Travel, study abroad, work abroad – do it when you are young and stop saving for a future that may never come:
James’ decision to go on a solo journey was borne out of tragedy.
She watched her mother battle early onset Alzheimer’s from age 48 to her death a year and a half ago at 63. It spurred James to seize the moment and launch her adventures.
“My parents had done everything right according to the American culture. They got married. They raised three kids … They had good jobs … they paid off the house,” she says. “They had big plans for their retirement, but my mom didn’t make it to retirement.”
She’s gone on 34 dates in 19 countries over the past year. Here’s what she’s learned | CNN
Today we ate breakfast with a 70-year-old, who like us, made her first trip to Europe last year, late in life. She was staying at the hotel we were at because her husband just had back surgery (fortunately, very successful outcome!). They will be traveling again to Europe in just a couple of months.
But this illustrates that bad things can happen – especially to one’s health, as we get old. Yet many of us (her, her husband, us, others) were brought up to constantly save for the future and only enjoy life once we reached our retirement.
Today, we now know that many people will oversave for retirement (most college educated fall into this group, and especially most everyone employed in professional jobs) – but miss critical and important life experiences on the way – only to find that pandemics, injuries, health, even and early death, limit or eliminate abilities and options as we get older.
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