up by the answer to the question: what did he spend his time and money on? This idea really captures what’s most important to a person. The busy executive above values money more than anything. Bill Gates is spending his money to further education and to improve health in Africa. Ghandi spent his time helping build national unity, something money couldn’t buy. Robert Munsch spends his time and money entertaining children.
Time and money are, in some ways, exchangeable. While working, we trade our time (and effort and ingenuity) for money. Similarly, saving for retirement is like buying time. When we save money for future consumption, we avoid having to trade time for a paycheque later. In that way, we retake ownership of our time. While I was working and saving a large portion of my paycheque, I saw it as progress toward the day when I would be able to replace my earned income with investment income, giving me back my working time.
Now that I no longer work, I need to be careful with how I spend my money and my time. If I’m wasteful with my money, I’ll need to give up my time and go back to work. But it’s also possible to be wasteful with my time. My satisfaction and my contribution to my community will be measured by how I spend my time. With however much time you have available now, how do you spend it? Are you happy with what your choices say about you?
