The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: albireo13 on September 28, 2017, 05:00:34 AM
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Working on a retirement budget and am depressed by the numbers. I want to get to <$80K.
Problem is we will be carrying a healthy mortgage, that means $2550/month. Also, am assuming health insurance of maybe $1500/mo.
WE have no shot at paying off the mortgage but, plan on down sizing again in the 5+ year time frame.
What do other folks have for retirement annual burn rate?
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Just retired a year ago, budgeting for +/- $140K annual spending. Not very Mustachian I know, but that's how we operate. Could live a lot cheaper if we had to, but no plans to do so unless financially forced into a corner. Have invested in a number of things that churn out steady income streams to support this spending.
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I am ten years out from my FIRE date, so I have a long way to go still, but I am targeting about $35k give or take a couple thousand. I'm in a pretty LCOL area though and my mortgage is only about $760 and we have no debt other than that. I could see my lifestyle inflating to maybe $40k if my investments do well and I keep my FIRE date the same, but I'm remaining both conservative and flexible. So we'll see how it goes!
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I find this a bit tough to project as well. Also, I'm quite risk averse.
We currently spend between 65K and 80K/yr, but that includes owning two houses and support for an adult in that separate household. That support is likely to overlap our retirement for at least 10 years, possibly longer. In addition, we are in an extremely low COL area that we do not want to stay in.
So, right off the bat, I feel more comfortable projecting 80K/yr rather than 65K. Add to that the fact that we do not have kids, and we are therefore unlikely to be downsizing or otherwise reducing housing costs (see cheap COL that will not last). I expect we will carry a mortgage well into retirement, and possibly more or less forever (or pay rent instead). We have one car, and our work expenses are negligible, so the usual advice about clothes/dry cleaning/extra cars/commuting expenses reducing do not apply to us. Also, we currently work nearly all the time and don't spend much money for anything fun, so I hope/expect at least some more money will be spent actually enjoying ourselves.
In short, I expect our retirement costs to INCREASE, based on increased COL costs and increased health care costs.
So I aim for 80K/yr as our desired baseline, and hope/plan for income more in the 90K to 100K range.
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
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Well, when your mortgage and healthcare alone cost almost $50K/yr, it's going to be hard to fit in everything else under $80K. Especially since a house with a $30K/yr mortgage likely also has higher property tax/insurance/utility bills.
Can I ask, what is the impetus for the $80K target? Most specifically, is this something that you are doing to try to make your wife more comfortable with your retirement ideas, or is this something you are doing on your own without her input? My recollection is that one of your recurring issues is your wife's insecurities about ever having enough to retire vs. your desire to quit as soon as possible, which is leading to recurring disagreements/fights over money. So if this is part of an effort to help her work through the actual money and budgets to ease her anxiety and prove you have enough, then go forth and conquer that budget. But if she isn't involved and this is something else you want to present to her as a fait accompli, you might want to consider engaging her in the process -- both for the value of doing the analysis/making the decisions together, and because you and she will inevitably have different ideas about what it's reasonable to cut and by how much, so presenting her with an answer that requires her to make cuts she doesn't like is not likely to be well-received.
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
To repeat: "...that includes owning two houses and support for an adult in that separate household."
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
To repeat: "...that includes owning two houses and support for an adult in that separate household."
I wasn't talking about your example. Just the generic "$100+K/year to be safe" I've read here and other topics.
Mortgage(s) can complicate things since it won't be around forever. Really should only skew your first few (or however many years left to pay it off) of RE.
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My goal is $33,000 annually in retirement. That's been my approximate spending for the last two years, and this year is shaping up to be less. Healthcare is the big unknown I'm not sure how to plan for.
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
To repeat: "...that includes owning two houses and support for an adult in that separate household."
I wasn't talking about your example. Just the generic "$100+K/year to be safe" I've read here and other topics.
Mortgage(s) can complicate things since it won't be around forever. Really should only skew your first few (or however many years left to pay it off) of RE.
Mortgage, kids, daycare, health care. I know some of that won't be around after retiring but more could be added (college, traveling, expensive health care, etc), but we call it a win if we can stay under 4K - which is rare this year. There is no "going crazy" involved.
