The Decision

The decision to make a major purchase is never an easy one and so it was in the case of our decision to purchase a new motorhome. We have never, in our entire lives, made such a large purchase. Even our home did not cost this much.

And so we struggled. We have always been savers. When we started our careers, 401(k) accounts and IRAs did not exist, and with four kids to raise, we probably could not have made contributions anyway. As we became more established and the kids became older, we began to fund our 401(k) and retirement accounts. We did not save as much as we would have liked but we did our best. Unfortunately, I had to retire at age 50 due to a serious medical problem.

Then, at age 62, my husband’s job was eliminated. Not only that, the employer dropped all medical insurance and so COBRA was not an option. With his poor health and his age and the state of the economy, my husband was not able to find another job. We finally decided to just bite the bullet and call it early retirement. Thankfully, he had enough years in at a former employer to qualify for retiree’s medical insurance, albeit at an enormous price. With his diabetes, we had no choice.

We were prepared to pretty much sit in our rockers and do nothing more than a few close trips to see family every so often. After all, we couldn’t touch our retirement savings as that was for our old age!

Well sitting around got old really, really fast! We started getting the travel bug again, and made a few very enjoyable trips. But staying in hotels and eating in restaurants gets pretty expensive and is not my favorite thing to do anyway. Then came all the talk about BED BUGS! EWWW YUK! Just thinking about them made my skin crawl. I started carrying a flashlight and inspecting the mattress with a magnifying glass when we checked into a hotel. Call me crazy, but I just can’t stand the thought of bed bugs.

When we sold our class “A”, we were so glad to be rid of it that we thought we never wanted another motorhome. But seems that travel bug is as hard to kill as a bed bug. I talk in another article about how we came to decide on a Lazy Daze, but this is about how we came to the decision to actually make that purchase.

I think a lot of people our age must go through the same struggles that we did. How do we justify purchasing something so EXPENSIVE, just so we can enjoy life? After all, aren’t we supposed to save money and not spend it? Shouldn’t we spend it on our kids, our grandkids, our church, the homeless, the hungry, World Peace? Shouldn’t we leave it for our kids or save it for medical expenses? These thoughts chased each other ‘round and ‘round in my head like some crazy merry-go-round on steroids.

And it is about more than just having fun. We have lived in this big old house since 1976. It is full of memories and it is also full of “JUNK”. It just seems to accumulate over the years. We are tired and old and don’t want to spend our remaining years tied to ‘stuff’ and moldering memories and yard work and housework and ….. We want less of everything. When Russ dumped the hanging baskets and flower pots at the end of the season I knew I had planted my last – I had 47 baskets and pots that I had tended over the spring and summer in addition to the flowers and vegetables in the ground! That’s just crazy! So although this house and land have served us well over the years, it’s time to move on. We plan to sell within three years and either full time it or rent a small apartment for when we need to come “home.”

Finally we came to this conclusion: We don’t need to justify our decision. If it is right for us or if it is wrong for us, it is our decision to make and we will live with the consequences.

I had planned to detail here all the justifications for our purchase, but that would mean I am still feeling guilty and trying to make it right in my own mind. There will always be alternative ways to spend money. There will always be need, and we have never been stingy in our charitable giving or in helping our kids. But as we have watched our retirement saving eaten away in the last several years, we decided we wanted to have something concrete to show for part of it.

And so, we made the decision to purchase a used motorhome, and that decision morphed into purchasing a new Lazy Daze and we couldn’t be happier. Yes, it took a very large percentage of our retirement holdings, but we could let that money sit and perhaps disappear altogether or we can have ten years or so of enjoying our “golden years”. Some may not understand our decision but for us, at this moment in time, it is the right one.