A Blogger Looks At 50

Summary

• A theory of mine has long been that if you’re happy at home and like your job, then you have a much better chance of not dreading big round numbers.
• At 50, you probably start to take a closer look at your financial reality and begin to understand how on track you really are.
• I’ve talked many times before about the importance of living below your means.

By Roger Nusbaum, AdvisorShares ETF Strategist

Ten years ago, I wrote a post called A Blogger Looks At 40, which was a play on words of the Jimmy Buffett song, "A Pirate Looks At 40" (long story short, that post is no longer on the internet). Recently, I turned 50, which like other round numbers can be a good time to review and assess where you are in life.

Not much has changed in 10 years, but a lot has evolved. First, I will say it was not a difficult birthday. The only difficult one I've had was 25. I think I viewed that as a line in the sand between being a kid and being an adult. Also, I did not enjoy what I did for a living. A theory of mine has long been that if you're happy at home and like your job, then you have a much better chance of not dreading big round numbers.

Financial Planning

At 50, you probably start to take a closer look at your financial reality and begin to understand how on track you really are for whatever your idea of retirement might be. We've been good savers and maybe, kinda, sorta we could retire but a lot of things would have to go right including Social Security being there as advertised which is not enough of a margin of error for me. It would boil down to whether we would exhaust our savings by the time Social Security kicked in. In a poor market environment, it would be more likely that we would exhaust what we have and so have to give up a lot in short order, which seems unnecessary on multiple levels.

My wife and I have an ongoing bit that I have mentioned before where I say

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