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
We have no debt, but own three houses and a whole bunch of real estate.
Honestly, just piss away a lot of $$ having fun.
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
To repeat: "...that includes owning two houses and support for an adult in that separate household."
I wasn't talking about your example. Just the generic "$100+K/year to be safe" I've read here and other topics.
Mortgage(s) can complicate things since it won't be around forever. Really should only skew your first few (or however many years left to pay it off) of RE.
Mortgage, kids, daycare, health care. I know some of that won't be around after retiring but more could be added (college, traveling, expensive health care, etc), but we call it a win if we can stay under 4K - which is rare this year. There is no "going crazy" involved.
Yeah, we're on track to hit 10K of out of pocket spending on health care this year, and nothing life threatening has happened. And we aren't close to retirement age yet.
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What are ya'll spending $50K+/year on? Just curious...either pre-FIRE or post-FIRE peeps, if you have a high-level budget/idea of your monthly spend. Not anywhere close to FIRE, but just can't imagine, even if I go crazy, spending $4k+/month.
We have no debt, but own three houses and a whole bunch of real estate.
Honestly, just piss away a lot of $$ having fun.
Ah, ok. I guess I should have added the qualifier "with only one mortgage" or something like that.
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My goal of $80K is more a comfort level thing for us.
I did a retirement budget and 1st cut spending was $100K/yr.
We live in a high COL area unfortunately.
The house and all utilities and services runs $3500/mo. I also budget $1500/mo health insurance. Just that, without any food, travel, living, etc is $60K!
Need to knock that down somehow. The mortgage is new and we have 29 years left on it. We could possibly downsize again to a smaller mortgage.
Hopefully the $1500/mo can go away once we get to 65 and Medicare.
We also both have life insurance, totaling $2200/yr. Maybe it's time to ditch that??
The good news is that once SS and pensions kicks in for both of us, we can meet $100K budget with < 1% WR on our retirement savings.
That won't happen until I reach 66yo+ so we have to bridge about a 5 year gap to get there.
BTW, my wife is OK with me doing the budget work. She doesn't enjoy working numbers and spreadsheets so, leaves that to me.
I'm an engineer by trade so I am well used to obsessing about excruciating detail.
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^Thank you, Albireo. I haven't gone through what a full FIRE budget looks like, so I was genuinely asking. Seems like health insurance is a big (the biggest?) obstacle to tackle for FIRE.
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We are about 3-6 years out from RE. We are planning about $80K/year. The first few years should be more expensive as the kids are still finishing up college and grad school, and we pay for college and will provide some support in terms of insurance and possibly room and board for grad school if they choose to want to live at home. We'd like to do a little travel. By the time we RE the mortgage should just about be gone.
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Wow! WTF happened to being a mustacian? I no longer read about being hardcore. My 30 year mortgage will be paid off in 10. First we max out 401k and all other investments. Rentals are set up on a 15 year note that will pay off for FIRE day. The only wild card is healthcare. I'm looking to make $60k post fire and travel heavily with the wife and camper throughout the year. If it's the HCOL area holding you back then consider moving. FWIW we can live off $40k, but that extra $20k buffer is for healthcare. I don't know what happened in this forum, but $60k used to make me feel like an asshat around these parts and now I look hardcore. Maybe that other thread was right, have we all gone soft? Is the mission of MMM lost?
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Wow! WTF happened to being a mustacian? I no longer read about being hardcore. My 30 year mortgage will be paid off in 10. First we max out 401k and all other investments. Rentals are set up on a 15 year note that will pay off for FIRE day. The only wild card is healthcare. I'm looking to make $60k post fire and travel heavily with the wife and camper throughout the year. If it's the HCOL area holding you back then consider moving. FWIW we can live off $40k, but that extra $20k buffer is for healthcare. I don't know what happened in this forum, but $60k used to make me feel like an asshat around these parts and now I look hardcore. Maybe that other thread was right, have we all gone soft? Is the mission of MMM lost?
Like any message board that espouses an extreme idea, you're going to get people who are all in at first, and over time you get people who take what they need and leave the rest. The OP asked a question and people answered. If you want to FIRE on $25K/year, go for it. We also want to absolutely be done working when we are FIRE. No side gigs, no landlording, no part time work.
