Do you long-term plan?

shakinros · October 2014

A dear friend of mine is a serious long term planner. She has 5-year plans that she updates once a year, sets interim goals for, and evaluates with her H on what sounds like a quarterly basis. They were heading down the childless by choice path, but recently her H has changed his mind and said he really wants a kid. So she was telling me she's in the process of re-working the 5 year plan to accommodate this and thinks that having a kid IN 2017 is a good idea.

This makes me feel equal parts impressed with her, ashamed of my own lack of plan, and relieved that my relationship doesn't work like that. I basically noodle around looking forward no more than maybe a year. We'd like a second kid. I think maybe when DD is 3 or 3.5? When i do the math that means TTC in the next 3-9 months and that seems terrifying. So we'll keep noodling along...

What's your take on long-term planning?

minirella · October 2014

No, we talk about the future and what we'd like to do but that all is subject to change.

jlaOK · October 2014

I am a HUGE long-term planner. We started to TTC for DS when we "felt it was right" but hoped for a 3-year age difference between kids which dictated when we started TTC for DD.

I'm an even bigger financial long-term planner. We are on Dave Ramsey's plan and I think that that has helped focus my planning but also kicked it into overdrive. We knew we wanted to be in our forever home by the time DS started kindergarten and have made financial choices that align with that. We also have budget and savings goals and I have forecasted them into the future.

I am a big worrier so having some sort of "plan" helps ease my mind. Our plan constantly gets updated and changed but I like to at least have a basis to go off of.

litzo27 · October 2014

I'm a long-term planner but in a less structured way. I knew I wanted a kid while in the PhD program but after classes are done and we were able to do that. Then I knew I wanted 2 more kids about 3 years apart and we did TTC "on schedule" and got that. But now my only goals are to redo the kitchen next year and hopefully pass the next two reviews so we can stay in CT for 6 more years. After I'll probably have to look for another job but where in the US we will look I'm not sure - we'll see how we feel then.

I think if her DH wants a kid and she is scheduling it for 2017 it sounds like she is just pushing it off hoping he'll change his mind. Just my impression.

vvvvvfee · October 2014

i think that level of detail in long-term planning is crazy. o_0

we had general plans, like, we didn't want to start trying for a baby until DH was done with grad school, and let's think about #2 once DS is 2. and of course we're saving for retirement and DS's college fund, and we sort of generally would like to move out of our current house within about 4 years... but there are too many things up in the air (and i feel like life is just too random) for us to get into that kind of micro level planning.

chloebeth930 · October 2014

I stopped being a planner when DH enlisted in the military. No sense planning for anything when you don't know if your spouse is even going to be on the same continent as you.

It was freeing and really gave my Type A a nice little break. Now that he is getting out next month, we are starting to make plans, but they are more along the lines of.. "You can go to college for the next few years, and lets go ahead and try to have another kid, and then when you graduate from school we can decide what to do next."

I really feel like it takes the pressure off. You can plan for every detail of your life, but it is likely not going to turn out that way.

Semper Gumby (Always flexible)... for all my USMC wives out there

aglenn · October 2014

I'm with K3am and a few others. We do have a financial plan for long-term needs like college, retirement, home repairs, etc. Otherwise I just don't feel like life is predictable enough 5 years out to make that kind of detailed planning a good use of time and energy.

Beevol · October 2014

DH and I regularly talk about our future plans, but nothing that rigid. We definitely planned out when to have DD a few years in advance and it changed a couple of times due to outside circumstances (more like when to start TTC though, there's no sense trying to plan when you'll actually *have* a baby) and then after we had DD, we planned trying for this pregnancy too.

We plan for financial goals, but we have had a bunch of weird set backs (eg surprise needing a new roof due to damage not covered by insurance) and as many weird pushes forward (eg a surprise pay raise) that we couldn't have planned for, we keep it vague beyond a year or so out and knowing how much we want to have in retirement accounts.

lilies&orchids · October 2014

Wow! That is some serious planning! Now that we are done having kids and our e-fund is in pace, the extent of our long term planning revolves around visits to see my husbands family since that's really the only trip we can afford each year. I'd like to focus on a plan for a down payment fund, but that gets pushed to the side. DH is not a planner.

Regarding planning for kids, our first came easy but for a long time we weren't sure if another was in our future. I can tell you DS2 arrived 2 years later than we initially "planned" for, but his timing ended up being just right.

momofcatan · October 2014

Nope. DH is an anti-planner, doesn't like to plan what's for dinner until 5:00pm. I am very on top of our finances, but right now that just involves staying above water and pushing as many pennies into savings as we can. We have not discussed TTC #2 yet, I originally wanted kids close in age, but we are not emotionally (of financially) ready for another kid yet, so we have not discussed it yet.

DiveFrog · October 2014

I consider myself a big time planner. However my planning seems a lot more fluid than what your friend does. Dh and I discuss the future and our goals 5years out, and we talk about these things all the time, and adjust based on our current situation and things happening right now. For the most part though, I am planning and executing 1-2yr plans. The really long term stuff like college and retirement etc. are on auto pilot and we review them once a yr.

This year the 'plan' was to have our pool refinished and an automatic safety cover installed. But, then early in the yr we had major issues with one of tenants, had to get an eviction and do major repairs to one of our rental houses. All that put our 2014 'Plan' in jeopardy. In the end it delayed the refinish and pushed the safety cover into 2015. The other major project was to start TTC #2 this year. I thought I would be ready in the Spring when DD turned 2, but I had just finished 4 months of work travel, and the rental house situation imploded and I couldn't take the stress of ttc, let alone first trimester tired on top of everything else. So, ttc got pushed off until the end of this summer.

Some stuff just 'comes up' last minute. Like a late decision this weekend for me and DD to travel to see some family for Thanksgiving. Not on our radar at all. But, I'm excited about it.

I have a few working plans for next year depending on how our finances fair (tax return/bonus) and of course our plans will have to adjust based on when and if I get pregnant.

I know our original plan when we got married in 2008 was to ttc a year later, but then both our jobs were iffy due to the economy so we delayed until 2010...then it took us a lot longer than we thought it would,plus a miscarriage so yeah the kid we thought we would have in 2010 didn't arrive until mid 2012.

My take is you can plan and plan and plan, as long as you understand the plan will constantly need to adjust and change. ESPECIALLY after you add a kid to the equation.

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