So my wife and I were talking about walking the Appalachian trail as we do sometimes, and she asked when we could do this. (FYI, our current goal is around 10 years to retirement at age 40).
I said that one option would be to wait a year or so, save up around $15k for expenses during the walk (assuming 6 months). Then one of us would quit, and spend their time selling the house, most of our "junk" we've accumulated, etc. Once we've gotten rid of 95% of our stuff, we'd put the rest in storage (or families house), the other person would quit their job, and we'd head out to the trail.
Part of the cool idea was that I've always wanted to try living somewhere else, and it would just all work into a beautiful puzzle. We'd have a reason to quit (wanting to work somewhere else), have a good reason to "downsize" (no reason to store books I'm never going to read again), and then once we don't have anything tying us down, we could live anywhere we wanted.
She had a few issues about moving somewhere else (as she likes her job sometimes), moving away from family, etc. All valid points, but things I thought we could deal with for awhile.
Then she said "oh no, what about the cats?" I'd completely forgotten about those cute little furballs. When I've planned out retirement, it works out pretty well that in about 10 years, I figure they'd most likely be dead
Very morbid, but if we're going to sail around the world or hike the trail, we can't have a couple cats with us (well, it's possible to sail with cats, but I've decided it's a bad idea).
So umm.. stupid cats ruining my plans! I'd hate to put them in a kennel for 6 months, and I don't know of any friends who are "cat people". Any other bright ideas out there? I can't imagine there's any easy solution, but I thought I'd mention it
I said that one option would be to wait a year or so, save up around $15k for expenses during the walk (assuming 6 months). Then one of us would quit, and spend their time selling the house, most of our "junk" we've accumulated, etc. Once we've gotten rid of 95% of our stuff, we'd put the rest in storage (or families house), the other person would quit their job, and we'd head out to the trail.
Part of the cool idea was that I've always wanted to try living somewhere else, and it would just all work into a beautiful puzzle. We'd have a reason to quit (wanting to work somewhere else), have a good reason to "downsize" (no reason to store books I'm never going to read again), and then once we don't have anything tying us down, we could live anywhere we wanted.
She had a few issues about moving somewhere else (as she likes her job sometimes), moving away from family, etc. All valid points, but things I thought we could deal with for awhile.
Then she said "oh no, what about the cats?" I'd completely forgotten about those cute little furballs. When I've planned out retirement, it works out pretty well that in about 10 years, I figure they'd most likely be dead
Very morbid, but if we're going to sail around the world or hike the trail, we can't have a couple cats with us (well, it's possible to sail with cats, but I've decided it's a bad idea).So umm.. stupid cats ruining my plans! I'd hate to put them in a kennel for 6 months, and I don't know of any friends who are "cat people". Any other bright ideas out there? I can't imagine there's any easy solution, but I thought I'd mention it
