The 30-35-40 Plan, Part 2

Ah, the much ballyhooed 30-35-40 plan. This plan was conceived roughly a decade ago when I was an impressionable young adult. Before we get any further, I would like to assure everybody that I’m not really terrible at math. 30-35-40 are not percentages that are supposed to add up to 100. They are ages, specifically ages at which I was going to stop and take inventory of my life. They are nice, round numbers that would be easy to remember. More importantly, they were far enough in the distance on the horizon that I didn’t have to think very much about what those ages should mean to me.

From a young age, we are trained that a house, wife, and kids are the American dream. I bought into that dream and very much planned to be living it someday.  The dream became the 30-35-40 plan: own a house by 30, get married by 35, and have kids by 40. I realize those are not overly ambitious goals; most people that plan on doing those things will do them well before the timeline I had laid out for myself. Like I said in Part 1, I don’t do things very quickly.

When I set these goals, I had no plans to intentionally wait until those ages before achieving them. If I found myself with a mortgage and wife while trying to stumble through the challenges of being a dad all before 30, that certainly would have been fine. Just so long as I had each of those things by the defined deadline, I would be a success. I figured that waiting on them would also help me get it right. I’d have a home worth calling a home, a wife who perfectly complemented me because she had passed every screening test I administered, and I’d be wise enough and mature enough to raise a kid.

So I traveled down the highway of life in my 20s with one eye to the future but no real consideration of the destinations I had mapped out. I should have realized that the objects in the mirror were closer than they appeared. I wasn’t exactly sure how life was going to sort itself out, but I was sure that it would. It always did. There were years of data to support this belief. For instance, the 5-page term paper due tomorrow that I had not started? Piece of cake. I’d crank out some pure gold in one night and get an A on it. The college degree that was seemingly going to take longer than 4 years to get because I had foolishly put all of my eggs in one basket, which ended up breaking? No worries. I’d just apply to a local school at the eleventh hour, get accepted (even be awarded a partial scholarship for my troubles), and graduate “on time”. Surprisingly, I’ve got a lot of confidence when it comes to certain things. The fallacy in this hubris is that houses and women aren’t something you usually fall ass-back into.

I still maintain that the plan itself was beautifully crafted even if the subsequent execution of it has gone awry. Deferring a home purchase until you are 30 enables a responsible individual to stash away money and accumulate enough for a sizable down payment. This will invariably improve your odds of getting a home you want and probably help your interest rate. If you are able to tolerate your folks and they’re nice people, they will let you live at home, perhaps even rent free. You may just need to help out a little more around the house. If you all get along, it’s often win-win. You live for basically nothing and they get free labor for tasks they would probably rather avoid in their advancing age.

If you’re in a serious relationship already, living at home doesn’t afford you the privacy you truly need. Moreover, if there are constant squabbles with your folks, then I also don’t blame you for wanting to get out. However, I don’t personally endorse living in an apartment for an extended period unless you plan on living in apartments the rest of your life. I can’t stand the thought of paying rent without building up any equity in return. You might as well be throwing money away. That rent money could be a larger down payment. Perhaps you don’t have the means to cover a mortgage by yourself just yet. Find someone you know and trust who doesn’t own a house and get them to “rent” from you by giving them an unused room in the house.

Once you acquire your own abode, you should try to live a few years on your own before you wed. Even if you’re in a relationship, you never know what the future holds. It’s important to prove to yourself that you can live on your own with that mortgage payment dangling above your head. More importantly, that house is your domain. Whether you are male or female, you’ve only got so much time before your significant other puts their literal or figurative fingerprints all over the house. Most guys are not civilized enough for a girl’s liking, and most girls will clutter a guy’s place with something like a few dozen throw pillows or other decorative pieces whose purpose cannot be fully explained.

People get married a lot later these days so I don’t think that 35 is too much of a stretch. I’ve considered putting in place an insurance plan for when 35 rolls around and I’m still a hopeless case. I thought about finding find someone I can tolerate who feels just as uncertain of their relationship future as I do. We would enter into a pact. If neither of us is married by the time we’re both 35, we would settle down together. Then I thought about it some more and decided that I’d rather be alone forever than in a convenient relationship where I have to limit my selfishness.

Once you’re ready to get married, there needs to be a few years of married life before you have kids. We all know that kids change everything. Take some time to enjoy yourselves as a married couple before you bring that extra responsibility into your lives. Do some of the things that you won’t be able to do so easily once you have kids. It always shocks me a little when young married couples in their early 20s decide to have kids. Those are some of the prime years of your life. There will be plenty of time to be a parent, so what’s the rush?

