Anyway, back to the 5-year thing. Anyone who's taken CALM 20 in high school will know that you should set yourself some 5-year goals and then work towards them. While I've never really sat down and made goals (except at work, where the annual review system forces us to), we do have a 5-year plan. We're currently just about to start our third 5-year plan. Let's look at a history of the 5-year plans to date:
Plan #1 - Ok, this one was basically "Let's stop being poor and eating beans on toast every night for dinner. Also, maybe we should start a family".
When we first got married, Kathryn and I were still in school. Neither of us had a job, unless you count sitting at Sweetgrass school every Saturday being a janitor while community basketball was being played in the gym. We thought it would be an awesome idea to buy a condo when we got married. You may or may not know this, but banks don't like to lend you money when you have no income. We managed to qualify for a mortgage with Kathryn's parents co-signing. Thus, the 5-year plan was born. My goal that I had in my head, though I never said it out loud, was to have her parents off of our mortgage.
Five years passed and our mortgage was up for renewal. Based on Kathryn's excellent banking skills (meaning, she deals with the banking and makes sure our credit rating is awesome) we were able to get a mortgage all on our own. Of course, what the bank didn't know is that my dad lent us a bunch of money to pay off a credit line in order for us to qualify for refinancing. 5-year plan #1 complete! (p.s., we had some kids by then too). A new 5-year plan was born: "Pay off my dad". Also, "get the mortgage away from the only company that would give us one 5 years ago and move it to our bank". Also also, "maybe we should think about paying off those credit cards too".
Now, five years later, we just made the last payment to my dad. And guess what? The mortgage is up for renewal again. We're in a lot better shape than we were 10 years ago. We're renewing our mortgage again, and can actually negotiate with the bank for a good rate. As a bonus, we can up the amount and get rid of all the debt. We'll be debt free (cause really, who counts a mortgage as debt). So, now it's time to formulate the new five year plan.
What's great about the new plan is this: "Emily will be old enough to babysit the other two in 5 years". Yes - I call that the "Freedom 40" plan. Once we can just leave Emily at home with a bag of chips, money for pizza and Popsicles in the fridge, we're golden. What else can I add to the plan? What about "Buy an Audi?" I will add that, but I think it may translate to "Build a garage" or "paint the bedroom"... oh well, maybe in 10 years.
