Hey all,
Happy New Year!!!
One of my resolutions for 2020 is to try to nail down my RE budget (or just R ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - I am 53 and not too close as yet!). I want to get a good idea of what I want out of post-career life so I can start to work towards that. I feel like I have been scrambling the past many years and need to focus/refocus on what I want my life to look like.
I don't have a real social network outside of a close knit professional group - this spans coworkers from my last 3 companies and shared educational and professional development venues......but I'm not sure how that would function once retired - I think it may fade away without the shared career stuff.
I am a single parent with 2 adult children who will be leaving the nest in the next few years, one in a few months, the other will graduate college in 2021. I am unsure about if I will keep the house or not. I did a case study last year and I will update at the 1 year mark, but I don't want to discuss my particular financial situation here at the moment.
Rather - I am trying to figure out a good template (with and without the family house) and use that to make plans/decisions going forward.
I am just out-of-my-ass thinking 10k for travel. But - what would that get me? Seems like 1-2 major trips and a few smaller ones or 5-6 medium trips. Would that be accurate? Budget-wise?
Thinking of going back to/taking up tennis and/or golf...There is a nice but rather spendy venue nearby for such things. I might need some lessons before asking strangers for a game. So - lessons would be even more expensive.
What other things could I consider? Both that is fun, enjoyable, and potentially social? I'm not sure I can plan on seeing too much of my kids, one or both may move out of state.....but who knows?
I've looked into meetup groups for a few of my low-key interests, but I don't know if that's for me....
For things like casual entertainment outside of traveling - what kinds of budgets do you all have? It seems all my interests are really expensive. Opera/symphony/ballet, golf, horses, tennis, etc. I might be a little bit snobby, lol! I think I was accused of that once here. But if I don't aim to do what I want in retirement - when would I do it? I'm certainly not doing any of this right now! I used to....
What should I be thinking about as I try to outline a retirement budget for these kinds of things?