The Accounting Hat: My Italian Vacation

I have to say I’m so excited for My Italian Vacation. It’s 30 years away but I’m saving for it alreaday. Well actually I already have the money saved.

Brian and I decided to focus a large portion of our savings on our retirement. To be honest, it’s not easy. We see friends who go on vacation after vacation or buying big ticket items all the time and instead we save. We don’t eat out much, but instead save enough money to eat out a few times over at our favourite gourmet restaurants.

Having worked in finance and with retirement advisors I know what you realistically need to retire with to live the same lifestyle that you do now. And to start saving later in life is a lot harder. Brian has money come off his pay ever time to go to his pension so we don’t even count that in our budget, and who knows how his pension will look in 30 years so we have to save above and beyond that.

The other side of the planning coin is life insurance. No one wants to think about the possibly of them not being here anymore, or worse, their spouse not being there anymore. But I need to know that Brian is taken care of, and goodness if we both pass away that Grayson is taken care of. It’s also a lot less expensive to get when you’re young.

The amount of money we save between RESP’s RRSP’s and the premiums for life insurance is more money than we save in a year for vacation. And the amount of money we put into our RRSP’s in a year will more than pay for my Italian vacation when it comes around in 30 years. As much as I would love to vacation a few times a year now, I love the idea that because we’re able to save now I can have some fabulous dream vacations when we retire.