Sometimes plans change.

And in this case, our timeline for retirement. We originally had planned on retiring in early 2023. However, in the course of the last 9 months so much has changed.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

We, like many others, rode the wave of the stock market that was on the rise for the past two years. And in a blink of an eye, two years’ growth was wiped out. We originally had planned to move the money to safer funds but decided to continue to ride the wave instead. We are still far ahead of the game, being that savings rates have been dismal.

History tells us that the market will come back. In the meantime, we have decided to save cash and use some online savings accounts, CDs, and I Bonds, to secure 3 years’ worth of expenses. We also plan to pay off the mortgage within 18 months. That will put us in a much better position if it takes a little longer for our retirement accounts to recover.

However, in order to complete the above plan, we will need to add a year or two to our timeline for retirement. (As you can see from my header, I am no longer putting a definite timeframe on our retirement.)

I know we are fortunate to be able to make that decision. There are retirees out there who don’t have that choice. Hopefully, most of them have secured their savings in safer investments. I know we will start doing that with our investments little by little until we feel secure in the amount we have to live on.

Could we still retire today if we so chose? Yes. But it wouldn’t feel nearly as secure as it did just nine short months ago.

Anyone else holding off their retirement date?