and romantic hot dog barbecues.
Is there any other type of hot dog barbecue? I assumed they were ALL romantic. :)
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My excel sheet says our average yearly spending will be 45K.
East Coast, Virginia.
That includes a 1,100 mortgage that we could pay off but nurse along keeping assets invested. Small ranch home, cheap electricity/water/etc.
It also includes 1,000 a month in savings.
Kids are grown, one at home but not for too much longer, she works a part time job to pay for many of the "oh shit" things that kids need money for. Her college fund is fully funded if she decides to go.
So, we paid off the mortgage and stopped the savings, we'd live on 21K. That's with a good internet plan, netflix, charity donations, AAA baseball games, drive to vacations, things of that nature. I'd say we live a very comfortable lifestyle that many would consider sparse, others would consider ostentatious (the extreme frugal types).
We controlled the three most important variables (home and where it's located, car spending, and misc/food spending) to ensure we'd be set up for success. The one monkey wrench here, as others stated, is that our healthcare is cheap/excellent (retired mil health care) so it doesn't affect our COL much.
I hope that helps, although comparing your situation to others is very difficult.
I'd ask you, what do you think is the MINIMUM you think you can live off of? Are you comfortable at that level? It's been suggested that you spend a few months mimicking that situation to really see how you react. Then, make things super painful for a while, adjust your spending upwards just a smidgen to reduce pain (get those massages again?) and settle in.
Good luck to you!