Do you have big dreams/goals? (sort of MM related)

[simpsongal]

We've probably discussed this before but I'm curious to see responses. I tend to be a realist/pragmatist, as such my big goals are things like paying off student loans and sound retirement planning. The big goals on the horizon are all house renovation related. But I rarely dream about something big for the future.

So do you have big goals/plans? Dreams? Ideas?

If I had to come up w/something off the top of my head, having a convenient vacation property to visit frequently w/extended family might be nice. I'd like to take a few big trips w/my DH (maybe the kids?) - like Australia, Europe.

Sidenote, I'm coming up on a year since losing my dad unexpectedly (he was 68). He had a few pipe dreams but pretty much accomplished what he wanted. Once I help my mom get a handle on her finances, I'm hoping she can make some big plans for this next chapter of her life.

[aspentosh]

We have a dream/goal to own a water property. Whether it be lake or ocean is still TBD, but we love water play and it's something we want to do more of as we age. For the last 6ish years we've gone to an in-law house that is on a private lake and it's probably my favorite week of each year because it's so low key and family oriented. It's nothing fancy but it's so enjoyable and I want that for our DD going forward.

Travel, like you, is also huge. We did a big 2 week trip to Ireland in 2019 and I hope to do something similar every other year.

The only other one I can think of is for H to retire early. I SAH and have no plans to return to paying work (I volunteer when I can during normal times), so it's one income for all our saving. But H would love to retire before 60. It's a pipe dream at this point, but we're doing our best to set us up for success.

[fryjack2]

I think what we hope to do aren’t too crazy like own a private jet or a villa in the Maldives but we have plans to own a second home, build up our DAF, and leave money in trusts for potential grandchildren.
We travel often and hope to go back to doing so once the pandemic is over.

Other than that, just to be able to enjoy time with our friends and family. Our own second home on the water where everyone can relax and have fun will hopefully be conducive to that

[Susie]

My big dream is indirectly financially related:  I want to do an Ironman.  

Triathlon isn't a cheap sport, but in the grand scheme of life and dreams, the real cost will be the amount I'll need to cut back at work in order to train for it.  I may also spend more on additional help at home in order to "buy" myself more time:  possible increase in house cleaning, possibly hiring out grass cutting, that sort of thing.  IDK when I'll do it.  My kids def need to be a little older/more self sufficient, and I need to feel like I have a more solid team under me at work relative to the volume of work I'm doing + managing.

[wildrice]

The biggest ones for me are to continue to travel internationally at least once a year (assuming COVID ever lets us...) and retiring as early as possible, hopefully by around 60. I do not want to wait until retirement to do most of the travel we want to do, just in case we are not healthy or other things happen in the world that would prevent this from being possible. I am looking at my parents, who are 63 this year, and have had travel plans interrupted multiple times in the last few years due to my mom's health and COVID. I am a little worried that they will never do all the traveling that they always dreamed of, and that sucks. I think I've done about as much international travel as they have a this point, and I'm 23 years younger.

[simpsongal]

Susie I recall you mentioning that before - I hope it's in your near future! I am in awe of anyone aspiring and/or able to accomplish such athletic feats (much less in their 30s-40s!).

Your athletic post reminded me that I'd like to get back to playing team sports like volleyball and softball. That's not "big" in the MM scheme, but maybe cutting work hours and early retirement to facilitate such things.

My son always asks me "what's my favorite thing to do." At this stage in my life it's probably sit on the couch and binge watch a show w/a delicious craft beer. But once upon a time and maybe in the future it will be something else, perhaps more active!

[laterz]

I want flexibility.

Im in my mid-40s. I work in tech. Couple of years ago I moved into an area that is growing for the foreseeable future, because I want to keep my skills marketable. I've learned a ton since then.

In a perfect world in a couple more years I can go be a contractor - and decide which projects I take and when. Ideally - that doesn't include the summer. I want to have a house in the country and garden and bike ride and play with my dog and listen to podcasts.

I'd also like to retire by 55. If I made a play to move up at work, that's the fastest path to making that a reality. But that's a lot of kool-aid to drink.

[ohgillian]

I definitely need some dreams and goals. I fully admit I'm floundering in life right now. So i'm reading the thread for ideas!

[sicilygirl]

I recently found out that my husband and I are both eligible for Italian citizenship by descent. We've dreamed of retiring in another country, but never in any concrete way because it seemed overwhelming to think about how that would even work. We're both 36, so this is likely 20 years off, but now we're both planning to go ahead and get the citizenship sooner rather than later. This opens up a whole new world for us in our retirement years, so now living la dolce vita in our retirement years is the goal.

