Hey everyone, it’s Whatever Wednesdays again. Today is going to be a fun post about “Predicting the Future”.

Predicting the Future?

Yea, let’s pretend it’s been 15 years. So it’s 2034.

So what’s 2034 like?

2034 means my daughter Kylie is 21 years old and will be starting her senior year in college. Where that is I’m not really sure. My current guess is that she leaves Hawaii and goes to college on the mainland if she is anything like my wife and I, since we both left home for college. However, we’ll see what happens.

My son Lucas will be 18 years old, just about to turn 19. He’ll be starting his first year in college. For some reason, I think that there is a higher likelihood that Lucas will want to stay home and go to University of Hawaii. However, there is still plenty of time for that to change.

So August 2034 would be Kylie preparing for her senior year and Lucas will be gearing up for his freshman year. I imagine it will be pretty emotional for my wife and I to send our kids off. I can already see my wife crying as she sends the kids off for college whether its to the mainland or staying close at University of Hawaii.

What about you?

Well, in 2034, I’d be right around 20 years into my job. If you recall, I kind of planned for a 20 Year Career. I think that with Lucas leaving for college and Kylie finishing up, I will most likely be looking into trying to drop down to part time. I think my ideal scenario would be to allow me to do approximately half of a full time position which would balance out to 4 days on 10 days off. I’m not exactly sure of it would be possible, but that would be ideal.

If I could do part-time work I’d probably just keep doing that until I was in my 60s and retire completely whenever it felt right…

What about your wife?

I think that my wife will probably already have dropped down to part-time sometime before 2034. At this point I think there would be serious consideration to go into early retirement once the kids start college.

Obviously, things can change depending on finances and retirement, etc. However, that is the plan currently. I would hope that by then our student loans are paid off and the mortgage will be paid down a good amount. Things could potentially change based on how the 529s are doing and whether the kids received any kind of scholarship and whether there are plans for graduate school. However, if my wife really wanted to go into early retirement, I would just stay full time for a little longer to make sure things were ok financially for the kids and college.

How would the retirement be looking?

Well, since my wife and I both work for the governments, we’d be getting pretty deep into our pensions. Like I said above, I’d be right around 20 years, and my wife would probably be around 15-18 years depending on how long she was part-time by this point.

Then of course the 20 years of 401k (TSP) with its match and the Backdoor Roth IRAs and retirement is looking pretty good at this point. I’m not sure how close to My Number I would be by this point, but I’d hope that we’d be pretty close.

What about the house?

I don’t think I’m ever selling my house. I might consider downsizing to a condo at some point in retirement maybe, but I plan to keep our house in the family. Perhaps we’ll try to rent it out or maybe the kids will need to use it to get on their feet when they get back from college.

Either way, this house is the house my kids will grow up in and I plan to pass it down to them. I would hope that it never leaves the family, but that will be up to the kids and the grandkids later on.

Anything else?

Yea.

I think I would be considering dropping our life insurance in 2034. Then depending on whether my wife goes into early retirement or not, we may be dropping her disability insurance. However, I don’t foresee any changes to my umbrella insurance — like ever.

TL;DR

Just a fun post about predicting the future… and what might be happening in 2034.

-Sensei

Agree? Disagree? Questions, Comments and Suggestions are welcome.

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