BENTON COUNTY, Ark.—When Barb Strickert married, she and her husband wrote down a one-year plan for their lives together. And a three-year plan. Five- and 10-year plans, too.
Their meticulous mapping of the future eventually culminated in The Retirement Plan. Barb would leave the corporate world in her early 60s and run a small bed-and-breakfast on their 11-acre wooded plot in the Ozark Mountains. She and her husband, Brian, would convert the garage into a recording studio to promote local musicians.
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