Danger ahead!

Only you can control your future.

Dr. Suess

 

 Remember when you were 21, and your future stretched ahead like a ribbon of highway as far as you could see? And you thought you could see every curve and bend that was on that road and knew where it was going to lead you?

Oops.

We know better now, don’t we?

Who would have predicted a recession that would put us all behind the financial 8-ball and destroy our plans for retirement?

Or the need to divert some of our own limited funds to caring for an elderly parent?

Which then led us to think about selling our home generate those funds, only to remember that we refinanced only two years ago to get a lower payment……and stretched those payments ahead another 30 years? So, no equity means no selling.

Sigh…..

Sometimes we can’t see where the road is taking us, so it’s best to hang back and not speed along the highway without watching out for—even anticipating--the potholes and detours. How could I have known that I would need to sell my house the day I gave a huge “thumbs up!” to hogtying me to an unending mortgage? Or that maybe, just maybe, I SHOULD have sold my house just before the real estate bubble burst, when I thought about it, but then fell prey to inertia….and the mistaken notion that things would always be the same down that highway?

Circumstances change and people change. What looks like a well-paved road today WILL change. It’s the one thing we can depend on. The rest? Well, just be careful about assuming there isn’t a cliff just ahead up there out of sight on the road. It’s there, for sure.

Oh, yes, indeed……