anne's life plan ideas

I know you enjoy hearing about our crazy life plan ideas, and it will be fun in the future to look back and see what I was thinking about, so I thought I would compile our options. I have done spreadsheets for most of the options to see which are best financially (although finances are not the only consideration). They pretty much all involve Murr working until June 2018 and then taking 5 years leave (and then quitting for good if we're doing okay financially), and us making about $20,000 per year doing freelance stuff, or making money online somehow, or taking short term contracts, etc. until 2029. If we're not enjoying "retirement", or are not on track financially, then there is always the option for one or both of us to return to work when our leave is over.  So here are the grand ideas:

(1) Build a backyard carriage house and rent out the main house. This is the option we are most dreamy about at the moment.  These are not allowed yet in Ottawa but are in the process of being passed, so we have seen the proposed bylaws and such. The proposed laws would allow us to build a one story house in the backyard with a 50 square meter footprint (540 square feet), which could have a basement. This idea is similar to our previous side house idea, but the backyard house would be slightly bigger. I really enjoy imagining the floor plans for this house. This option varies financially based on how much it would cost, but if we could build if for less than $150K, it would be feasible. We imagine we would do most of the labour on it after Murray "retires."

(2) Sell our house in spring 2018 or spring 2019 and go travel, possibly indefinitely. I assume our costs during travel would be about the same as they would be if we stayed in Ottawa, which definitely means travelling slow and on a budget and mostly in cheap countries. Rent an apartment or house when we return. This option varies financially based on whether we can stick to our budget and what and where we rent when we return. We love the idea of travel, but also love our community and being near family, so I don't think we'll actually do this. Rather, we'll probably up our travel time to one month in the winter and 4-6 weeks in the summer and be home and stable the rest of the year.

(3) sell our house and rent. we also talk about this one a lot. I regularly look at available rentals and we could get a two or three bedroom apartment near us for less than $2000 per month. It would be attached though (i.e. in a building or row house). We like the idea of not spending time on house maintenance and having a smaller space, but worry about the lack of permanence and possible noisy neighbours.

(4) Buy a smallish condo, near Murray's parents' new condo and possibly in their building. We are uncertain about condo living though, because we don't think many other families do it, and we might feel weird being the only family in the building. We are also concerned about lack of outdoor space with this option. We like the idea of a ground level unit where we would have direct access to outside.

Everything is the same until Spring 2018, so we have lots of time to ponder!

love,
anne