After her thirty-ninth birthday, my wife suddenly realized that she was headed into her forties without having achieved some of her big life dreams. She set a deadline of 2020 to travel to and live in England for a year. She set this time because she is busy with Graduate School and her job. She figures she will be done with her studies and have landed some reasonable employment by then.
In my case, I was having a crisis of my own. I too was wondering what happened to my youth, and what I had to show for it. I was struggling to find good work, had no savings, had unreliable transportation, and was overall going down a dark path.
Despite all that, my wife's dream helped push me over the edge. You have probably heard cliched stories about how the protagonist hits their lowest point when, suddenly, something inside them clicks. From there on out, they take control of their lives and turn things around in triumph. They got sick and tired of being sick and tired, vowing to make things better. Well, that was me. Dammit, I was going to help my wife live out her dream.
And so, since that time a few years back, I have been learning more about personal finance and learning the ropes of investing. I even coughed up the cash to take a trip to San Francisco for an investing seminar related to real estate. My jobs have progressively improved in quality and income. My savings are growing. I have investment goals on the horizon once I have sufficient capital.
When thinking about this trip to England, I pulled a number out of the air, about $20K, for how much I would need to save to make the dream real. I think that given our present circumstances, we will likely meet the goal and surpass it. I have not sat down and thought through exactly how much we will need. Prices change and we will no longer need cars and a house during those months away. As we get closer, I intend to get a bit more serious about the numbers.
I'm not getting into the details about our income and Expenses on this post. I want to focus on sharing with you what one of our long-term goals is. It turns out that we may have to modify the goal because of limits on tourist visas, which unintentionally makes things more feasible.
This trip is at the center of many of my decisions. I need passive income. I need savings. I need travel credit cards. I need a crapload of points to pay for airfare. I need a job, like writing, that I can do from anywhere in the world. I need life insurance in case something happens to me before our trip. All of these topics will be the focus of this blog. Just keep in mind that at the center of all my knowledge and decisions until 2020, it comes down to making my wife's dream a reality.
What about after our trip? I don't know. I suspect, we will still have passive income. I should still be able to write. We can both go back to jobs. Whatever happens after, we will both be much better off than when the idea first came.