[sadlebred]

I want to have work/life balance, maybe have a vacation townhouse somewhere, save for retirement, and travel. I'd love to redo a lot of my house but will never have the money. It's more fixing and maintaining the house for me.

[jinkies]

Honestly, I'd really like to get my house to a point where I'm not embarrassed to host people. We have some furniture that is frankly just gross (our 20 year old couch is tops on that list), but home design/decor is not my strong suit so I keep stalling for fear of getting the "wrong" thing. Our upstairs carpet is also in dire need of replacement-- there are stains and a whole section that the cats used as a scratching post and it looks terrible. I'd also like to have bigger/nicer outdoor entertaining space.

Beyond that, I want to travel as much as possible, help my kids graduate from college with little/no debt, and retire comfortably at a reasonable age.

[Cappy]

1) Change my job to something remote (trying w/out much luck)
2) Start buying investment properties (college rentals) until I can just SAH and do that.
3) Redo a camper

I have the funds for step 1 of #2 right now but I have to figure out the tax implications/planning of selling some stock to make it happen.

[Covergirl82]

I want to us to pay off our mortgage before DS graduates HS (2028). We don't plan to fund college 100%, but having the mortgage paid off will allow us to have money to help with some college payments and also close any retirement savings gap. I'd love to retire early (by 55) and then have a "fun" part time job until (hopefully) I have grandkids, and then I want to be available to see them. DH and I don't have anything fancy planned in terms of a retirement lifestyle - really we'd just like to potentially downsize our house, have a similar standard of living, and be able to go visit our kids/grandkids on a regular basis.

jinkies, I also feel like we need to make some updates to our home so as to not feel embarrassed to have people over. (And frankly, I just need to take the time to really work on organizing and decluttering.) We need new carpet in our living room and on the stairs and upstairs landing. I'd like to get new bathroom sinks and countertops in the powder room and master bath. I'd like to update some decor and have it be consistent. One of my aunts is an interior designer, so I really just need to ask her if she'd be willing to go on a couple shopping trips with me and help me pick some things out.

Outside of that, I'd love to travel to Europe and Japan (not in the same trip) someday. With my new job, I may have the chance to go to Europe, so DH and the kids would for sure come on the first trip I take over there (if I get to go).

[ohgillian]

jinkies, I can really relate to your post. I'm in my mid-40s, income is fine, savings are fine, and we are using lamps I took to my college dorm, and H's 20 year old sofas. And it's because picking new things feels impossible to me.

I finally hired a designer last year to draw up plans for 2 of the rooms and I'm slowly executing those. It's not perfect, and the sofas I ordered in April were just delayed to December, but I've made a start slowly.

I also have been trying to look around and say "okay, what's broken that we've just been living with?" which is how I recently got a new laundry basket (replacing the one that was not new when I took it to college in 1995!), a new spoonrest to replace a chipped pottery one, and the like. Sometimes I can be an under-buyer and really have to push myself to deal with things.

[mbcdefg]

I would like a Jersey Shore house someday, but I’ve taken absolutely no steps to achieve this other than making a Pinterest board of decor ideas (and I suck at home decor so idk what I’m expecting to happen here).

[ellipses84]

I do but most of them will never happen 😆 Most involve travel and real estate. Our top priority is buying a fixer upper as our primary residence and that is probably the next 10 years of my life. $$$ in HCOL. This involves creating a studio/ office / guest house on our property, which could be a redone retro camper or she-shed/ ADU.

After that we’ll see if I still want to do anything else like a cabin or beach house to use and rent out. Prior to Airbnb popularity I was always pretty opposed to a vacation house because I want to travel the world more and don’t want to repeat vacations, but having something I could drive to on weekends and rent out to break even or make money sounds great! Also, WFH makes me feel like I want to spend more weekends away from home. Other considerations involve moving overseas for a few years, but we decided we are not going to do it unless the perfect opportunity falls in our lap. Selling everything to buy an RV or boat and travel / work remote/ home school sounds great in theory and I have a friend who is doing it, but I think we’d be miserable.

[heygrey]

We want to build out or buy a sprinter van to travel. We love doing the weekend warrior thing, but it would be so nice to have a self contained unit for these adventures.

Within the next year, I want new living room and dining room furniture. Everything we have is small scale apartment size furniture. Our house isn't huge, but I can fit a table that seats more than 4 now!

