Brief history--I'm a nearly 48-year-old woman. My husband is nearly 59 (September is Birthday Month in the Palazzo di Mandalay). We have no kids. I was a general fuck-up in my young adulthood for various reasons and really didn't get it together until my mid-thirties. Yeah, my cross to bear.
My goal is to be able to retire when my husband does, when I'll be 54, and have enough income to maintain our quality of life until my pension kicks in eleven years from that time.
So off we go!
INCOME: Roughly $41,000/year. My husband and I work for the same Humongo Corporation; I've been there 11.5 years and he came in two years earlier. I don't have a degree but have managed to work my way up the corporate ladder a little. Our combined annual income from the job is roughly $85,000. My husband, however, comes from a fairly well-off family and his father sends $5,000 checks every so often. On our last tax return our income was about $98,000.
Our paychecks go into our joint account. My husband gives me $720 a month to handle my own bills, plus an additional $150 goes into my personal Fidelity brokerage account.
EXPENSES: Three years ago we decided to ditch our four-bedroom colonial pile in the 'burbs for a sweet two-bedroom condo in a national historic district. Our only debt is our mortgage. We pay off our credit cards in full every month and our cars are paid for, our newest, a 2008 Toyota RAV4, having been bought with cash.
Mortgage: $1,050 a month. It's a fifteen-year with a great interest rate. My husband wants to pay this off in the next three years.
Utilities: roughly $250 a month
Internet: $75 a month. We cut the cable/satellite cord earlier this year and got an antenna installed for news and football purposes.
Food: between $200 and $300 a month depending on need. Right now we're spending more because it's summer fruit and veggie season at the farmers market and I'm freezing things like a mofo.
Entertainment: $150 a month but that might be high. My husband has a Netflix account, I have Amazon Prime and Hockeystreams ($210 a year combined) and MLB TV ($25 a month). We've cut way back on dining out, maybe once or twice a month.
MONTHLY TOTAL: $1,875
Then there are my personal expenses:
Cell phone: $73 a month. I go through AT&T because my employer has a discount program with them. I have a Samsung Galaxy 4, also discounted through my employer.
Sundries: $50 a month. Hey, I'm a chick, I need tampons. :D
Miscellaneous: $200 a month on average. This covers way too much of an area for me to go into detail so I won't. Well, other than "no Starbucks lattes." You don't want me caffeinated, trust me.
MONTHLY TOTAL: $323
ASSETS: As my husband has a couple of trusts and our 401ks are administered through it our banking is done solely through Fidelity. It works out well because we can use our debit cards at any ATM for free--Fidelity refunds all transaction fees, thanks, dudes! I'm beneficiary on his trusts. This is what I have right now per Fidelity:
My brokerage account: $1, 283.70
My husband's Roth IRA: $6,294.54
My personal checking account: $938.19
The joint account: $1,531.41
Rollover IRA (from a previous job): $205.32
Roth IRA: $26,852.31
Husband's account of some sort: $2,651.34
Husband's trust: $87,326.58
TOTAL: $127,081.38
Here's the deal--I am WOEFULLY ignorant about stuff like investments. My husband adores stuff like that but as I grew up in a lower-middle-class family where money matters were never discussed I get lost reading, even here. If something happened to my husband I wouldn't have Clue One as to how to pursue things. Since I have the brokerage account I'd like to play a little bit with index funds, basically grow my own personal nest egg. As you can see I don't have much to play with but still, every little bit helps. When I retire I really want to focus on volunteer work--we live in what's politely called a "gentrifying" neighborhood and since I've been at the bottom I feel that I have something to offer to get others out of that mindset. I'll also add that neither of us are DIYs and aren't interested in being landlords.
Help a sister out?