We started from zero in our fifties

Eh, very late 40s to be exact. I still knew no debt when Alex and I met.
I still had my savings account of a few months’ salary put away in some GICs. I was diligently paying my rent and bills and supporting my kids to the extent I could. Being good kids, they never asked for anything, so I may have been oblivious to their needs and stresses, especially in comparison to their classmates.

Alex had some RRSP savings. I’d say about a year and a half his annual earnings which wasn’t that much when we met. On the top of it his divorce wasn’t finalised. His ex-wife, having a good government pension plan, would still take a big chunk of his RRSP, just because she could. It was either this or spending the money on lawyers. Money comes and goes: health doesn’t. We had each other. Let her take it all, I remember telling him. We’d make it somehow. Yet I don’t want him to ever talk to her again. It was mean by any definition of the word, but divorce is not about fairness. I had started from zero a few times already and I made it so far. As long as we had each other, we’d make it.

And we did. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be retired before the age of 65. We both thought we’d be working way beyond 65 or even 70. And by most of the standards of retirement here, if we asked any financial adviser, if we talked to those that have retired, by all the measures, we should probably still be working.

We started late. We started from near zero. Neither of us has pension plan, company or otherwise. I began contributing to RRSPs after we got together. RRSPs with modest growth is all we have. Plus, our house of course. We still had and have to live somewhere. It is either pay rent or mortgage, but we’ll discuss this later. And we want to retire a couple of years early?

We were lucky to have had what we consider good incomes, although unstable and often with big gaps in between contracts or employment. Yet two salaries are much better than one. For the short period of 15 years from when we got together and when I stopped earning, we had accumulated our RRSPs and had our house paid off.

Why I am writing all this? Maybe with the hope that someone else spending sleepless nights and worrying how in hell they would retire or even make it through, like me for years, will take note.

We met late and we didn’t have much time to enjoy each others company, I told Alex once. Besides, his almost nine years old health issues are not going away. We want to see some of the world. We want to travel, while we can, before it is too late or before his condition gets less stable.

One can live on little and still enjoy it. One can travel on little and still enjoy it. It is a matter of attitude and prudence of course.

By now I have learned to trust (eh somewhat, I always have to check it myself) Alex’s accounting skills and his budget Excel spreadsheets. A few years ago, he had created one for my sake, trying to show me that, given some assumptions of course, we’d be OK in our retirement years. If only markets don’t crash, if only the inflation rate is somewhat normal, etc. It didn’t reduce my sleepless nights at the beginning, but tracking our expenses for a few years and analysing what from our spending we could cut, what is our base, what is discretionary, etc. it grew on me. I became more confident that we can make it.

This is our first full year when we have to actually live on our “retirement” budget. So far, we are on track. We have travelled about 100 days and know that we can use our travelling money for much longer if we travel slower. During our travels so far, we have carefully managed expenses, including balancing time in more expensive West European countries with visits to much cheaper East European destinations.

What is our budget? Put it like this: both our incomes will be in the lowest tax bracket in Canada. Hard to explain this to some Bulgarian friends. Yes, we still pay taxes, even on our savings, here. We both will be eligible for all government credits/supplements for lower income retirees, when we reach the age of 65 (i.e. soon!). Of this one third is for our travelling (only to a certain age of course), one third goes towards the house (taxes, utilities, maintenance – just pray no major appliance breaks or major reno needed) and the last third is for living – food, clothes, cars, transportation, entertainment, etc.

How long can we keep it up? Only time will tell.