tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484470269517874856.post25997601101861268..comments2023-10-30T09:30:30.546-05:00Comments on the reluctant grownup: back to the futureReluctant Grownuphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16307811574223269437noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484470269517874856.post-1608599997873373812007-11-12T15:29:00.000-05:002007-11-12T15:29:00.000-05:00"...invited a financial planner into my life, join..."...invited a financial planner into my life, joined a church, started work on my will, met with my life insurance agent..."<BR/><BR/>What makes you reluctant is that those things are no fun. Very few people think "I can't wait until I can plan for my financial future!" Eventually we all get there but I don't think we actively avoid it. You're right that it's the influence of events outside yourself which cause the change in priorities. The same could be said for the moment you ally yourself with someone else (a non-committal way of saying marriage or similar). The "I" becomes "he/she and I" becomes "us." And every other person you bring into that unit adds complexity to every equation.<BR/><BR/>Now you're compromising for four. Weighing the benefits of each decision on each member of the family. A single person has a planning horizon about 5 feet in front of them. Married, and you might be thinking "how do I prepare for my wife's future if something happens to me?" I give it 5 years; she can't be riding my corpse for insurance payments forever!<BR/><BR/>With kids, your horizon has just quadrupled. If you want to give them every opportunity you had, and more, that's 20 years of providing for them. It's morbid and non-fun, but that's the way these questions have to be phrased sometimes. Not "how do I plan if I keep making the same income for the next 30 years?" but rather "what if it ends tomorrow?"<BR/><BR/>As a veteran of the unemployment office I'll answer your question so you don't feel the need to go find out for yourself: it ain't fun. Quite specifically, it ruins all fun. All the things that we work for in life end when work ends unexpectedly if we haven't prepared. Even worse when you find you have to sell some of the fun to keep what's left from being repo'd.<BR/><BR/>Stick with it, sign all the papers and put it behind you for a while. Check up on your plan every 5 years or so, but if you've done your homework upfront, it shouldn't be always in your mind. Then get back to enjoying the fun stuff.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com