I have to say I'm blessed to be sitting in the situation I'm in... and all because of my husband. He's been planning for retirement since we got married, almost 19 yrs ago, and so we are sitting pretty nicely. I have a 401K type plan where my employer matches a set %, so I put that much or more in, hubby has the same thing, but then he also established IRA's for us and has been putting money in there almost every year of our 19 yrs, he's put money into the stock market for long-term planning, and then he's been putting in our savings. He firmly believes in the "pay yourself first" methodology, and does so religiously. We've taken a bit of a hit in the last 4 years, what with 2 kids in college, but that is settling down again and the youngest two will have college taken care of when it's their turn. Since hubby was military, we have his retirement from that currently, along with the VA disability check, so we are able to sock more of our checks away and we've actively been discussing what we'll do, where we'll live, when we retire next. This way he can start planning and ensure to the best of his ability that we have the required income for where/how we plan on living then. Like he said, if we want to winter in Colorado, we might need to buy the Challet now and that way it's closer to being paid off when we get to retirement age and can use it.
I have a feeling that if it had all been left up to me, I'd be looking around now trying to see what I could do and not be anywhere close to where he has us. I love my husband, planner that he is!
