Dudley Wants to Retire

Dudley wanted to retire. This part required almost no analysis.

Knowing whether he could was harder.

He was fifty-six. Fifty-six did not look like retirement in Dudley’s head. Retired people had always been older. Exactly how much older was unclear, although he did now qualify for the over-55 menu at Perkins.

Unfortunately, tomorrow also seemed far too soon to return to work. Betty had retired, and within weeks had begun looking noticeably more like herself. Dudley had begun looking noticeably more like someone who still had to go to work.

He needed answers, so Dudley came up with three questions.

How much do we have? How much does it cost to be us? Will it last?

Three questions. Dudley liked three questions. They fit neatly on one sheet of paper. This optimism would not survive.

He began with the first.

How much did they have?

That sounded simple until Dudley tried to answer it. There was a 401(k), another retirement account and accounts from previous jobs. There were savings and investments. Betty had accounts. Dudley had accounts. They had accounts together. Thirty years of responsible financial behavior had created an impressive amount of administrative debris.

Dudley began gathering balances.

Betty walked past the office.

“What are you doing?”

“Inventory.”

“Of what?”

“Us.”

“That sounds invasive.”

“Financially.”

“Better.”

Dudley continued.

Eventually he had a total. He stared at it, recalculated it, then opened three of the accounts again because being wrong by several hundred thousand dollars seemed like an embarrassing way to begin retirement.

The financial accounts added up to more than a million dollars.

Dudley sat back.

Technically, they were millionaires.

He looked around the room. Nothing happened. The refrigerator was still making that noise. His coffee was cold. Borris was sitting on a table where Borris had been told repeatedly not to sit.

Dudley found Betty.

“We’re millionaires.”

Betty looked around the kitchen.

“Should the house look nicer?”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“That seems misleading.”

“I expected something.”

“A certificate?”

“Maybe.”

“A balloon?”

“Some recognition.”

Borris looked up.

“Meow.”

Dudley pointed.

“Borris is impressed.”

“Borris wants lunch.”

“Meow.”

Dudley nodded thoughtfully.

“What’s that, Borris? You believe net worth should be evaluated relative to future cash-flow requirements?”

Betty opened the refrigerator.

“Borris wants chicken.”

“Both things can be true.”

Technically, they were millionaires. Emotionally, they remained people who compared prices on paper towels.

The number felt huge and somehow not huge enough. A million dollars was an enormous amount of money if you were buying a sandwich. It was a very different amount of money if you were buying the next forty years.

Dudley moved to question two.

What did it cost to be the Barksdales?

He began with the obvious: mortgage, cars, insurance, utilities, groceries and healthcare. Then he looked at what they actually spent. Restaurants. Amazon. Gas. Gifts. Subscriptions. Home improvement stores. The reasonably priced pool.

Dudley began categorizing expenses. He liked categorizing expenses. It created the satisfying illusion that money had been brought under control simply because everything now had a label.

Eventually he realized he had been asking the wrong version of the question. He did not want to know the minimum cost of keeping two Barksdales technically alive. He wanted to know what it cost to live like them.

That included things that were not necessities: dinner with friends, travel, flowers, projects, pool parties, helping their kids, Costco before people came over.

Those things were not budgeting failures.

They were life.

The third question was harder.

Will it last?

Dudley initially approached this like division. Money divided by annual expenses equals years. This methodology survived approximately seven minutes.

The money did not sit still. Investments grew. Sometimes. Prices rose. Almost always. Markets went up and down. Taxes existed. Healthcare existed. And there was the inconvenient question of how long Dudley and Betty intended to remain alive.

Dudley had no reliable answer.

This irritated him. He wanted a number. Retirement kept offering words such as probably, assuming and likely. These were not Dudley words.

One evening Betty asked how the project was going.

“I think we can retire.”

“Really?”

“Probably.”

“Retire and do what?”

Dudley paused.

“That’s a separate question.”

“Is it?”

“I’m still working on whether.”

Betty took another sip of coffee.

“And you’re okay with probably?”

Dudley frowned.

“Are you?”

Betty looked at him.

“I married you.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It wasn’t one hundred percent either.”

“It was a very high-confidence decision.”

“You took thirty years.”

“I was thorough.”

“You were scared.”

“I don’t think the historical record supports that.”

“I was there.”

Dudley looked away. Betty smiled.

The numbers suggested they might be able to retire. That should have made Dudley happy. Instead, Betty’s question stayed with him.

Retire and do what?

If no one required them to work anymore, what exactly were they retiring for? He had spent weeks trying to determine whether they could stop. He had barely thought about what would start. That seemed like an oversight.

Dudley found Betty.

“What do you actually want retirement to look like?”

Betty smiled.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”