Hi Bees,
Not really sure where this post should go, but it can cover wedding related and NWR topics, so I chose the beehive. Anyway, do you (and your SO) have an idea of when you want major life events to happen? Not that life ever goes according to our plans, but we can always dream, right?
Just for fun, please post your plans! I posted our plans below.
Year Ideal Major Life Events
2012 We got engaged on our 9 year anniversary!
2013 Get Married/Cruise in the Caribbean for Honeymoon
2014 12 day East Coast Road Trip--New York, Boston, Philadelphia, DC
2015 Start Graduate School (me)
2016 14 day Europe Trip--France, Germany, Spain, Italy
2017 Finish Graduate School & Buy a home
2018 Start TTC (I will be 30, he will be 32)
DH and I are both 50-ish so we are on a different track than most of you younger Bees. We already have a home that is paid for, and neither one of us has kids or wants kids.
So when it comes to goals, there is one thing that is becoming my new obsession: early retirement! (haha!) There is a very strong likelihood that we will be in a financial position to retire early and start travelling. How early we will retire depends on a few things. But I am super, super looking forward to Greece, the South Pacific, northern Europe, Macchu Picchu, cruises through the Caribbean, and spending summers RV-ing in the national parks.
I am hoping we can get started no later than five years from now. Fingers crossed!
@BelliniChic: An early retirement sounds like an awesome goal. I am so glad you participated in the post because retirement and post-career goals are just as, if not more important than goals in the earlier part of our lives. I hope you get your early retirement and all the fun traveling you are planning for!
OK so the current "plan" is:
Spring 2014--DH finishes up his master's degree
2014 or 2015--we take an epic pre-TTC trip to Europe
2015-16--first baby (I'll be 28-29)
Guess we'll see if that's how it all pans out! I was hoping to have my Masters by the time we have our first kid, but unfortunately it looks like that won't happen, so I'm just trying to be really supportive/helpful to DH while he works on his MBA.
We don't really have set plans right now, but below are mostly approximate plans with a few exceptions. For instance, we did get married in November and Hubby will graduate next month, but we may or may not get to our Honeymoon in Dec/Jan, but we hope to... etc.
2012 November - Got married
2012 December - Husband graduates college
2012 December/2013 January - Honeymoon at some point
2013 June/July - Buy house, get dog
2013 August - Husband starts new job
2013 November - Maybe go to Paris for our one year anniversary!
Sometime in between 2013-2016 - Switch careers, maybe go into beauty/makeup or jewelry? Also, we'd get another dog.
Maybe around 2017-2018 - Possibly have a child, if we're ready and if we didn't already have one lol
Throughout all those timelines above we want to do a lot of travelling!
I'm going to start backed up a bit...
2011- Got engaged and bought our house
2012- Got married after 7 years together! :-D
2013- Anniversary trip to Europe for 3 weeks (France, Italy, Spain, Poland)... can't wait!! Job change (fingers crossed), get a dog?
2014- Hopefully pay off my school loans, run a marathon?
2015- (I'll be 28, DH will be 31) Maybe TTC? Either that or redo our kitchen and TTC a year later? Though these are dependent on my internal clock being able to hold out that long for kids!
We tend to take little weekend trips/road trips throughout the year, so we'll probably sneak several of those in and maybe one more "big" trip before we have babies.
ETA: We have to make sure we're financially/emotionally ready for 2 babies whenever we decide to TTC because there is a VERY good chance we'll have twins.
@bmo88: My guy plans a LOT... I am definitely a planner, but I always have trouble seeing more than a year or so out. He's older and wiser so that could be a part of it.
For the major things, I am hoping to get engaged and married next year. I'd like to start TTC when I'm 30-31... I'm 27 now. I really want to get my company going before we bring a kid into the mix.
We're discussing doing a big trip to England, France, and another country for Xmas 2014. We go every year to the UK to visit his parents, but this trip would be a bit more involved.
Other trips I am not too worried about... we take several per year to various places and we're both quite well traveled so it's not like I have something I desperately want to cross of my travel bucket list before a kid comes along.
