Yesterday, I shared my travel adventures. I recalled that money was holding us back from traveling for many years. We felt the need to save save save for our retirement. That’s a good thing, right? I mean, we don’t want to be dependent on the government and on our relatives during the most expensive time of our lives, when our health often deteriorates and we spend more time at the doctor.
But let’s look at this more closely. How many of us have a “good” set of dishes that rarely, if ever, get taken out of the cupboards? How many of us save certain clothes for special days? How often do we put on the expensive jewelry? We want to save these special material possessions for a special day.
Jeff’s dad had just retired when he had his heart attack. We hear stories like this all the time. Someone retires, and they fall over dead from some ailment or another soon afterward. Thank God, Jeff’s dad lived and is still with us at the tender age of 89. His mom wasn’t so lucky. She died at age 62. She had not accomplished all the things in life that she wanted to do at that young age.
Those two events were pivotal for changing my perspective. After Jeff’s dad’s heart attack, we started our camping routine. Why wait until we are older? Let’s make these memories with the kids now. Jeff’s mom died months before my trip to Ireland. Why wait until I am older to travel? My health is great now, and it won’t be difficult for me to get around.Even on that trip to Ireland, I recognized my then-70 year old mom having some issues because of her age. I didn’t want to wait to travel until I retired.
And so I started traveling. That doesn’t mean we stopped saving. As a matter of fact, I became really good and stuffing money away for trips while also stuffing money away for retirement. But something more important happened, that opened up some opportunities for our traveling. When I put that message out to the Universe, that I wanted to travel more, the money literally followed. Unexpected checks arrived in the mail.
But that is a story for another day…