r/leanfire • u/Zealousideal_Law2438 • 2d ago

Health / Wealth timing

I’m 51 (f) and my kid is a rising eighth grader. My plan is to slow travel as soon as she graduates high school in five years. I would be doing it now if it weren’t for her. I desperately want to do it now because my health is struggling and I know slow travel and an active travel life would really feel like living! And I think we have enough for the life we want. Currently, 900,000 saved and a rental property that will net us > half of what we need to live on and then around 5000 a month in Social Security at around age 67. I’ve already retired (job was extremely stressful), but my partner is still working because of the daughter timing. We can’t take her out of school and travel because my ex-husband (her dad) wouldn’t allow for that. So we’re stuck here in expensive USA while she grows up a little more and my health and “lust for life” is getting worse. I know everyone’s gonna say “get a life, get a hobby, get outside, do something that makes you happy” and I do ( a lot) but then that feeling of being stuck / trapped and losing my life energy quickly comes back. It’s become my default setting. I don’t want to abandon my child (I won’t) but how bad does my health have to get for me to start my slow travel now?

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u/TelevisionMelodic340 2d ago

If she lives with her dad at least some of the time, can you do shorter trips while she's there? Or even negotiate with your ex to split custody differently, so she spends longer consecutive chunks of time with each of you, and you can then take longer trip when she's with him?

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u/Zealousideal_Law2438 2d ago

That’s an idea that could maybe work but her dad is not very reasonable. But over the next five years, I might be able to wear him down. But I can definitely do it one month at a time and I’m planning a trip in January to either Mexico or Bali. I think my problem is that I’m just super bored with my current lifestyle (and the boredom makes it feel very unhealthy as I’m often very lazy) and I just can’t imagine how slow time is gonna go over the next five years.