Milestones

Three milestones in my life this past week, in order of increasing importance:

100K

When we bought our Honda Civic 3 years ago, I did a rough estimate of how many miles we were likely to put on the car each year. My prediction: we would roll over 100,000 miles right around the time we would make our final payment.

Early this week, I was out and about and had a thought, “Gee, that last payment is coming up. I wonder how close I am to my prediction?” I tripped the odometer to the life-long miles driven counter and found this:

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Right on schedule! I’m still tickled that I happened to push the odometer button at exactly the right moment to capture this.


One less debt

We are - now that I’ve written the check for the final payment on the Civic - in that most joyous condition of having NO CAR PAYMENT. We also are not currently in need of a replacement car. Losing that monthly payment puts us in a better position to pay off other debts before we retire. Let’s see how long we can go before we buy a new-to-us car!


That safety net beneath my feet just got a little stronger.

Me on my birthday:

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I turned 62 this past week. It’s a good age to be. Not only can I now draw Social Security if I need to or choose to, I can also draw on my pension plan without penalty.

Certainly there is more gray than even a year ago. Also a few more pounds and a bit less muscle than desired - though those are fixable with a bit of effort on my part. The gray is here to stay, because my hair stylist doesn’t want to color my hair and previous attempts at DIY hair coloring were less than satisfactory. I am also too cheap to commit to the ongoing expense of dollars and time needed to properly maintain colored hair.

I have no immediate plans to retire, but now the equation shifts as I continue to work. Do I need to work or do I want to work? Right now, I want to work. I’m learning and doing new things, which helps with the tedium of accounts payable. Every year I work now brings the goal of retiring without mortgage or student loan debt closer to reality. It’s a good goal, and I’m going to do my best to achieve it in four years time.

Comments

  1. Congrats on all your milestones! I personally like the gray (as you may have guessed). My best friend from childhood is now growing in her natural colour and getting flack from hairdressers when she just goes for a trim. They're probably afraid of losing the business. But there comes the time when artificially dark hair just makes you look older than the opposite desired effect.

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