We've always been pretty frugal, but not MMM frugal. I've learned some things here that have helped with that. With our savings, the hardcore MMMs would have been FIREd by now. We choose to do more for our kids than most here do. That's important to us, much more so than RE a few years earlier. We also don't live in an area where it would be manageable without cars as there is no public transport and we work in opposite directions. We could possibly do with one car when we are retired, depending on what we choose to do for volunteering.
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I was surprised by the high numbers as well. I'm shooting for $40k max, but of course healthcare is still an unknown, as others have said.
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I was surprised by the high numbers as well. I'm shooting for $40k max, but of course healthcare is still an unknown, as others have said.
are you single or married you said "I" so that number would be the same as the OPs doubled for 2 people.
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I was surprised by the high numbers as well. I'm shooting for $40k max, but of course healthcare is still an unknown, as others have said.
are you single or married you said "I" so that number would be the same as the OPs doubled for 2 people.
actually married, but I do all the planning.
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<$35k. It does include some landlording but it'll go away if we move to a LCOL city.
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I decided I have to revise my numbers... I left out $5,000 for pumpkin spice lattes and my yoga membership fees😄
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Haha.
I guess I need a few face punches. I've been here maybe 1 year and I've dug out of some tight spots.
I did include >$4k/yr travel in the budget and some slack for eating out.
I wish I had a paid-off house but, that ain't happening.
Raising 5 kids, a few major medical events, etc put a dent in financial planning.
Still, I am grateful for finding this site and the help from y'all.
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Haha.
I guess I need a few face punches. I've been here maybe 1 year and I've dug out of some tight spots.
I did include >$4k/yr travel in the budget and some slack for eating out.
I wish I had a paid-off house but, that ain't happening.
Raising 5 kids, a few major medical events, etc put a dent in financial planning.
Still, I am grateful for finding this site and the help from y'all.
Not having a paid off house is a good thing. Don't ever wish for bad things
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I’m planning on $60k but will likely telecommute part time for more than my budget. That being said, will likely be hard to spend that much given I plan to spend time in several LCOL areas.
I’m more interested in what % of working income folks are planning for in retirement. If income is $250k and retirement budget is $75k. Retiring on 30% of income is pretty impressive...
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I’m planning on $60k but will likely telecommute part time for more than my budget. That being said, will likely be hard to spend that much given I plan to spend time in several LCOL areas.
I’m more interested in what % of working income folks are planning for in retirement. If income is $250k and retirement budget is $75k. Retiring on 30% of income is pretty impressive...
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Not really if pre FIRE savings are 50% ish ... We are also paying off a mortgage that hopefully will be paid off so actually will retire on 25-30% of current income .
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Expecting around $15k a year, which I'm at now. That includes some buffer for unnecessary travel.
If I stay in NYC or another high rent city, that could go up a few grand.
Healthcare is of course a wild card. I don't expect large monthly expenses, though.
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Expecting around $15k a year, which I'm at now. That includes some buffer for unnecessary travel.
If I stay in NYC or another high rent city, that could go up a few grand.
Healthcare is of course a wild card. I don't expect large monthly expenses, though.
Unbelievably badass to be under or around $20k in NYC. Rock on!
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Did you say $2,200 a year for life insurance? That seems like an area to get some quotes. I pay $176/yr for $500k of coverage on a 20year term policy.
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Expecting around $15k a year, which I'm at now. That includes some buffer for unnecessary travel.
If I stay in NYC or another high rent city, that could go up a few grand.
Healthcare is of course a wild card. I don't expect large monthly expenses, though.
Unbelievably badass to be under or around $20k in NYC. Rock on!
Thanks! I was much higher before I moved into my current place and got $450 rent. That dropped my baseline expenses to $1,000/mo. Then a few grand more for unusually high travel and medical expenses.
I like your screenname. My original FIRE plan was to couchsurf the world. Where are you hoping to go first?
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We semi-retired 5 years ago. We spend between 62-72k/year. We spend 12k on health insurance and 10-12k/travel. At 63 we intend to travel now because we have had 3 good friends die. We have a low mortgage (650/month). We also eat out twice a week and go to local events. When we were working we did not have the time or energy to do this stuff.