The other major thing I guess would be that neither of us wants to stay in Canada forever, but the money is really good - we both have great jobs right now. I just can't handle the bloody winters!! He says 7-10 years but I am hoping it'll be less. We both could move to Europe since we're both from there (even though we've spent most of our lives in Canada), but I want to go to the States... and that's a fun process with the current economy *sigh*.
@BelliniChic: I totally envy you!! Some days I wish I could retire lol. Seriously!!
We know we'll both start looking for new jobs early next year, and we'll consider moving to another state. We're hoping to buy a house within 2 years once we're sure we want to stay where we are. And we don't want kids right now, but we've agreed that we'll revisit the issue in 2020 to gauge how we feel about kids then, in case we've changed.
All in all, our plans are pretty flexible...it's more like planning to make plans, haha.
We have a loose plan.
2012: engaged.
2013: married, honeymoon.
2017: FI graduates from school
If we don't have kids by the time FI graduates, we will be TTC. If we don't own a house by then, we will be actively looking.
The only things we have planned are our wedding next October, and we want to start TTC in 2014, roughly a year into married life.
Our plans are super flexible. I don't know if we will even be in the same city in 5 years!
Here's what we've chatted about so far:
2013 June/July - Wedding & Honeymoon
2014/15 - Start TTC
2016 - Sell our house and upgrade or move somewhere else
2016 - I change careers or start freelancing
2018 - Be done having kids!
Most of my friends had kids as soon as they married. Most marry later in Ireland.. 30ish.
2013 get married
2013 TTC on honeymoon. Fingers crossed we will be lucky.
2014-2015 second child
2018-2019 Have enough saved to buy a nice house. We are seriously in neg equity in a house Fi bought but don't want to be there forever :-)
Thank you!
The younger you are when you start investing for retirement, the better. There are a lot of quiet, ordinary millionaires in middle-income suburbs out there who never earned big salaries, but rather they were very wise about saving and investing.
One tip that my DH has always practiced (that I should have practiced!): live below your means.
If you and your DH earn $100k combined, live on $50k or $75k, and invest the rest of the money.
Get a smaller house or a fixer-upper, and pay it off sooner. Buy a good car, keep it maintained, and take it to 200k miles. It might seem frustrating to watch your peers buying bigger houses and nicer cars than you in the meantime, but you will be so glad you made those choices when you are 45 or 50. And that is not really that far off! The money piles up quickly when you start investing aggressively at a young age. Added bonus, if you or your DH ever lose your job(s) or get laid off, you can make it on one income until you get back on your feet.
I'm past most major life even plans now too, but to back track, they went
2008 - met DH (which in my previous plan I would have been married with a kid by then - by early 2008I was with my ex for about 7 years and been a waiting bee whos patience wore out.)
2010 - got engaged. Bought house and went on amazing month long dream trip to Austrailia and New Zealand.
2011 - got married
2012 - Pre baby travels to Macchu Picchu and Italy, Switzerland. Start TTC
2013/14 - baby #1
2015/16 - baby #2
2030 - pay off house
2035 - retire
@BelliniChic: I agree with investing in retirement while being young. Currently I am saving 10% of my income in my 401k (with hopes of increasing the contribution soon), but my FI is dragging his feet on setting one up. While it is a bit of a bummer to have $450 less a month in my normal account or available to spend, I understand the long-term perspective. Patience and hope that the investment will pay off, is what I keep telling myself. :)
Our only real plan is get married in 2013, have a honeymoon, go on a European trip a year or two later and then start TTC.
my FI and i have been talking a lot about this lately - i'm very much a planner; if i have a timeline it will hopefully help me stop freaking out about this!
November 2013 - Wedding
April 2014 - Monster 3 month honeymoon
December 2014/January 2015 - TTC (which i have tried to coordinate with my best friend and my older sister so we're all pregnant at once :))
August 2015 - buy our first home or relocate for FI work
WEEEEEEEEEEEEE
We got engaged Christmas 2011, wedding date February 2014. The only thing I really want to do in the foreseeable future is finish repainting our house. It's pretty new, I just want to change the colors. And if we decide to make this a long term house I'd like to do a few minor renos to make things exactly to my liking. Or if not, I want to build a new house and make things just perfect.
