Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Time or Money

In your life which is more important, time or money?  Years ago, when we could finally afford to, we made the decision to take early retirement.  We'd put away every bit of money that the government would let us put away tax free, pay off our bills and work toward that retirement.  We didn't have to retire early, I liked teaching and the 3 months a year it gave us off, we  could have kept working for years and put away an even bigger nest egg to retire on.  Our salaries were increasing every year, our investments were growing well, but we decided that time was more important than the money.
We have a comfortable retirement, we travel, we buy the "toys" we want to have, we don't have to scrimp, and in fact our investments continue to grow.  If we'd kept working we'd have twice as much money as we do have, but that money couldn't buy the happiness that retirement has brought us.  We go to bed as late as we want, sleep as late as we want, Mac's learned to play the guitar, I to play the piano, he paints all the time, we grow a garden every year and travel to see our daughter twice as often as we use to.
We love spending time in each other's company, we always have and that hasn't grown old.  We've had a happy life with many wonderful memories, but, as I told him the other day, I think that I've just had the happiest 10 years of my life.  I'm thankful every day that we took the time and not the money.

5 comments:

  1. If you have the choice then time over money any day - just so long as there's enough money to keep the wolf from the door:)

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  2. Looks like you made good decisions, and wise choices..and now it's paying off big time.

    Congrats for planning ahead. Would be great if more people would follow your plan.

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  3. It sounds just perfect, we have always planned to retire as early as possible and enjoy life a bit more, however the finishing post keeps moving!

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  4. It sounds like a fine 10 years--keep it going!

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  5. I can identify with you in this post.

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