WRITING PROMPT #80

Sketching a Retirement, Then Living It

How scraps of hope, family grit, and one vision board changed everything

Photo by on

I was 50, unemployed, with no retirement funds or plan. One day, I sketched a financial future I couldn’t possibly achieve. And then – I lived it.

Captivated by the mystical teachings of self-help books, I clipped pictures from old greeting cards and scrawled hopeful words across an A4 sheet in bold colours. My ideal future on a vision board.

Magic? Hardly. Or so I told myself.

While the board gathered dust, I got on with life. But years later, when I stumbled across it – creased, faded, nearly forgotten – I was stunned.

My longings and dreams written on that board… had come true.

The inheritance of thrift

My grandparents knew the weight of poverty.

Financially struggling in Scotland, they immigrated to New Zealand with their four young sons, chasing hope across the ocean. But fate played a cruel hand: their work sponsor died mid-voyage. They arrived to find no job, no home, and the Great Depression waiting in the wings. Poverty turned to hunger.

Etched into my memory is my father’s story of how, at just 13, he left school to take on odd jobs to help keep food on the table. Thrift wasn’t a choice – it was survival.

I was born in a different era. But our family’s version of ‘normal’ was far from conventional, even for the 1940s and 50s.

Due to housing and building supply shortages, our family of six (mum, dad, and four kids) lived in a rustic two-roomed bach fashioned from old army huts. For seven years, Dad hammered away at our future forever home. It was a lesson in resourcefulness – and a time rich with happy, lingering memories.

The mosaic of survival

We four siblings all found different roads out of scarcity.

My sister – the queen of thrift – raised four kids alone after her husband left. Then adopted two more. All on a state benefit. Retired mortgage-free, with rainy-day funds to spare.

My older brother – known for his no-nonsense attitude – rose through the ranks employed in education, paid off his mortgage, and retired early to cruise around New Zealand in a camper van with his wife.

My other brother – the clever one – climbed the corporate ladder. Strategy, discipline, ambition. It worked.

And me – the practical, life forager, the dreamer. The one who veered off-script.

The leap

After my marriage ended, I stretched every dollar from the Domestic Purpose Benefit, but I knew relying on handouts wasn’t for me. So, against the odds, I earned myself a degree (I wasn’t the clever one) and a brand new career – so very boring. Endured it.

Then, when the kids left, I leapt. Volunteering as a guide for young people doing a summer of service in developing countries.

I lived on almost nothing – and I’ve never felt richer.

At 50, I got back into paid work, scraped together a deposit, and bought a one-bedroom apartment. I dabbled in property development. Rode a market upswing. And somewhere in the mix, I created that vision board. A whisper to the universe.

Then the 2008 crash hit. My property plummeted into negative equity, and I returned home to New Zealand. Now 60, and I still have no retirement funds.

But somehow – against the odds – I landed a dream job. Company car. Travel. And a salary that doubled five years later, after a surprise promotion. At 65. Who gets that?

A small inheritance from my mum and purchasing a house with my partner, and hey presto, I was mortgage-free when I retired.

Maybe magic, maybe grit

I never stuck to any one self-help book. Never followed any program to the letter. I flitted between dreams and ideas like birds on a wire. But I kept moving forward. Always.

It wasn’t until after I retired that I stumbled across the vision board – tucked away in an old folder, forgotten for nearly 20 years. The paper was creased, the colours faded. I held it in my hands and laughed. Because somehow, impossibly, almost everything I had sketched there… had come true.

The real wealth

Was it thrift? Hard work? Luck? Magic?

Yes.
But also – no.

The truth is, there’s no formula for financial security. Not one that fits everyone.

What worked for me was a mosaic of choices, relentless reinvention, and a willingness to leap – even when I had no idea where I’d land.

Maybe that vision board wasn’t magic.

Or maybe – just maybe – that forgotten drawing had been whispering louder than I knew.

Either way, it reminded me of a truth too easily forgotten.

That dreaming is its own kind of discipline.

Even misplaced faith can still find its way.

And that sketching your dream life – even if it’s messy, broken, or hard to believe – might just be the first step to living it.

So tell me — what magic has whispered its way into your life?
Love to hear your story — I respond to all comments.

Just as I have been encouraged and inspired by other people’s open and honest stories, I am writing so that you may be emboldened to live the best version of yourself.

Sign up here to receive our free weekly newsletter featuring the best of Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age.