One of our goals this year is to get a better handle on our family budget. As we hurtle toward retirement, being able to live comfortably when we are spending well below our income is a big goal.
Both of us have seen far too many people need to keep working well past when they would rather have retired because their expenses were too great to be able to stop and enjoy their lives. We've also seen far too many people retire, and then have to find some other part-time employment or something else to cover rising medical or other expenses that weren't planned for earlier.
We're very blessed in that we have the means to live well, because we have both worked very hard to get us to this point and continue to do so.
But that doesn't mean we ought to just take it for granted that will always be the case, or that we shouldn't be more thoughtful about how we use our resources. Using them more wisely is always a good goal.
One way to enjoy what we already have more while spending less is to get our home where we want it to be -- comfortable, cozy, inviting, less cluttered -- so that spending time at home is preferable to going out, spending more money and buying crap you don't need.
I've been looking around our house lately with that sort of eye toward what is working for us and what is not.