No plans for kids!
July 2012- Got engaged
November 2012- Put offer on new construction house and accepted!
February 2013- Start actively TTC
March 2013- Wedding/Honeymoon cruise- hardcore TTC.
May 2013- Close on new home and move in!
2014-15- TTC #2
2018-2020-Move to CO?
So far we're planning:
I graduate university: Spring 2015
We get engaged sometime before we move to Europe in Fall 2015 or Winter 2016.
I attend grad school in Europe TBD... 2015-2017
Everything else will come with time.
We don't want kids. Retirement depends on everything in the EU and work.
This is the plan!
August 2010- started Graduate School (me)
December 2010- Got engaged
September 2011- Got married
Januray 2013- Hopefully buy our first house
December 2013- Make a trip to Mexico
Summer 2014- Make a trip to Europe and celebrate our 3 year anniversary
Summer 2014/15- TTC baby #1 (I'll be 29/30)
Spring 2015- Hopefully be done with school
2015/2016- Move closer to parents
2016/17- TTC baby #2
2018/2019- TTC baby #3
We also have a fairly loose plan, mostly consisting of goals and a fairly-general timeline to achieve them.
2012 (this December!)-I graduate from undergraduate.
April 2013-My fiance graduates
May 2013-We get married and go on our Disney honeymoon!
June-August 2013-Post-graduate internship (me)
Late-August 2013-Both start graduate school
Spring 2016-Graduate from graduate school (Masters for me, J.D. for him!)
2017-My pastoral ordination
2019-2020-Big vacation; start TTC
Even though I'm big on planning I've never even thought about planning my life. There is so much I can't control so what's the point. Things have worked out just fine anyway. Like another poster, we're just looking toward retirement. :)
We can't really plan much out since we're long distance right now and will be for at least another year. We're getting engaged next year and will probably get married in 2014, but we're not going to try and plan anything else. Things will happen when they happen. I'm a big planner, but planning life events out like this would just stress me out because there's not much you can really do. Things happen and plans change.
Aug 2012- Got married and went on Vegas Honeymoon
Rest of 2012-2014-Hopefully save enough to build a modular home of our dreams.
2015-Build dream house and settle in.
2016-start TTC for first child.
After that I really don't know. It may take us more time to save the money. DH has made up a spread sheet of how we will save each month. Hopefully I can get a higher paying job and it will be sooner. Also maybe we would start TTC before the house is finished, not sure yet.
We seem to make plans and then change them.
2011 - we got married
2012 - honeymoon
We were going to wait until our one year anniversary to TTC, but when on our honeymoon decided to try a few months before.
April 2013 - LO will be here
2013 - hoping to buy a house and move closer to our families, but this is looking like it might not happen until 2014
Then we'd like another baby, but no set time for that one yet.
Our plan:
2010 Engaged
2012 Married
2014 Complete 4 Year Undergrad Program (me) and 4 Year College Program (him)
2015 Pay Off Student Debt and Start Looking for a House
2016 Purchase Our First House
2015-2016 Have a Baby (we're open to this one happening sooner though and are NTNTC)
These are fairly rough plans but we have discussed the future and know roughly what we want from it.
@OctBride-2012: Exactly! Tried "planning" my life out in my 20s and saw how much God laughed at my plans and guided me on a totally different path.
Got married last month. Going on our honeymoon in March. Enjoy everyday. That's all I got for now.
2011: engaged
2012: got married and went on our first cruise (honeymoon!)
2013: try to find a better apartment or fix our credit enough to buy a house
2014: if we haven't already bought a house our credit should be repaired enough to do so at this point
2022: move out of Pennsylvania... don't care where we go just ready to leave here
2030: move to the beach!!!