I will concede that the final leg of my plan is the one with the most question marks. 40 is pushing it to the limit for having kids. Studies have shown that women are exposed to greater fertility risks after 40. So maybe I just need to find someone much younger than me to marry then? Plus I wouldn’t want to stop at just one, so age becomes an even stronger factor. I firmly believe that each child should have at least one sibling growing up. You learn certain important dynamics about life with a sibling that cannot be replicated in a single-child home. If you live in a country setting, having a 2^nd kid is almost essential. That child NEEDS someone to play with, even if the siblings are boy and girl. If I had to pick a number for myself, I’d probably say 2 is a good number (3 at the most). It’s getting way too expensive to raise a kid these days.

Another problem with waiting to have kids is the obvious disconnect that could develop due to the disparity between our ages. If I wait until I’m 40 to have kids, I might be ready for retirement by the time he/she graduates high school. It would feel like there is a whole generation between us. I’m not very technically-savvy now, so I can only imagine how difficult it would be to relate with them. Perhaps the most important thing, especially if it’s a boy, is that it won’t be as easy for me to play sports with the child. I’ll do my best to take care of myself and remain in decent shape, but I probably won’t have the energy of a dad 10 years my junior.

I’ve spent a lot of time, like many I suppose, trying to figure what exactly it is that would make me a desirable attraction. I didn’t always think that owning a home preceded finding a woman. After college, with phase 1 of the 30-35-40 plan still a ways in the distance, I had convinced myself that the next step toward finding a woman was getting a job. No self-respecting woman would ever date anyone who was unemployed and I certainly didn’t want someone who couldn’t respect themselves.

There’s also the other obvious component of dating someone that a job can assist with – money. You need money to court someone and sustain a relationship. I’ve spoken ad nauseam in the past about how money is an unnecessary evil in the dating world, but I understand the game as it’s currently played. Truthfully, money has never been an issue for me. I don’t like to get into the habit of discussing my personal finances (although I’m always willing to give general money management advice), but let’s just say that I’m doing alright.

Since I’ve had “Job” crossed off the list for several years, I’ve now made up my mind that I need a house before I can seriously begin pursuing any more women. That goal beautifully aligns with the first limb of my 3-pronged, age-driven plan. Perhaps I should have made that a priority a lot sooner but accurately tagging the songs in my entire music library just seemed like more fun. Maybe I’ve matured, or maybe I’ve just latched onto something else that doesn’t seem attainable to use as an excuse for being single. I may have mentioned before that I did make an online dating profile. Even though I mentioned in my profile that I still live at home, there have been a couple women on the site that have “rated me highly”. I can only assume that they don’t understand the components of a basic rating scale. Or they were drunk. Either way, that’s not the kind of judgment I’m looking for in a potential partner.

So here we are. 30. The plan. Part of me believes I have already failed; I’m 30 and don’t own a house. The optimistic part of me suggests that I’m technically still 30. I said I needed to have a house by 30, so I guess that means I have until I turn 31, right? That’s all I’ve got left to push me forward so don’t take that shred of hope away from me. These next several months should be telling for my future. If I don’t reach the 1^stcheckpoint of 30-35-40, then there is really no point toward continuing down that path. You have to do the steps in order and I can’t afford to delay them any longer. I’ve pretty much already written off the 35-40 aspect of the plan. The only thing that keeps them lingering in the subconscious regions of my brain is that the 30 part of the plan is still obtainable. Maybe, just maybe, if I cross that first line, I’ll think I can cross the other ones in time too.

If I do not have a house by 30 31, then I have no choice but to consider the plan a failure and abandon it completely. There has been PLENTY of time for it to play out. It’s like those people you invite to after-work functions or summer parties that consistently never show up. Sometimes you just gotta know when to cut bait.  It’s entirely possible I am just not committed to the 30-35-40 plan any more.  I’ve grown accustomed to things the way they are.  Perhaps the pieces of this plan will be more trouble than they’re worth.  Simple math would seem to suggest so.

Abandoning the plan certainly does not mean my life has been a failure. As I mentioned at the end of Part 5 of my “Crushes” mini-series, we all have different destinations in life. If we’re lucky, we’re on the right path to reaching our destination. It will be time for me to realize that I should have passed the corner of “Real Life Drive” by now. I’ll pull off the road at the next gas station, locate a trusty map (I don’t have a phone with GPS, remember?), and plot out some new destination. It’s like I will be reborn with a whole new set of goals to fail at. How exciting! Don’t worry. I’ll devise another ill-conceived plan to reach them that I may share with you. I also promise I’ll come up with a better name for it next time.