Do you want to retire?

Then get your finances in order.

Of course, if  you’re soon going to hit that magic age, it may seem a bit late to worry about.  But, hopefully, you’ve learned to be a bit frugal along the way – put a little bit away – learned not even to try to keep up with the Joneses ( Like the pitiful guy on the television commercial who shows off his beautiful house, his big new car, the golf club membership and then admits “I’m up to my eyeballs in debt!” – poor guy – no – poor stupid guy.)

My husband and I learned years ago it’s not how much money you bring in, it’s how wise you are using whatever that amount is. So, clear upthose credit card balances before you are ready to retire and then make it a practice to alwayspay your credit card off each month.  We also feel you should try your very best to have your home paid off – no mortgage in otherwords.

Remember, you’ll most likely want to downsize – why worry about having to clean and care for a 4-bedroom home when you really just want to go get another round of golf in?  Hopefully you can sell that big money-drainer and get something easy to take care of and put a good chunk of cash in your pocket.

I have a chart in my book that actually has the figures and compares living expenses where welived with those expenses we would probably experience in Mexico. Actually, during the time Dick and I were exploring in order to decide where we would spend these precious years, we had charts for everything – and we even had a chart about what we wanted in a house what would be really important to us – what was necessary and what we’d like but could do without– we really are detail folks, I guess!