Reader Case Study - Hoping for FIRE in 2023 or 2024
Life Situation: Married, 0 children, both File zero, married
My age is 50
My partner is 48
Gross Salary/Wages: 112K
Individual amounts of each Pre-tax deductions: 18.5 for him, 23k for myself (I max what I can afford to do after tax, and medical needs).
Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains: Trying to re-invest those.
Rental Income, Actual Expenses, and Depreciation: We sold the rental last week. Have to see the tax lady.
Taxes: Have not done these for 2018.
Current expenses: $175 (T & I) Home
$300 (monthly self impound towards newer truck goes in e fund)
$125 (monthly self impound towards future home needs goes in e fund)
$200 (saving monthly toward a Summer in Italy in 2024-We sometimes miss this contribution 15K goal)
$90 vehicle insurance
$364 utilities (water, gas, power, Netflix, phones, garbage, internet)
$650 food
$200 gasoline used towards fun (We ride bikes to work most days)
$200 Misc. (bike parts, stuff)
$2304 Grand total
For mortgage payments, separate the P&I (which stop when the mortgage is paid) from the T&I (and anything else) which continue as long as you own the property.
Expected ER expenses: (optional, if relevant)
Assets: Amount & description -
Truck - 5K bluebook,
Trailer 4K,
Cash in emergency fund 23K
Cash for a trip to Italy when we retire (2024): 1.5K (Goal 15K by 2024)
Money in pretax accounts: 310K
Money in taxable trading account: 180K
Money in a work retirement account that I can't see until 60: 53K, they add to it yearly 1.8K
Cash: 14000 in other forms - sellable assets
Basically, if we could cash out now, we have about .5 mil, give or take with market gains and losses. :)
Liabilities: 0
Specific Question(s): We have a goal of 830K in retirement savings (Roths, pre-tax), and 175K in another fund to be spent before we reach 59.5, when we can unlock the nest egg. We want to live on about 40K Does look to be enough? We hope to work part time for medical insurance premiums. I have a pre existing condition
Our records show that we personally save about 6K a month towards retirement if you average out the year. This number doesn't include the money we stash for home, car and a trips. This also doesn't include workplace savings by employer $ 4000/yr him $1800/yr me
I would have done the spreadsheet, but my computer doesn't have excel. We think we look good. We live on so little. So, long as we can have some new bikes here and there.