Back in 2010, when hubs and I found ourselves both unemployed, we panicked – for about ten seconds.  Then we realized that we had been saving from every paycheck for our entire lifetime…we would be OK!

Skip forward eight years, and here we are – debt free, our home is paid for, our vehicles are all paid for, we are retired to whatever extent pleases us at the moment, we have sufficient pensions, and our investment account is healthy.  Now here is our dilemma:

We have spent our entire lives saving for our retirement,
…and now we have a hard time spending that money!

I can remember when my parents moved from acquisition to distribution in their own retirement.  My dad went out and bought a one-ton crew cab pickup and a matching 30-foot travel trailer.  My mom cried for days…not because she wasn’t up for the adventure, but because the idea of spending that hard-saved cash was contrary to our family’s deeply ingrained habits to “save for a rainy day.”

So here we are.  Hubs and I have been discussing (dreaming really) of buying a Class B travel van – basically a very fancy tent on wheels – so that we might load up our Roxy dog and take off exploring this country.

We have the cash, we could buy the thing outright – but wow, that would make a dent in our retirement funds, and we love watching that account balance go up…not down.  We could put down a sizable down-payment, and pay the rest off monthly, but there goes that “debt-free” thing.

So here we sit.  We’ve shopped different models, we’ve discussed the features we want to have, we continue to do internet research to learn new RVers tips and tricks.  Now if we could only pull the trigger.  A dilemma wrapped in a conundrum…

Lynn

Photo: Pina Messina ~ Unsplash