Ten years from now?

Where do you see yourself ten years from now financially?

Well, first of all, I hope I'm still married to Mr. Dimes! He's a good guy and marriage usually makes financial sense-- divorce is costly too! Hopefully he'll be onboard with my goals and we'll make great progress together.

Within the next ten years, I suspect we'll have a child or two. Since it's not likely that we will be able to markedly improve our financial situation after we have children, we're working hard to shape it up now. Those ankle biters cost money! I will probably be out of the workforce if the children are little, so it's important that we don't become reliant on two incomes to make ends meet. At this point we're more than meeting our obligations on Mr. Dimes's income, so when children come along, we should be able to make it work.

I really hope my husband stays in the military. He may complain about it sometimes and will probably have to go away for extended periods, but the benefits of military life (and military health insurance) are undeniable. Also in ten years he'll be over halfway to earning a military pension when he retires. That will give us a lot of freedom.

My student loans should be ancient history by then, even though they're not technically due until 2024. It's cheap debt, yes, but why drag it out? And naturally, when we have kids, we'll start 529 plans for them. While important, the 529s will be funded only after our Roths have been fully funded. Our retirement comes first. I suspect there will be some overhaul of the student loan system and maybe we'll end up over-saving for college. That would be nice.

Interestingly enough, I don't imagine we'll own a house. Yes, real estate will have totally cycled by then, but with the transient lifestyle of the military, I can't see us jumping in and buying anywhere. If that were the case, more likely than not my husband would end up a geobachelor, and our family dynamic would suffer. I certainly wouldn't want to be a landlord on a house I didn't own outright. We'll probably be working on a downpayment for when we finally leave the military and decide to purchase.

Over the next ten years, I think the focus will be on saving money and creating our nest egg. I doubt we'll have a lot of investment income outside of retirement accounts, but hopefully soon thereafter there will be a shift in that direction. I hope our retirement nest egg will be at least $100K. I'm not generally a Nostradamus, but I imagine there will be a big stock market crash between 2015 and 2019 thanks to the Boomers. We're trying to work out contingencies if that happens.

The most likely events that would derail our plans would be death or serious injury, divorce, having a child born with a particularly devastating medical condition, or having other family members (parents, siblings) start to hassle us for support. While I feel that we should be able to get along fine, family moochers can bring about ruin very quickly. We will definitely have to figure out what to do if a parent, sister, or cousin starts hitting us up for cash every month or so.

Overall, I'm pretty optimistic of our future. In less than three years we've purchased a (certified used) car, furnished a dwelling, created nearly $20K in retirement savings, and paid down about $10K in student debt. We also have an emergency cushion of about 4 months' regular expenses. At this pace, we should make a lot of progress over the next ten years.