I wrote this on Mother’s Day, or, in my household, Step-Mother’s Day. My husband was kind enough to give me a card, and we spent a little time reminiscing, especially about the 5 years since our son graduated from college. Talking about his life doesn’t seem appropriate for this blog; but looking back to his graduation, we were amazed at how much more stressful our finances were then, compared with the life we have arranged for ourselves now.
The empty-nesters make progress
Even though we planned and worked at it, we were really surprised when we detailed all the improvements we have made in our financial lives.
Five years ago, our income was much the same, but the expenses were ever so different:
- We were at the tail end of 4 years of supporting a college student overseas. Rent wasn’t too bad, as he had a roommate, but a 22 year old guy EATS.
- We had decided to give a generous amount of money for a graduation present, with the hopes he would travel after school (he did).
- We paid off the last of Mr. PiN’s student loans with my annual bonus.
- We had just made the move to be a one-car family (aided by the kid’s car dying in a winter incident). Unfortunately, the one car we had was older, a formerly nice hand-me-down, that had been in an accident 2 years prior. The shop we took it to wasn’t 100% honest, and we kept finding problems related to the accident as time went on.
- We were really at the beginning of our quest to pay off the mortgage.
So, basically, I was contributing the maximum to retirement accounts, and saving money for a new(er) car. I needed my job, and the full time salary. I tried never to count on bonuses, which was good, since they weren’t always that big.
Fast forward 5 years (not that long in the grand scheme of things), and our lives are much easier.
- We support only ourselves regularly. Though we might occasionally buy groceries for my in-laws, or bring food to the kid during the pandemic, this is a negligible cost compared to room and board for a college student.
- We have no more worries about student loans. They are gone.
- We have a car which, knock wood, is holding up well. It’s no longer brand new, but it’s still quite young. We still have to send a car payment in each month, which I don’t love, but at 0% interest, I can’t quite bring myself to divert savings to pay it off faster. We should be done with this in a little over a year, and by then we should have enough put away in a car fund so that we can pay cash whenever we decide we need to replace it.
- Starting with the car fund (which we threw towards the mortgage once we secured our 0% car loan), we were able to apply other windfalls–mostly increasing annual bonuses–towards the mortgage. As of August 2019, we were done paying off the house.
The car payment is a bit of a minus, but we have lots of extra cash flow now that we aren’t supporting a second household or paying the mortgage on ours. This gives us breathing room and options, which is especially helpful now. We can buy a new fridge if we need it, or I can take a pay cut (which could happen given the pandemic’s effects on our practice) without too much fiscal pain.
Even though all these moves (getting the kid off the payroll, paying off the mortgage, saving money by becoming a one-car family) were planned, I don’t think I could have anticipated how much easier life would feel once the budget wasn’t as pinched.
So this is a reminder to me, and to you, that life can get better. And that what seems like an endless time from the early side (5 years, that’s forever!!) seems like a blink of the eye from the late side (5 years, is that all it’s been?).
Where were you 5 years ago? Are you sometimes surprised to look back and see how much has changed? Where do you hope to be 5 years from now?