Hi All,
Loving the blog! It is so helpful to us at this point in our lives.... even though we are too late for ER we are still feeling very young at heart!
I hope the following transition I am trying to describe is not too confusing as we are retiring this year:
Income now: Until August '14, $130,000 annual salary (adjusted for Foreign Earned Income Exclusion means -$95,000 = $35,000 AGI) $8,900 monthly take home after host country taxes from my husband's work from now until July 31st
Income after July '14 When he is off the payroll and we start our new adventure:
One of us is 67 - not yet collecting social security, eligible for about $2124 at 67y (increases to $2597 if wait until 70y);
The other one of us is not yet eligible (64y) for three more years, at 66 will be $2228, $2740 at 70y
Current Expenses Living abroad, high expenses on rent and utilities and travel back to USA plus we are enjoying our overseas adventure (way too much?):
Rent = $3000 mo
Condo fees = $212 mo
Utilities = $400 mo mo
Annual trip home = $3600 flights + $1500 expenses while there +$5100/12 = $425 monthly prorate
Food, gasoline, entertainment, local travel = $2000 (punch?)
Charity = to Church and Family $750 mo
Expected post retirement Expenses = $ 2500 mo IF house (don't have yet) is paid off and we pay cash for used cars
would include insurance on one car, health insurance, homeowners insurance, professional liability if we decide to work PT
Assets $740,000 retirement portfolio mixture of about 30% bonds/30%cash/30%stock mutual funds/10%REITs/Commodities, in tax advantaged accounts
not counting social security
$150,000 cash in Money Market at a bank in a taxable account
$7,000 cash from sale of Ford Fiesta when we leave our job here
Liabilities approximately $300 credit card debt, paid in full monthly
Specific Question We'd like to buy a house for our retirement years, approximately 2200 square feet, new or used. Can we afford it? Or, how should we best do the financing? Location in Kansas or Colorado (We had actually ID'd Longmont as our preferred location last summer before discovering this blog! )Prefer to use one survivor in terms of Social Security in the calculations in case one of us precedes the other they will still be able to keep the house.
While we are sorry we didn't find the Badassity method many years ago, we hope someone will have mercy and take our case on :)