The New Math

My husband is ready to retire. No, I really mean it. My husband who isn't quite forty is ready to retire. The only problem of course is money. So we have been reviewing all the things we are going to have to do in order for my husband to retire at his dream age of 55. We really aren't doing to bad considering I have been out of the work force for about five of the last seven years and haven't really been able to contribute much financially to our retirement plans. But we are still way off from where we need to be in order for us to reach his goal. And while neither of us are big spenders and aren't the type that have to "have stuff" to be happy, we do spend money on the things we like to do.

But last night my husband took the cake with his latest ways in thinking about big purchases. He has been saving up for a mill for a while now and has finally reached his goal. He went online only to find out that the mill he really wants is now on sale so he can even save a couple hundred dollars. Now to me that would have just been the icing on the cake. But since my husband had just finished reviewing where we need to be in twenty years he wasn't as excited as I expected. He stopped for a minute and went to punch in some numbers on the computer. Then he came back and told me that if he invested his money into our investments instead of buying the mill then by the time he was ready to retire he would have about $50,000 more towards our retirement goals.

So now he's wondering if this mill he has been saving up for is worth the fifty thousand it could cost us in the long term. And while I can see his point I am a bit frustrated. So I had to remind him that he's been saving up for this for a long time and he'll need to have something to keep him happy and entertained while we sit home for the next fifteen years and save money for retirement. And that it's okay for him to buy something big like that every now and then. But as to whether he can now get past that new price tag he has in his head, I really don't know. I hope he does. He works way to hard now not to have a few things to enjoy in his life now.