I was put into the uncomfortable (and unfamiliar) position of having to think about the future today. My future. Shudder.

The reason I don’t put a lot of thought into how I’ll be living ten years from now is that I don’t really want anything to change. I want to keep living in this house in the country for as long as I last. I’ll even keep working as long as I can stay home and do it, and set my own pace and keep to my own schedule.

It might not all happen that way, though. In ten years the Boss will be 75 years old and might not want to keep the company going. The Kennel will still be going, I think, but I can’t depend on it for income because I don’t even have voting rights, even though I’m technically a ten percent owner. I haven’t seen a dime of kennel money yet.

That could be about to change, though. Julie has a meeting with the accountant next week, and she expects him to tell her that The Kennel will have a tax liability unless some of its income is distributed. To the owners. Including my smidgen.

What she would like to do is set up some kind of retirement plan for me. I’m grateful that she’s looking out for my interests, but she asked me some questions today that I wasn’t prepared to answer. Will I still want to live in Santa Rosa after I retire? Or might I be open to moving to an area where I could afford a plot of land that could be funded out of kennel distributions?

Shudder. I’m assuming my family will still be living in this area in ten years, so I wouldn’t have any interest in moving away. (If I’m wrong about that, I might reconsider.) She wants me to check on lot prices and think about a mobile or modular home that could be paid for over time and ready for me to move into in ten years. I don’t even know how to begin doing that, and I’m not sure I want to. As I said, I want to stay where I am. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to afford it. Or if it makes sense.

This is scary stuff, and there were long silences on my end of the phone conversation. I really, truly haven’t given any concrete thought to any long term financial planning. Now I guess I have to. I only wish I knew where to begin.

What I really want to do when I retire is sit around reading and watching TV all day, and watching my grandnieces and grandnephews (however many of them there are by then) grow up. In other words, except for the nasty part about working for a living, pretty much exactly what I do now. Is there a way to plan for that?