Another blog? What's this about??

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The other day, I caught up with a bunch of old uni friends. We were contemplating our lives as middle aged men when we got onto the topic of retirement.  One asked a question of the group: "do you feel like you've made it?" 

My answer at the time was "I'm not sure", but this question prompted me to sit down and take stock...

The result of pausing and thinking for a couple of days is this blog. I had the urge to write down some of my findings in a diary or something so I could reference it later but, the more I reflected, the more I thought this stuff could be useful to someone.  Or maybe not...  

I've tried keeping a blog before, and I've always abandoned it for one reason or another. This time, again, I can make no promises about keeping it going.  I suppose as long as I have something to say, I'll keep posting... 

So, back to taking stock. I sat down, tracked down my investments and was pleasantly surprised.  I had much more than I thought I had.  I had made it. 

This year, I'm 44. And I've made it. 

The next step, if only as a sanity check, is to get some professional advice, which I have booked in for next week. I guess what I am also worried about is that there's a certain amount of restructuring that needs to be done. That inevitably means selling, which will trigger capital gains tax. I haven't accounted for CGT before declaring "I've made it", so we'll see how that affects things.  Maybe the update after next week's meeting will be: "hey guys, guess what? Back to square one".  If that's the case, this will probably be a shortlived blog...

Till next time then... 

SSM