Age Fifty-Five 👴🏻

Twelve years from now I’ll be Age 55. In some how, I pretend in my mind that’s a kind of nirvana. Then I can focus full-time on building my off-grid homestead.

It’s that’s the earliest point I can retire from the state though at a pretty steep cost to my pension benefit if I fill for retirement immediately after leaving – 36% lifetime reduction of benefit – though that’s offset by additional years I would be collecting it as I wouldn’t have 30 years in at the system at that point, as I didn’t start until Age 24 and will have missed about 2 years in system due to Leave without Pay when I worked for the Democratic Party. Though maybe by later in my fifties it will have 30 years in and that will be a moot point, as I started at age 24 in 2007, lost about 2 years over my breaks in service and age 55 minus 24 minus 2 is 29.

The thing about is I will make more money working then in retirement, even with my pension and I don’t know if I’ll have enough credit to continue my health insurance, which unfortunately is very expensive and very necessary with accidents and illness even on the homestead. And I kind of like my job now, it keeps me busy and often comes with interesting situations that involve collecting data, writing code and delivering results. It’s great to get a call on phone, hmm and haw a bit, and then come up with a good solution using some reasoning like comparing names to tax rolls or lists of state employees. In the communications targeting business, you usually don’t have to be 100% exact if you reach mostly the people you want to talk to.

And I don’t know, my parents are getting old and probably won’t be with my much longer. My sister doesn’t necessarily want their homestead where I grew up, and while 5-acres and grid tied with neighbors nearby, some good ol’ boys, isn’t perfect, I probably can make it work for a while before I move to a freer state on a more remote parcel that’s totally grid-free with no near neighbors, without necessarily tying myself to that piece of land forever. Have goats, pigs, and other livestock, and even fires, as long as I’m careful not to throw anything too stinky or smokey in the fire. Maybe gain experience in animal husbrandy and crop growing on that land, build a grid-tied solar set up with battery storage myself – with appropriate approvals from an electricitian and the town building inspector. Still it seems like a such a compromise – 5 acres ain’t much land, there are still neighbors around to smell the smoke and hear your guns – and New York with all their stupid laws.

I don’t know. The thing that I fear much is that I’m quickly getting older, that 12 years really ain’t much time, and even age 70 isn’t that far from 55. And already I see myself slowing down a bit, my vacations and travel have been a lot less ambitious and more relaxed, and I worry if I wait too long I might not have an opportunity to do all I want in life. Yet, at the other hand, I see the value of time, how each year gives me an ability to save and invest more, and how the market continues to compound, which the growth in money gives me more flexibility in the future to buy more land, equipment, and protect myself.