Those are roughly the plans weve made but we live pretty much year to year... buying a house and eventually moving to the beach are just our long term goals. We'd love to leave PA now but I have split custody with my sons father so were staying until my son is 18 no matter what.
All we have so far is:
June 2012 engaged
January/febuarary 2014 get married (this is not confirmed though)
And thats it! lol I still live at home and have a part time job so we dont even know when we will live together
Hopefully in the coming years we can live together, buy our first house and get a dog!
I have a 'plan', FI-to-be thinks it's stupid, he doesn't see the need to plan anything, where as I plan to the minute!
2013 - Get engaged.
2014 - End of '14 move back home (we currently live overseas).
2015 - Get married.
2015/6 - Buy our family home
2017/2018 - Start TTC (I want five kids, he wants 2; we'll see what happens!)
We haven't planned much further then that, something I am fine with. We review the plan each year, as other life events come up, certain things become more important and finances change.
I was just talking to my family about this exact same thing today! I always have a plan- whether or not we stick to the plan is another story...
2013 Trips to Japan and New Zealand, then Quick Engagement for Wedding the same year (10 year anniversary) prefer to be married then have kiddos but they will come first if we can't fit the nuptuals in next year =)
2014 TTC and hopefully a potential birth (28/31)
2015 1 year maternity leave, then back to full time
2016 Just work and save, kiddie in daycare =(
2017 Pay off home in full/ TTC for a little brother or sister
2018 1 year maternity leave combined with long service leave for more of a portion paid, then back to full time- consider changing place of employment but doing the same job
2019 DH stays off for a year to fully rennovate current home with the 2 littlies in tow (grandparents will help with supervision as they should all be retired by then! cute!)
2020+ Put money that previously went into mortagage into superanuation to both retire early at 50-55ish
Maybe a little ambitious a plan once the little people arrive but it's the journey not the destination afterall!
We met in 2009, got married at ages 34 and 35 in 2011, and bought a home in 2012. Now we are TTC. The plan is have a kid or two and then regroup in 6-7 years when we need a school school strategy. The place where we live is great: walkable, neighborhoody, short commute. But the regular public schools here are not great. Choices will be: (1) charter school if we can get in (2) private school if we can get in and can afford it (3) move to a less walkable suburb with a longer commute and better schools. I really hope that we don't have to move, but time will tell.
they say that the surest way to make God laugh is to tell Him your plans.
But... what we have is a list of goals we would like to achieve within five years. we don't know when things will happen since we can't control everything (especially when/if job promotions happen), but it's good to have goals to work towards.
Goals For the Next Five Years (in no particular order)
get new: computers for each, television, car (used, but new to us)
have kid(s)
buy a house (hopefully back in my hometown, but any 'nice' neighorhood will be good enough)
get husband the two promotions needed for me to be a housewife
We don't have a plan. We take life as it comes because the unexpected will always happen, so why plan? Take life as it comes!
Buy a home ASAP, DH will finish grad school in 2015, and we'll hopefully start having babies after that. Then move to the burbs once our kids are school age.
Our plan isnt by year but more or a process.
When X happens, then we will do this. We make sure we can afford the life events and their order as well so it can be money based. when we have X saved, we will do this.
The only real time goal we have is retirement and we do live our life to ensure we can retire when we want, how we want.
One thing I've learned is that you absolutely CANNOT plan life. I once had it all and then everything came crashing down...I regret that I was so enraptured with plans that I forgot to live for the moment and enjoy myself so now that's what I do, besides, my plans have never really worked out. Especially since you never plan on being disabled. Right now, we're just seeing how things go, taking it a day at a time, and loving every second of it. If I died tomorrow I'd die a happy lady, completely fulfilled.
here's our plan :-)
Engaged Dec 2010
Married Sept 2012
Oct 2012 start serious saving for retirement, we want to retire as early as possible
Oct 2012 start hardcore saving for house down payment
Buy First house Jan-June 2013
TTC End of 2013, I'm 35 and he's 32 so we don't want to prolong it too long
TTC 2nd 2015
then work and save towards retirement
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