Retirement Stopped Being a Goal

Transcript: 

Jack Butala:                         Jack and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:                            Hi.

Jack Butala:                         Welcome to the Jack Jill Show, entertaining real estate and investment talk. I'm Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:                            I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.

Jack Butala:                         Today, Jill and I talk about how retirement stopped being an actual goal, quite some time ago. You know why? 'Cause I feel rewarded.

Jill DeWit:                            You know what happened-

Jack Butala:                         Helping everybody.

Jill DeWit:                            Well, you know what happened to me? I remember thinking for me, what made me think of this topic when we were discussing it the other day, we used to have these numbers in our heads. "Okay, we're gonna do this by 50, do this by 55."

Jack Butala:                         Yeah, that's right.

Jill DeWit:                            "This by 60." We had all these different goals and then I realized we don't talk about them anymore.

Jack Butala:                         We really don't. We don't talk about numbers.

Jill DeWit:                            Right. And I used to think that, "Okay, by X dates, I want to have, or X year or X age, I want to have this accomplished because that means I can stop whatever I'm doing, or take my foot off the gas," whatever I was looking for at the time. And now I just don't even talk about it. It's so funny.

Jack Butala:                         I agree. It's healthy.

Jill DeWit:                            Thank you.

Jack Butala:                         It's a real positive.

Jill DeWit:                            I hope so. You know what, I know it is.

Jack Butala:                         If we all sat around counting the days saying, "Well, 322 days till whatever."

Jill DeWit:                            Oh, shucks you know what?

Jack Butala:                         Man, come on.

Jill DeWit:                            People do that.

Jack Butala:                         I know.

Jill DeWit:                            "Well, I'm gonna ..." and I have actually literally heard people, mainly school teachers and in that kind of environment, or other union jobs, where they have said, 'cause it's more than a year and they're literally counting down, "422 days to retirement."

Jack Butala:                         I know.

Jill DeWit:                            Like, wow. Are you gonna do this for 422 days?

Jack Butala:                         You know, speaking of-

Jill DeWit:                            Like, say it?

Jack Butala:                         Especially from a teacher situation, it's too bad because I'm sure you don't go to be a teacher unless you want some fulfillment out of the position. It's not a money thing. So, that's just too bad it gets to that point.

Jill DeWit:                            It's true.

Jack Butala:                         But I'm sure it's just because of the cog, you know, it's probably, I have no idea. Who knows why. But something went a little haywire.

Jill DeWit:                            Maybe it's the teacher. Maybe it's the subject.

Jack Butala:                         Let's just call a spade a spade.

Jill DeWit:                            Call a spade a spade. Wait, I have to share something funny. So, last week or last weekend, I had a girlfriend in town who was visiting and she is a teacher. And she was, we had a little downtime, she goes, "Do you mind if I grade some papers?" It was really cute. She teachers second grade-

Jack Butala:                         You graded papers?

Jill DeWit:                            I did. Well, she said, "Do you mind if I grade papers?" I'm like, "Hey, can I help?" She's like, "Are you serious?" I'm like, "Oh my gosh, yes.