I know that time is marching on. Those ahead of me were right. It goes by so quickly. I compare it to a roll of toilet paper – the closer to the end, the fast it goes.

So planning is more important to me than ever before. The two best times to plan are twenty years ago and second, right now. Pretty simple.

My financial planning started as soon as I earned my first quarter—no allowance for me. The importance of planning for my retirement started with my first paycheque. A lot of my employment was without a pension plan, so I put away money every month for decades. We had a lower lifestyle over that time with the plan – or was it a hope – that my retirement years would be financially ok.

I’ll let you know closer to the end of my retirement.

As I age, my planning horizon is closer but no less critical.

For my personality, I do better with a structure. I don’t mind changing it when I need to, but I need a plan to keep me healthy mentally and physically. For instance, I have a plan to create these Blogs. To avoid unexpected events that could add stress, I wrote two blogs each week for six months. That gave me a 6-month cushion of blogs I could quickly post if, for some reason, I was not able to write it at the time of posting. Now I have two dates set in my calendar. Each Sunday, I do a final read/edit of the blog set for posting the following Sunday. On Thursdays, I spend time creating the close to the final draft of a future blog. I find a picture, do the formatting and save it so I can later pair it up with the written Blog.

After a few months of the pandemic, I had an idea to try a Great Cross Canada Road Trip in the summer of 2022. Initially, I thought it might be a 50:50 chance of actually happening. I puttered away on that idea, turned it into a plan and now can look back on a fabulous adventure. This has provided me with hours of pleasure, listing A-level attractions to some less known attractions. Oak Island in Nova Scotia deserves some time.

There is a little unincorporated community of Bear River in New Brunswick. It is in no man’s land without any local government taking responsibility. They have had to evolve into a cooperative, so community ties are vital; snow clearing, garbage and utilities. So interesting. And they have a good coffee shop, Sissiboo. I can’t resist. Oh, did I say there was a winery, as well?

Please, give this a bit of a think. What is a comfortable amount of planning that works for you? Are you matching the need? What is one thing you could do differently to get a more significant benefit from your planning?

I’m curious about your thoughts. Please share your bit of a think below.

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

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And my thanks to St. Albert Seniors Association: 780-459-0433 for making this Blog possible.

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TheBlog@stalbertseniors.ca