It's "the final solution" time

Over the last six or so months I've been actively working on my final solution exit strategy from the workforce; I started working at the age of 13 years old, so about 126 years ago, and after all the twists and turns life brings and a lot of hard work am in a position to confidently think about stopping work; I've worked hard for it, made some great financial decisions and a few bad ones, and feel well-placed to dare to think about ceasing work altogether. It's not going to happen in the next week or two but being the thinking I am I like to plan ahead and that's where I'm at now, planning ahead.

I've travelled extensively abroad and domestically and yet I find myself thinking about doing even more and with my exit from the workforce looming closer and closer I have been doing a lot of thought around travel and having the means (money) to do it; it's one of my key focus-points. However, there's appropriate housing and maintenance, ongoing general living expenses, medical costs both known and unexpected, insurances, clothing, vehicles, entertainment and other such things to consider and trying to extrapolate those costs over the next 25 or so years is pretty difficult, but essential...and I've worked around adding in the ability for flexibility also.

I've done a (pretty mega) spreadsheet with complex formulas that allow me to key in different numbers and show resulting figures; it took a while to set up but it's really nifty because with a few clicks I can run various scenarios and at a glance see how specific changes will impact me and I've even built in some formulas around inflation. I'm pretty proud of the spreadsheet, but far more enthused about what it's telling me.

In it are all the expenses I expect (based on my expenses now) including a margin for error meaning unexpected things; that last is really cool also as I can change one cell and the formula changes everything else allowing me to run various models based on different ideas and scenarios. When I do that, I save them separately, file-named accordingly, to refer to when needed.

What I'm seeing is that I've worked hard enough in my life to have the chance to stop working altogether and to enjoy a comfortable, yet not extremely extravagant, lifestyle with the ability to travel overseas and domestically, replace vehicles when needed, enjoy some entertainment and hobbies (my hobbies are kind of costly ones at the moment and that's unlikely to change, and look after my health and live in a comfortable home in a location of my choosing. Is there any more to life? Not really I think.

I don't know what "the final solution" will be, there's many moving parts and so many decisions to make, but what I know for sure is that I'm ready for it and deserve it in my opinion - I have given a lot of myself over my lifetime and while I enjoyed a lot of benefit along the way feel it's time to be a little selfish with my time.

It's exciting to think that in the not too distant future my time will be one hundred percent my own and that I'll be in control of my life. It would have happened five years ago but, as always, life happens and a few things went wrong, but I learned, doubled down on my efforts and here I am looking ahead to what is going to be a whole new chapter. I have about a million things I want to, and will, do and every intention to work on that list with vigour...until I keel over and die. Sure, things can go wrong again but the lessons I learned from the past means I'm more savvy now and have all bases covered; one learns quickly about risk-mitigation when adversity strikes right?