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My after tax projected retirement budget comes in around 75K. I've got 8 years to retirement so I've inflated the numbers to reflect what I think inflation will do to the expense. It's not even close to mustachian but here's how it shakes out (for OP and Dark and Stormy):
21.6K mortgage & prop tax (33K now, got a late start so will have a mortgage for the rest of my life unless I live past 90)
10K for in country travel, no more squeezing into cattle coach and I don't own a backpack
4.8 K cable, internet, cell, netflix (yep I said cable)
2.4 K utilities (plan on moving to a hot state in retirement)
4.8 K groceries (I eat well - lamb, shrimp, lobster, fussy cheese - and entertain often)
5.4 K dining out (I am a foodie and I don't want price to factor into my experience if I can help it) this is a main form of socializing in my circle
6K spa and hair (I am so soft)
3.6 K theater, community college, clothes, housewares (I am not an outdoor person)
7.2K health care - includes gym memberships, inflated to include possible pricey medications as I age
8.4K car and related expenses (if there's a true self driving car in the future I plan to be able to afford it to be independent longer)
The rest is charity and house maintenance.
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I am about 10-13 years out from retirement. Right now living in a very HCOL area I spend between $45K and $50K per year after taxes and savings for 3 people. $29K of that is just rent (not including utilities). So living expenses for 3 people come to between $16K and $21K per year.
I plan on moving to LowerCOL area once kids are in college and then to LCOL area once I am retired. I am guessing needing about $40K/yr in retirement income gross for myself once I am in LCOL area and not supporting kids anymore. Of course this will be revisited once I am closer to that point and have a better picture of what health insurance would cost and what LCOL are I will end up in.
So far my projections at my current savings rate (at 6% growth) and $40K/yr spending (indexed for inflation at 3%) starting at age 55, and starting receiving SS at age 62, my FIRE projections show that I will have about $2.9M at age 100. So it seems that I can increase my spending some if needed. But I will be recalculating this many times between now and when I actually retire to make sure I am on track.
None of this takes into account any future possible relationships, but I have no plans on getting married again, and any kind of living arrangements with a partner should not affect my numbers too much since I have full intentions on keeping finances separate.
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We're shooting for around $20k post-retirement (with paid off housing) or $40k with housing.
We currently live in NYC and spend $32K to $38k a year total (family of two, renting so most of that is rent). Some of the numbers on here blow my mind.
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We're shooting for around $20k post-retirement (with paid off housing) or $40k with housing.
We currently live in NYC and spend $32K to $38k a year total (family of two, renting so most of that is rent). Some of the numbers on here blow my mind.
That's ok...numbers like yours blow MY mind LOL. That is seriously impressive for a major city.
I suspect a lot of the number discrepancies are health care related. Considering we've spent almost 10K out of pocket on co pays and premiums for health care this year, about 7K last year, and expect to spend at least another 7-10K NEXT year (and this is with good employer based insurance and no surgery or emergency room visits)...it starts to add zeros to your projected retirement spending real damn quick. When we were in our 20s and 30s, we lived ok on 30-40/year. But back then it would have blown our minds that we'd be spending this much on health stuff in our 40s and 50s, let alone possibly when we are older.
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Expecting around $15k a year, which I'm at now. That includes some buffer for unnecessary travel.
If I stay in NYC or another high rent city, that could go up a few grand.
Healthcare is of course a wild card. I don't expect large monthly expenses, though.
Unbelievably badass to be under or around $20k in NYC. Rock on!
Thanks! I was much higher before I moved into my current place and got $450 rent. That dropped my baseline expenses to $1,000/mo. Then a few grand more for unusually high travel and medical expenses.
I like your screenname. My original FIRE plan was to couchsurf the world. Where are you hoping to go first?
Southern Europe is the plan, Portugal specifically to start.
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I'm feeling totally BA. My wife and I are planning to retire on ~$30k. No time to sit at a desk for more of my life! We, like MMM, will probably make money in retirement doing things we want to do, but the $30k number should be sufficient for us in an MCOL area. Anything over $50k seems insane to me and means trading your life for excesses. I'd focus on getting to FIRE and doing what you find most valuable. It's easy to supplement your income by $10k in a year if the need arises, but it's impossible to get your time back and life is short.
