What We Worry About When We’ve Achieved Our Immediate Financial Goals

What do we do with our money now?

Yesterday, Billfolder Duckles asked:

Can we talk more about this? I’m in the position of maxing out my 401k, and I have enough savings, so… do you save for the house you don’t really want? Kids you might never have? Misfortunes you hope to never happen?

“This,” in this case, refers to what happens after you’ve already achieved your most immediate financial goals: paying off debt, setting aside an emergency fund, maxing out your 401(k).

We were discussing yesterday how to handle the transition from “broke” to “not broke,” and the accompanying worries and financial pressures. Today, let’s discuss what happens in the transition from “not broke” to “okay, I’ve dealt with my immediate financial stresses, I’ve got an emergency fund, I’ve paid down my credit card debt, I’m saving for retirement and steadily paying off my student loans… what do I do now?”

What We Worry About When We’re No Longer Broke

My immediate response, when I think about this question—which is probably something I’m going to be dealing with in 2017—is save more for retirement. There were a few years when I wasn’t saving anything at all, and even though I was lucky enough to have a 403(b) that continued to grow along with the market during those years, I still feel like I’m behind on retirement savings.

When I’m thinking about “retirement” I’m actually thinking about the cost of supporting myself when I am no longer able to work, which might come sooner than the typical retirement age. During my last Well Woman checkup, my OB-GYN told me I was as healthy as could be, and said something along the lines of “and you don’t have anything to worry about.” To which I responded “Well, something will happen someday, right?” and he said that there was no reason to anticipate any health issues as long as I kept eating right and exercising and… um… I’m not the one with the medical degree, but I’m not sure it works that way.

So yeah, when I think of what to do with extra money I think “I need to save for the time when I won’t be able to earn money, or when I have a major health issue, or when someone close to me has a major health issue.”

I could in theory save for a house or a condo. But, like Duckles, I’m not sure I really want that. Or, to flip it around, I want a lot of other stuff more. Mostly time and brainspace. I don’t want to buy a house because I want to revise my novel. (I know some of you are going to think that’s the weirdest thing ever—and some of you will know exactly what I mean.)

On the plus side, it’ll take at least two good years to save up for a down payment, and by then I’ll have the novel revised regardless, so maybe that’s what I should do with my money. If something happens to my health, or if I lose all of my freelancing gigs, I’ll also have those savings to spend down.

Or maybe I should divide that money between “down payment” and “retirement,” because the last thing I want is to spend the next two or three years not maxing out my retirement options. I don’t know. Honestly, whenever I think about what to do with that “extra” money, I only think so far as gathering it into a big pile, and figuring out where to put that pile that isn’t a 0.75 percent interest savings account.

What about you? What do you think about, when you think about your next stage of financial planning?

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