The Decision - Summer 2017

Scott and I have long planned for an early retirement however the details were never clear. At 52 (Scott) and 56 (me) respectively, Scott especially felt a bit young and worried about the unexpected.


How much money would we need? This depends on how much we spend and how long we live so it's hard to know specifically.


I was in a job where although my co-workers were great I found myself extremely stressed. During a doctors visit, discussing the stress my doctor asked " Do you need to work? ". The question stopped me cold and I wondered if it was possible. I asked Scott the same question. Do I need to work? Does he need to work?


After a lot of discussion and figuring we realized we could do it if sold the house. Hmmm!!! Sell our "dream" house, literally designed by us, built by us, not to mention I finally had a really cool craft area.  WOW!! The house wasn't even finished yet.

Scott and Uncle Blythe working on the porch

We also owned a Hickory Dickory Decks franchise with work still needing to be completed. We wouldn't realize any profit if we sold it now. Was it worth it or should we wait?

Enjoying the finished product

In addition to my stress, Scott had had cancer a couple of years earlier. Although he had a clean bill of health, we had also lost Scott's sister Joanne to cancer and our brother-in-law Carl to heart failure, both at the age of 50.  We talked and talked, measured and weighed, and talked some more.

Bottom line,  who knows what the future holds, we will need to watch our expenses and we may need to work again down the road but there is no time like the present and we decided we'd do what we needed to do to make the most of it.

When we got back from our vacation in PEI (Prince Edward Island) I let my boss know I"d be leaving December 15th, 2017. This would hopefully give her enough time to find a bilingual replacement which isn't always the easiest.

Kayaking on Malpeque Bay PEI Summer 2017

We made a comprehensive list of what needed to be finished on the house in order to sell it. This included the basement (complete bathroom, laundry, mud the walls and ceilings, paint, flooring, a permanent staircase downstairs), the outdoor window trim as well as putting railing and decking on our wrap around porch. NOT a short list.

While this was going on we needed to find a motor-home and seriously downsize.

The wheels were in motion so we just got to it.

Note with hindsight in our favor a year later: It's been a year and we spending more than we planned which means we will need to add to our savings. That includes working on the house we bought in PEI to gain equity, renting it out through the summers (decided when we bought it), likely working at different things through the years and watching our expenses more closely. No regrets or second thoughts at leaving work early though. We're enjoying life while we are healthy and going with the flow to make it work. How knows what the future holds.