[chpmnk1015]

I dream big all the time lol. Our big one is really to have an amazing lakehouse with a couple small cottages for guests with a a lot of acreage...

[hbomdiggity]

We’d like to buy a second home/retirement home in the mountains. We waffle between buying land and eventually building a dream home or buying something less to get to use it sooner.

I want to do a big trip to Italy. We didn’t do anything for our 10yr anniversary so Maybe for for 15. Oh crap - that’s next year!

[mlkgls]

I think I need a financial advisor to help me make these dreams a reality...

#1 Stretch goal: have the option to downshift at 55 in nine years. I don’t think full retirement is quite within reach, but according to Fidelity I’m on track for 60-61. This goal coincides with paying for DS’s college so it’s probably a nonstarter, but a girl can dream!
#2 More realistic dream: mortgage payoff in 15 years or less, which will likely impact goal #1. All roads lead to early retirement; I don’t want to work this hard in 20 years.
#3 Fulfilled dream: I added a pool last year, which used to feel like a pipe dream. It has positively been my favorite part of the summer .

[dr.girlfriend]

Aug 13, 2021 11:30:59 GMT -5 jinkies said:

Honestly, I'd really like to get my house to a point where I'm not embarrassed to host people. We have some furniture that is frankly just gross (our 20 year old couch is tops on that list), but home design/decor is not my strong suit so I keep stalling for fear of getting the "wrong" thing. Our upstairs carpet is also in dire need of replacement-- there are stains and a whole section that the cats used as a scratching post and it looks terrible. I'd also like to have bigger/nicer outdoor entertaining space.

Beyond that, I want to travel as much as possible, help my kids graduate from college with little/no debt, and retire comfortably at a reasonable age.

Come on over to the H&G board -- we'll pressure you into finally doing stuff!  :-D

[dr.girlfriend]

Honestly, I think we have accomplished some of our goals, which is pretty exciting. We did a big reno of our house which basically gave us our dream bedroom and bathroom, and will hopefully allow us to age in place. My husband left his job and is freelancing now, which allows him to set his own schedule.

Our biggest priority -- sadly 2020 was going to be our big year for that -- is travel. My BIL had a terminal illness which kept us from planning any big trips for almost five years. We took the kid to Disney once and then my husband and I took one vacation, but otherwise we kept putting things off until he was done with x round of chemo or y surgery or whatever. I feel bad that my son has really not experienced a real family vacation. I don't know when that's actually going to happen. We were supposed to go to Japan in 2020, and then at least to Disney at the end of this summer. We're all vaccinated now but it just seems so risky to plan something and have it disrupted, but we probably just need to go ahead and do it.

Kind of like others have said -- my BIL died at 50 after a long illness, and my cousin died at 46 with absolutely no warning.  There's just no telling, and I'm definitely trying not to just mark the years until retirement.  Plus, with the travel we did do, it reminded me how healthy you have to be to travel -- there were some pretty physical things we had to do!  

I guess the last thing would probably be scaling down at work so I'm not so busy.  Just fewer cases a month so I'm not so stressed.

[krystee]

Travel is the big thing. I’d love to travel internationally at least every other year. I’m hoping to do two next year for my 40th birthday—Scotland with my husband and France/Switzerland with my mom.

We also want to save up to be able to take three weeks off for a great American road trip. Maybe Route 66, but taking time to explore scenic areas off the route too. We’d love to do that in about three years, when our youngest is 7, and our oldest is 9. Before they are bored teenagers complaining about everything!

I’d love to write a children’s book (or better yet, a series) someday. I have always loved writing and dreamed about being a children’s book author. I am currently writing down ideas and hope to start writing some drafts this year. I have no idea what I’m doing, so I need to do some research.

[babsbunny]

We want to go to the summer olympics, preferably an opening ceremony. Tokyo was the first year we learned how to buy tickets (but did not buy any). I would like to go to a Super Bowl and I think DH would like to go to a Final Four. I stupidly want to spend 3+ nights in an over water bungalow in Bora Bora (stupid because it looks cool when celebrities do it). We want to go back to New Zealand and spend a lot more time there, like maybe even live there. I want to get my parents to europe but my mom is now too scared with afib. I have always wanted to do a safari. A collection of medium to big things, hopefully this decade, since as others have said, you simply never know how much time you have.

