Raccoon Commune Co.

It’s got to be done, and someone’s got to do it, and that someone’s got to be me. At some point in the line, someone, whether free or enslaved, must generate the wealth with hard work, and then tax code and stock markets will keep in growing, so long as the sum is not spoilt by mismanagement. 

So I carry that responsibility. My job is good but not wealth-generating by any means. It’s secure, for the most part, and stable, with the ability to work as much overtime as my mental and physical health can handle. But it’s less in the work and more in the slicing of the fruits of my labor.

Here’s what I want: to have a retirement above the poverty line, with a property that is mine, lien-free title in hand, mortgage settled and finished; extra money to give generously to my hopefully responsible heirs while I’m alive, with a little more for them to inherit once I’m dead; and for my children to have a head start on their own financially-secure adulthoods. 

I think about work now as “saving up to buy a farm.” It’s not the most eloquent of ways to phrase what I want and my plan to get it, but it’s true. I’m not inclined for livestock on this farm, so that’s a massive cost relieved. I’d rather have enough fruits and vegetables to keep us fed and, perhaps, if I feel like I have to ability to handle them, half a dozen chickens. I want to live the backshift of my life in slow seasons measured by what crop is up for harvest. I fantasize that I will resume writing full-time and that will be my mid-late-life career. 

Because I don’t want to stay in my job or my industry past that point. I aim to spend only fifteen years in nuclear power. It is a high-stress environment with an enormous increased risk of early death. I’m just here to make money, and I feel no shame in saying it. It was the science that drew me in at first, but now having crawled through the bowels of this industry, I am not longer so infatuated. So as it is now, I have about twelve more years to set us up for success and have the snowball nicely rolling. 

Is it foolish to limit myself? Probably. But my goal is to make a living, not a killing, and I forecast, should my plan not suffer too many tax code upsets, that this desired living will be made.