The Future Is Now

 I made a Hobby investment with an eye towards the future yesterday. No, I didn’t buy some card to grade and flip, nor a card of the latest and greatest prospect. In fact, it didn’t involve buying any cardboard.

Regular readers might recall that in a recent post I had mentioned how tired I am of my job. That the rat race is beating me down and that I am working towards a goal of being done with it in another four and a half years. In order to achieve this goal, a few changes in the budget will have to temporarily be made (both now and then). So my mind is always at work, trying to figure out how to best set ourselves up for this to become a reality. One way I can fund my hobby during that future semi-retired period has just been determined. 

Two months ago, I started selling off unwanted cards (on eBay) that no longer fit into my collection, with the intention of using that money in the here and now. After all, there is no shortage of cards that I “need” for the collection. But with priorities having changed I decided to invest that money into a CD for future collecting needs. 

As I was setting up an online payment through my credit union app yesterday morning, I noticed it was offering a 5%, 13-month promo CD. Boom. There’s my answer. And if rates are still anywhere close to that once it matures, I’ll roll it over into another short-term deposit. If not, there are other avenues to make it grow. 

My goal is to build up enough money from these (and future) sales to fund my hobby for a three-year period prior to taking Social Security. Based on what my current budget is, and adjusting for inflation, I’m about 38% of the way there. Would like to be much closer but I still have a lot of stuff I want to move, so certainly doable.

 Will this golden future of semi-retirement turn out, or will it just be fool's gold? Time will tell. Still, it's nice to dream. And besides: even if it doesn't, I'll still have hobby money in reserves just waiting to be spent.