Here's a question that I haven't seen addressed. I'm sure it's been discussed somewhere, I just haven't seen it.
I've seen a lot of talk about planning for retirement around making sure that an X% SWR meets your spending needs. But when people are calculating their spending needs, are they taking into account future car purchases, home repair needs (new AC, furnace, water heater, roof, etc.), medical costs, appliances, furniture & electronics replacement costs, and so on.
It seems a lot of people like to brag about their low level of spending, but I don't see anywhere where they are accounting for these irregular expenses that will pop up at some point or another.
I started budgeting and living more mustachian back in December. In my budget, I am actually devoting part of my pay to setting aside money for all of these future expenses. It might not be the most efficient way at earning a return, but I'm at least accounting for it. I think if you just look at your out of pocket costs each year, you won't get a true accounting for what you actually need in retirement. While you might only be spending $20,000/year right now. If you were to prorate these big, irregular expenses, you might actually be spending $23,000 if you prorate these expenses. (these numbers are just pulled out of my butt for illustrative purposes, don't get fixated on them).
I just want to sound a cautionary alarm that people really need to be careful when calculating the amount they need to retire if they aren't accounting for these irregular expenses.
I'm sure this has been addressed somewhere before. I'm just really tired from a bout of insomnia last night and can't think of seeing it addressed before.