Where We Stand Today
Every story needs a moment where the past catches up to the present. This is ours.
Back in 2009, Jeff and I were both laid off at the same time, and upside down in our mortgage. We'd spent the years before that just living, spending what we earned, never really thinking the money could disappear. 2009 made sure we never thought that way again. We rebuilt, slowly, and we got more careful. But careful didn't mean we stopped living. If anything, it's when the real travel years started.
Before we ever called this a plan, people around us were already surprised by it. How grand our trips to Europe had gotten. How generous we were about bringing friends, family, and neighbors along with us. We were paying for every bit of it before we ever left, so nobody saw debt, they just saw the trips. What they didn't see yet was the shift happening underneath it, we were moving from "spend what we earn" to something more deliberate: funding the future of this exact lifestyle, on purpose, instead of just affording the next trip as it came.
That shift is really what this whole site is about. Not just taking trips. Building toward a life where the trips don't stop when the paycheck does.
In fact, we're headed to Paris soon, with our granddaughter and my cousin in tow, which is about as on-brand as it gets for us. We don't wait for the "right time" to make memories with the people we love. We've never been a couple who does small when we can do meaningful instead.
So here's where we actually stand. Jeff and I are both 55 now. Jeff's retirement target is 62, which means we're looking at roughly seven years from here to there. That's the countdown. Starting now, not after the math is finished, not after we know exactly how it ends. While we're still living it.
If you've made it through all four of these posts, the wedding in Mexico, where our money stories started, the moments that changed everything, and now this one, you know everything we know walking in. From here, we're going to show you the actual seven years as they happen, month by month, the wins, the adjustments, the trips, all of it.
It's never too late to start. Ours starts today.
