Doing some financial planning

We've been semi-retired since 2007 when we sold our house at the age of 45 and bought a motorhome. We didn't plan to be semi retired... that's just the way it worked out, and it's the only description I can come up with when we look back on the last 18 years!

But because we did it the way we did, there were periods of time where we didn't have a lot of money.

And so we learned how to live our lives being very frugal travelers. 

I have all of our financial statistics dating back to the day we started out. I know exactly how much money we spent, and where we spent it. For example, I chose a random year... 2015... and looked at the total of how much money we spent that year. It was $22,688 CAD ($17,700 USD at the time).

Even in 2015, that was not very much money! And yet, we think we lived a great lifestyle. Going to Mexico and touring around during the winter, and returning to Canada to work for five months during the summer. Fantastic, in our minds!

But, fast forward to today. Of course everyone knows that inflation has been cutting into your purchasing power, and that same $22,688 that we spent in 2015 is now $29,494 CAD ($21,522 USD). 

Through a combination of luck, saving, and some wise investment decisions over the past ten years, we're now in a position where we don't need to be quite so frugal. But it's sometimes difficult to get ourselves past the saving and frugal mindset that we've always had, to actually spending what we have saved. I've read that it's a massive challenge for some to shift from saving to spending.

As an example, we did some splurging on a couple of expensive trips in both 2023 and 2024 and as a result, both those years were record highs in expenses. Between the two of them, they averaged out to $46,000 CAD ($33,500 USD) which sounds high to us.

This year, we are on track to spend about $39,000 CAD ($28,500 USD). 

But here's the thing. We can probably afford to spend $50,000 a year. So while there's nothing wrong with spending less than you could, we also don't want to end up with more money than we need because that would mean we worked more than we needed to!

I've always said that the only purpose of money is to make your life better. There's really no other reason to have it. So we're actively trying to spend more, while making sure that we're still getting good value. We don't mind paying out for something expensive, provided it gives good value. A good example is hiking boots. While $250 for a pair of boots sounds expensive, we think they are good value. It's like the discussion we had the other day about the WiFi cost on board our upcoming cruise. We can afford it, but it's not very good value!

Here's another example. We have spent a lot of time in airplanes. 

Our flight map.

We have been on 156 different airplanes since 2012!

And I have long legs. So it's always more comfortable for me to get an extra legroom seat. Especially on flights over two hours long. So one of our recent splurges is to pay for that extra legroom seat, which we never would have done during the frugal years. But it still depends on the extra price versus the length of the flight. 

In three weeks, we will be flying Barcelona to Halifax, a 7.5 hour flight. I had not bought the extra legroom seats because I thought they were too expensive. But I received a note from the airline saying they were on sale, and so I scooped us up a couple at $80 CAD ($58 USD) each. 

And, we're not even collecting our Canadian pensions yet. In Canada, we are entitled to the Canada Pension Plan (this is the one we paid into during our working lives) and the Old Age Security. This is the one that every Canadian gets when they turn 65. 

Our current plan is to start taking them both when we turn 65 (less than two years away!). That will give us another $30,000 a year or so, although that is taxable income.

Anyhow, it's an interesting transition from saving to spending. After all, you can't take it with you when you kick off!

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