The title to this post is a play on words from the Jimmy Buffett song A Pirate Looks At 40. This is an ongoing series that started when I was 40 with the intention of sort of updating the post at milestone birthdays. The point is to track how my views on various things might evolve or change dramatically and to hold myself accountable for any lifestyle opinions/advice I might write about.
There's been enough going on in my life to warrant doing this every year now for the time being. Here are the previous posts from this series.
- A Blogger Looks At 40
- A Blogger Looks At 50
- A Blogger Looks At 55
- A Blogger Looks At 56
- A Blogger Looks At 57
I think there is an arc to these if you care to check out the older posts. Here's where I am having turned 58 earlier this month.
A frequent topic to our lifestyle posts is the importance of figuring out what things we actually care about. We all have different priorities to pursue or maintain, the point I am making is to not waste time pursuing what turns out to be the wrong set of priorities. Owning my time, setting my own schedule is a huge priority for me, far more so than chasing a big career. I paid my dues with jobs during my 20's into my mid-30's but as I've said before, an investment advisor doesn't move to Prescott, AZ expecting to build a $1 billion practice.
On the personal finance front, not much had changed over the 12 months. I've mentioned in other posts that in my early to mid 50's I focused on beefing up our taxable savings in case we had some sort of problem. Over the last year, I swung back to a relatively large 401k contribution. At 58, I am only 18 months from penalty free withdrawals from my 401k. If something catastrophic happened with my job as was almost the case in early 2023 (partners of old firm got in trouble) could we last on taxable savings for at least a year and a half? The next question would be could we last until I turn 62, four years obviously, until I can take Social Security early?
If I can make it to 62 without having to tap IRAs, how much longer could we last? I've been of the same mind on taking SS when I am 70 for the simple reason that my wife is six years younger than me. If I die young, or young-ish, she'd get a larger survivor benefit. If I can hold off taking it until 70, I would encourage my wife to take her benefit at the same time, 64 and two months for her. My payout would be maxed out, hers would not.
I think it makes sense to figure out what you would do if your hand was forced with your primary income source. I write about that a lot and we've created other income streams in case something crazy does happen and things don't work out. We have a short term rental and this summer I will take one or two training assignments as a liaison officer on large fires, both of which I've talked about many times. Living below your means will prove invaluable if you ever are in a tough spot too.
An expression I like very much is that you never know what the future you will want to do. For many years, I've said I did not want to retire from what I do for a living realizing that is the sort of thing that I could change my mind at some point. Twenty years later and I am still in the same place, not wanting or planning to retire. At the same time though, being able to retire (we'd have to dial back some discretionary spending) is very empowering. Not worrying about money which in our case is more about living below our means has made our life much easier.
When I talk about doing favors for the "future you," I'm well past the point of starting reap the benefits of a couple of simple decisions we made when we were much younger related to living below our means and continuing to exercise. Your 40's, 50's and I'm guess 60's can be a great period if you've got some independence with a little money in the bank (not necessarily wealthy) and can still get it done physically. Hopefully that applies to all ages from here.
Exercise and diet continue to be huge parts of my life. I stay in shape for several reasons. First is for me in order to be able to do what I want to do (health span) and do what I need to do. For my wife, I figure she would prefer I am able bodied forever which is probably a clunky way to say it. She works out with me now so maybe she feels the same way. Also, I am setting an example at the firehouse on a couple of different levels. I got a nice compliment from a FD colleague who said I very much lead from the front. Being able to get it done physically is important. I try to set an example for the firefighters close to my age that they can be fit and also for the young guys, showing that fifty whatever doesn't have to be old. When I first joined the department in 2003, there were "older" guys who set the same example for me that I am trying to set that example forward. It would be nice to give up being fire chief in a couple of years or so, I'm 12+ years in and 15 years seems like a good term. I hope to continue being a firefighter until I'm holy shit, how old is that dude?
We have some intermediate term planning/spending needs and we've started in on them. We upgraded our 4runner. We had a 2003 and upgraded to 2023. That's kind of a big expense of course but it is now behind us. We have a bunch of smaller projects on the house that we are knocking out this year. Eventually we'll have to replace the Tundra too. Our ATV, used for plowing snow, will also need to be upgraded. Plowing snow beats the hell out of ATVs but our road is not county maintained so it is something we have to do.
I write often about unexpected, unbudgetable on off expenses. Over the last few years, we've been less lucky on this front. We had a septic issue that cost about $3000 before it was hopefully solved.
It is interesting to see what beliefs are staying generally the same even if evolving slightly like not wanting to retire, my ongoing involvement at Walker Fire and my devotion to staying fit. I am also aware of a couple of quirks that are also evolving. My interest in self-sufficiency has increased. I've talked about this, I am not any sort of doomsday person but the chances for inconvenience appear to have increased. We saw this on a societal level at the start of the pandemic. That was a corner I was able to look around as I wrote about back then, just by getting a couple of weeks ahead of our food needs and Costco paper goods.
I've talked about the grid here being fragile and old which is why we added solar awhile back. We've had three, week-long power outages since we've lived here. The grid itself is old and while the power company has gotten better about fixing outages much quicker, some sort of problem again leading to a long outage seems plausible. They also announced a plan to cut power in the face of expected wind events during fire season. It's not like I'm wading into creeks and catching fish barehanded, I just want to minimize the hassle.
From 57 to 58, I don't feel any great enlightenment. I'm grateful to be healthy and happy and I'll add another one that I read something about in the Wall Street Journal a month or so ago which is not having anything to prove. I probably haven't had anything to prove for a while but I've never articulated it that way to myself before.
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