So I will start this story at the beginning of 2019. Having just turned fifty the previous October, I had the remainder of the year to begin to contemplate my next ‘career’ move on learning my contract would not be renewed. After returning from a very pleasant New Year break I realised it was not my preference to go back to the 9 to 5, although conceding it may be a necessary evil to maintain the current lifestyle that we enjoy.
Perhaps it was this that also made us ask the question if we wanted to continue the current lifestyle we have. To this I provide some context: Karen and I had become ’empty nesters’ in 2018, our eldest had made a successful career in New Zealand and Son had more recently departed the nest for University in Glasgow. The family home was very simply too big for our needs.
Then the question that was the point of this post in the first place. How much money do we need in the bank to finance the rest of our lives? I phrase it this way in the first instance because it immediately prompts a second and more morbid question, when are we going to die? There are of course many other factors that determine how much money is required, the standard of living, the size of our dwelling(buy or rent), the number of dependents we choose to provide for or not (sorry kids); but the crux of many calculations seems to come down to that fundamental question of how many years left on the planet?
Middle Age Musings 