Change in plan

Let me be honest. Any formal plan to make a location change is going to involve a lot of discussions about money. The topic is going to come up early and often. It’s stressful. And because I’ve never taken the idea of moving anywhere very seriously we did not put a firm long term plan in place.

I’m not kidding when I say this, I’m married to a man, who up until he ran his first marathon 6 weeks ago, planned to be dead before he was 54.  He absolutely told me this when I was 19 and we got engaged. He repeated this for the first 25 or so years of our marriage. My instructions were to collect the life insurance payments, become a rich widow and get married again (my silent amendment to that plan was to get a pool and a pool boy). Seriously, this was Dan’s original plan. And just for the record, I was never in favor of this…well…except for the pool boy part…I kind of liked that idea.

Our entire married lives we’ve negotiated money this way…I handle the monthly bills, Dan gets the taxes done. We’ve always had joint accounts. Money is pooled, bills are paid, a set amount goes into savings and the rest is, well, spent. We cinch in when we need to and our outflow flexes with our fortunes.  We’ve lived on one small salary and two generous salaries. We’ve both embraced the theory of if you can fix it with money, it’s not worth worrying about, because you can always make more. Shake your head in disbelief now, it’s OK.

As we begin to seriously discuss a relocation, we need to examine our lack of a truly responsible long term fiscal strategy. Please don’t misunderstand, we do have savings, 401k and retirement plans working quietly, in the background. However with this shift in thinking the magnifying glass is out.  What can we do with these accounts and how can we make more money? What are the trigger dates for maximum pension payouts? What happens if we exit work on this date versus that date?  It’s exhausting and I don’t like it.

And I won’t get to interview prospective pool boys.