Introductions and long term goals
Posted: November 27th, 2016, 4:28 pm
Hello YTSTers!
First came the upheaval of the community move to these new boards, nudging me to reconnect with the Fool community and reminding me how much I enjoyed being part of it, and how valuable it has been to me over many years. Then a few days later, a friend sent me a goal planning workbook; ostensibly it's for 2017, but set up so that next year's planning feeds into goals for the next 20 years or longer. And then last week this excellent article on how to do a genuine, self-authentic bucket list popped up in my news feed: http://www.raptitude.com/2009/09/how-to ... ive-guide/
I figure the universe is trying to tell me something; that now is the time to get a bit more focused and work on overcoming this vague rudderless feeling I currently have. I was an occasional reader of YTST in the other place, but want to unlurk and join in with what seems a wise and supportive community.
Since I'm probably not the only newbie and we're at the genesis of a new board, do you think would it be helpful at this point to zoom back out from the daily minutiae of the monthly thread, and do a bit of a roll call introduction and lay out longer term goals? I've read Tortoise's excellent introduction text on the other thread, and it sounds like the original spirit of the board was to make sure that one's efforts today are feeding into where one wants to be in 1/5/10/20+ years. I'll start with my 'this is what I want to use YTST for' ramblings
Mr K and I are working towards earlyish retirement in our early 50s, to roughly coincide with our youngest leaving for university. That's 6-7 years away - I am overflowing with plans of what we'll do then, but it's the bit before then that's vague and somewhat empty.
I don't work (long back story involving international relocations; we're currently in the US) and have no plans to as any job I could get after nearly two decades, in a foreign country, would add too much family stress and make no discernible difference to our income due to joint taxation here. We've recently moved from one US state to another a couple of thousand miles away, so my existing social support networks are gone, and I'm finding it hard to replace them without the easy previous 'in' of a primary school gate crowd (Miss K is almost 13 and Master K is almost 17).
So some of my short term goals are in the area of social life rebuilding: establish a social network of acquintances and look for deeper friendships among them. I also fell off the exercise wagon when we moved, having been a regular at a karate club for years before that, and urgently need to fill this gap. I'm sitting in a house that we bought last year that mostly hasn't been decorated since it was built in 1987. I have a son who will be off to college in 18 months, who needs help to narrow down what he might want to study, at what college, and in which country, and what the application processes for that might look like (it'd better involve road trips!).
Things to do towards our longer term financial independence/ early retirement goals include continuing to learn how to best hack the US Investing, tax and pensions framework, investigating what would be involved in setting up a small business so that hubby could drift into a semi-retired consulting pattern in a few years, and perhaps learning Spanish if we see a stint in South America in our future.
So what longer term goals does everyone else have in their lives, that they're using this board to meet?
First came the upheaval of the community move to these new boards, nudging me to reconnect with the Fool community and reminding me how much I enjoyed being part of it, and how valuable it has been to me over many years. Then a few days later, a friend sent me a goal planning workbook; ostensibly it's for 2017, but set up so that next year's planning feeds into goals for the next 20 years or longer. And then last week this excellent article on how to do a genuine, self-authentic bucket list popped up in my news feed: http://www.raptitude.com/2009/09/how-to ... ive-guide/
I figure the universe is trying to tell me something; that now is the time to get a bit more focused and work on overcoming this vague rudderless feeling I currently have. I was an occasional reader of YTST in the other place, but want to unlurk and join in with what seems a wise and supportive community.
Since I'm probably not the only newbie and we're at the genesis of a new board, do you think would it be helpful at this point to zoom back out from the daily minutiae of the monthly thread, and do a bit of a roll call introduction and lay out longer term goals? I've read Tortoise's excellent introduction text on the other thread, and it sounds like the original spirit of the board was to make sure that one's efforts today are feeding into where one wants to be in 1/5/10/20+ years. I'll start with my 'this is what I want to use YTST for' ramblings
Mr K and I are working towards earlyish retirement in our early 50s, to roughly coincide with our youngest leaving for university. That's 6-7 years away - I am overflowing with plans of what we'll do then, but it's the bit before then that's vague and somewhat empty.
I don't work (long back story involving international relocations; we're currently in the US) and have no plans to as any job I could get after nearly two decades, in a foreign country, would add too much family stress and make no discernible difference to our income due to joint taxation here. We've recently moved from one US state to another a couple of thousand miles away, so my existing social support networks are gone, and I'm finding it hard to replace them without the easy previous 'in' of a primary school gate crowd (Miss K is almost 13 and Master K is almost 17).
So some of my short term goals are in the area of social life rebuilding: establish a social network of acquintances and look for deeper friendships among them. I also fell off the exercise wagon when we moved, having been a regular at a karate club for years before that, and urgently need to fill this gap. I'm sitting in a house that we bought last year that mostly hasn't been decorated since it was built in 1987. I have a son who will be off to college in 18 months, who needs help to narrow down what he might want to study, at what college, and in which country, and what the application processes for that might look like (it'd better involve road trips!).
Things to do towards our longer term financial independence/ early retirement goals include continuing to learn how to best hack the US Investing, tax and pensions framework, investigating what would be involved in setting up a small business so that hubby could drift into a semi-retired consulting pattern in a few years, and perhaps learning Spanish if we see a stint in South America in our future.
So what longer term goals does everyone else have in their lives, that they're using this board to meet?