[imojoebunny]

I have always had small dreams, and my life has wildly exceeded them. I give a lot of credit to my spouse, who is a BIG dreamer, but, also, we are both very good planners, and DH a really strategic worker. We are 49 (me) and 55, and retired. We have 2 kids, in middle and high school, we get to spend a lot of time with. DH and I work really well together to make the things we want to do, come to life. Not everything is perfect, see my very sad post about one of our dogs. I have spent a lot of time crying about that, but we both support each other's dreams, big and small. My small dreams are about spending time with our kids, kayaking and hiking, roasting marshmallows, and taking the kids and their friends to explore our city. Visiting with friends on long Saturday afternoons, and taking long walks, while the kids go to school, with people I enjoy to explore new neighborhoods. DH's dream are big, we took a 5 week trip to the Pacific Northwest this summer with our kids, as an example. There are many others, like when we bought our weekend house, which we bought as a foreclosure, that came with 10,000 scorpions. I wish I was kidding. DH had the big dream to buy it, but I had the small dream that I could make it a great place for friends to gather and use for a reasonable amount of money. We had several friends use it while we were gone this summer, and in normal times, we have friends up often. It is only 1.5 hours away, so easy to get to. I am happy to support and join in on the big dreams, and my small dreams make the big dreams happen in the day to day.

I am going to a cooking class for a week in November at a school that is sort of like a camp for adults. I have wanted to go for years, but couldn't because it sells out well in advance in normal times, and finding childcare for a week was impossibly complicated or crazy expensive, but now that DH is retired, I am doing it!

[Deleted]

COVID has really made us re-think our goals. We used to want to travel a lot, but I don’t think travel is ever going to go back to what it was before…and more and more travel seems like an irresponsible choice based on environmental impacts.

I definitely want to cut way back on work in the next 3-5 years so I can work part-time or remotely in a low-stress job while my son still lives at home. I’m on track to do that, though we may have to downscale our lifestyle a bit.

[minzy]

It’s weird. For being as goal oriented as I usually am, I don’t really have big financial goals any more. I’ve already spent a decade of my adult life sort of “retired,” so I have done a lot of what people say they want to do then. I have spent time with family, worked on hobbies, and done a lot of nonprofit work. Now I’m still trying to do many of those things, but I have added a job back in to the mix. We’ll see how long I still feel even keeled. My position has better health insurance, I’ll save more for my “own” retirement, but I want to give more away, too.

I would love for there to be a more feasible way to travel without the emissions and the guilt. I did do a lengthy electric car road trip this summer, and, (despite being east of the Mississippi), it was like the Wild West out there for charging. I guess my lifetime pipe dream is to see humanity wean itself from non-renewable energy.

[chpmnk1015]

Aug 13, 2021 11:30:59 GMT -5 jinkies said:

Honestly, I'd really like to get my house to a point where I'm not embarrassed to host people. We have some furniture that is frankly just gross (our 20 year old couch is tops on that list), but home design/decor is not my strong suit so I keep stalling for fear of getting the "wrong" thing. Our upstairs carpet is also in dire need of replacement-- there are stains and a whole section that the cats used as a scratching post and it looks terrible. I'd also like to have bigger/nicer outdoor entertaining space.

Beyond that, I want to travel as much as possible, help my kids graduate from college with little/no debt, and retire comfortably at a reasonable age.

This totally resonates with me.. we just redid our Living room- Couches we have had since 2004 that were gross to look at that we covered with blankets- which were also gross... (Because pre kids we thought an off white couch was a great idea lol).  it took so long to pull the trigger to redo this room, pick new furnitures... i did the rugs and curtains but we also put in built ins and i am like overwhelmed with what the heck I should be putting on them lol.  I am so not good with decor.

[ellipses84]

krystee reminded me. I have a bunch of bucket list dreams of things to do that could potentially earn money, like write a children’s book. That seems the most attainable but another is to write a Christmas song 😆, a regular song, a novel, a screenplay… I have so many ideas… I have all sorts of creative hobbies that I could be amazing at that could become a profitable side hustle but I never have time for them. My career job is fulfilling but it takes up most of my bandwidth and my off hours are so busy with family… maybe when my kids are older I’ll have more time to pursue at least one of these things.

[imojoebunny]

Aug 13, 2021 11:30:59 GMT -5 jinkies said:

Honestly, I'd really like to get my house to a point where I'm not embarrassed to host people. 

Do not fall for the HGTV trap.  Host the people!  Unless your house smells like 15 cats whose litter boxes are never emptied, I guarantee people could give a cloud about what your floors or furniture look like.  Never feel like the space you live in isn't good enough to have people over.