Harford County's Jeff Judge in AARP: Why a financed kitchen remodel is a retirement decision

By Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, Managing Partner, Chesapeake Financial Planners, Forest Hill, MD.

A dated kitchen, a contractor quote, and a bank offering a home equity line. It sounds reasonable until you look at the monthly payment.

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When AARP writer Cameron Huddleston asked me about spending Gen Xers should rethink, I pointed to remodels paid for with home equity. In my practice, it is common to see families finance $60,000 or $80,000 kitchens at 8 or 9 percent. Projects like that often do not return dollar for dollar when the house sells, and the payment starts right away. For someone in their 40s or 50s, that is a new fixed cost arriving just when it makes sense to be trimming them ahead of retirement.

I made a smaller point too. "Subscriptions are the cockroaches of personal finance," I told AARP. They tend to survive every budget review because no single one feels big enough to cut. Add them up, though, and they can compete with what you could be saving.

This matters here in Harford County and across the Baltimore metro. Families in Fallston, Aberdeen, and Towson are often juggling a mortgage, kids, and aging parents all at once. A home equity line can make a big project feel easy to approve. It deserves the same scrutiny as any other long-term commitment.

My takeaway: before you sign for a large loan or add another monthly charge, put the payment next to what those same dollars could do inside your retirement savings. If the comparison makes you pause, that is worth a closer look with your advisor. This is general information, not individualized advice.

This piece builds on "10 Things Gen Xers Should Stop Spending On," in AARP (October 2026).

Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, is Managing Partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners in Forest Hill, MD. Book an intro call.