another sahm here
Sigh, yes. When I first wrote out our financial goals 15 years ago, they were to have the house paid off, money for the kids college, and lots of money in the retirement acct, and be debt free.
Well here we are, 3 houses later, and lost money on the moving, so that we are facing retirement WITH a mtg and for us it's a big one. Something I was sure we would have killed off by now.
But the kids are going thru their university degrees debt free, and they make enough with their part time jobs to pretty much pay their way. We buy their books from the savings we put by earlier, and their grandparents pay the tuition. They cover the remainder plus clothing, gasoline, bus fare, car insurance etc.
They both own their own cars debt free and they both have money in the bank. Good healthy savings.
We had to cash in our RRSP's again (had to clean them out when we moved her 3 yrs ago, we lost so much on selling the other house, we barely made it out at all, so that was our down payment)
The car needed replacing this year so we cashed them in again.
However on the plus side we are debt free, paid cash for the replacement car, the kids are nearly thru their degrees, and we don't owe anything except the mtg.
And even that isn't too bad, we've been paying a bit extra on it which should help. It's a house we plan to retire in, small but easy to keep up, and in a good neighborhood near the buses and shopping.
If worst came to worst I could rent out a bedroom to a student, the basement rec room in fact, and the student could have the downstairs half bathroom (there is a sink and toilet down there).
the house is close to the university bus route, and it's not far about 10 minutes by bus.
Even if dh had to take early retirement next year, (he could if he wanted, he qualifies) we could manage. We don't expect to, that is a worst case scenario. He is 52 and they can't make him retire till 65 so there are a few more years to rebuild our finances.
We talk it over every once in a while, and he is happy with our progress, and truthfully so am I.
It isn't where I'd expected to be
BUT I'm still a SAHM which was one of our top priorities and life is good.