We Planned to Spend Our Retirement Traveling, Now We Can’t Afford It

I’d always dreamed of traveling during retirement, and my husband and I had made modest plans to do so.

As Canadians, we planned to mostly go on road trips here and in the neighboring United States, maybe occasionally flying to places like Nashville and Las Vegas.

My husband retired in 2015 at 55, and I joined him in 2023 when I turned 55. That first summer after I retired, we had an amazing time going to outdoor concerts, car shows, and impromptu day trips.

In the coming year, I expected us to do more of the same. However, in the past few months, we realized our retirement dreams may be out of reach.

Our income and savings aren’t going as far as we expected

My husband has started receiving payments from his Canada Pension Plan, which we both contributed to while working, but mine haven’t yet kicked in.

Like many others, we also sought other ways to make money during retirement. As a former teacher, I take substitute-teaching jobs at local schools and writing gigs. My husband also brings in extra money building hunting shacks.

When planning our pre-retirement with financial advisors, we felt confident we could live off our savings, pension, and money from our gigs and still travel — especially since our home is new and paid off (in part thanks to an inheritance I received).

We were going to budget for a road trip every year or two until our full benefits kicked in, but we’ve already spent half of what we’d saved in this past year alone.

In that time, we’ve had four appliance breakdowns in four months in our new home. We’ve taken in our son’s family until they rebuild following a devastating house fire, and the basement bathroom renovation to accommodate them also cost us 30% more than we anticipated.

This unexpected, expensive string of bad luck in a short period of time quickly made a huge dent in our savings that we hadn’t accounted for.

On top of that, living on what amounts to about half of my pre-retirement paycheck has been challenging. Between tariffs and inflation, the costs of many essentials, like food, are still higher than we expected.

At this rate, we feel like our savings would be depleted far too quickly if we worked travel into our budget.

We’ve chosen to be grateful for what we have instead of relying on travel to find joy

Worried about the future, we’ve shifted our dreams and put our travel retirement plans on hold.

Although we still have some investments and savings, we don’t feel financially comfortable or secure enough to dip into them to spend money on travel as we’d originally planned.

This realization was difficult to handle. At times, it took a toll on our relationship: I really wanted to make travel work, while my husband wanted to make sure we could afford to get through the next few years — especially in the event we encounter more bad luck or costly health issues as we age.

After taking a step back and looking at what is really important, we’ve finally found the blurry line between wants and needs and made peace with it.

We’ve focused on becoming content in our home and finding happiness in small, local outings: going out to dinner, heading to the movies, driving around to look at Christmas lights, or even just visiting friends and family.

After all, we are luckier than many, and our situation could be much worse. We can afford essentials like food and housing. We are surrounded by friends and family. We are healthy, safe, and happy.

Knowing what we know now, I think we both would’ve worked a few more years and maybe diversified our investments to further ensure our financial security. Fortunately, we’re at least mortgage-free.

Once my benefits also kick in or if I take on another well-paying gig in the future, we may take a trip or two — but even if not, I have accepted it.

I’ve found solace in feeling gratitude for all that we have rather than envy for the things we don’t.