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I had originally hoped to get down to $46k/yr. Been tracking expenses for a year and have had a bit of a reality check. Looks like a more realistic (if extravagant) budget is $60k/yr. Our household is 2 adults, 2 teens, and a grandparent. We're in a LCOL area and have a fully paid off house. Plus live in Canada so free health care.
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I'm close to regular retirement age, and technically could retire now if I wanted, but I enjoy my career and also want to work a bit longer to ensure my kids will be ok.
I look at my current after-tax income and subtract the things I won't be spending in retirement. By that time I won't be paying for kids in college - that's over a third of my take home budget right now as a divorced mom. My fixed rate 4% mortgage is only $1120 a month, so while my original plan was to pay it off before retirement, I may choose to invest that money instead. Other daily living expenses should not change significantly if I keep the same lifestyle - I expect to spend a similar amount in retirement on travel, clothes, car, eating out as I do now. Once I reach Medicare age my insurance costs will drop by 2-300 a month (I have a bronze plan now) but expensive dental work may increase as I age. Property taxes are pretty stable in my state and run me about $450 a month. I drive an 8 year old Toyota Matrix, buy my clothes at Ross and Marshalls, got to local rock shows at $20-30 a pop, eat out occasionally but not at expensive restaurants ( my city has abundant good cheap restaurants).
So - overall, if I want the same lifestyle in retirement that I have now, I figure I need $5000 a month. I want extra money set aside for major house repairs as they come up. In a tight year I could probably trim that $5k a month down to $3.5 a month ( including mortgage and property taxes) by simply skipping vacation and eliminating frills. I will also have the options of renting out bedrooms in my house for extra income, or downsizing to eliminate my mortgage.
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I'm feeling totally BA. My wife and I are planning to retire on ~$30k. No time to sit at a desk for more of my life! We, like MMM, will probably make money in retirement doing things we want to do, but the $30k number should be sufficient for us in an MCOL area. Anything over $50k seems insane to me and means trading your life for excesses. I'd focus on getting to FIRE and doing what you find most valuable. It's easy to supplement your income by $10k in a year if the need arises, but it's impossible to get your time back and life is short.
the problem every time this question comes up is this varies greatly depending on if you rent or own ... and if you own is your mortgage included or is it paid off. the best way to ask this question is to ask what people plan to spend in retirement including rent/mortgage if you plan to be mortgage free take out a 30 year mortgage at 4% on your house and add that in OR everyone who has a mortgage or rent plans should remove it. i assume at 30k you have no mortgage or rent ... but many have posted here including that
no mortgage we spend around 50k-55k still with a mortgage we spend around 75k.
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$72k spending in FIRE. We will have a mortgage of $1700 and don't plan to pay it off. We will move after the kids graduate from high school (~10 years). We also are thinking of moving out of State (CA) after we launch the kids. $72k should cover all scenarios and includes some padding.
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32k in LA with mortgage.
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I'm feeling totally BA. My wife and I are planning to retire on ~$30k. No time to sit at a desk for more of my life! We, like MMM, will probably make money in retirement doing things we want to do, but the $30k number should be sufficient for us in an MCOL area. Anything over $50k seems insane to me and means trading your life for excesses. I'd focus on getting to FIRE and doing what you find most valuable. It's easy to supplement your income by $10k in a year if the need arises, but it's impossible to get your time back and life is short.
the problem every time this question comes up is this varies greatly depending on if you rent or own ... and if you own is your mortgage included or is it paid off. the best way to ask this question is to ask what people plan to spend in retirement including rent/mortgage if you plan to be mortgage free take out a 30 year mortgage at 4% on your house and add that in OR everyone who has a mortgage or rent plans should remove it. i assume at 30k you have no mortgage or rent ... but many have posted here including that
no mortgage we spend around 50k-55k still with a mortgage we spend around 75k.
This is with at least $1000/month toward housing. The details of how that looks are TBD. We are selling our current house and do not require an expensive house in the future.
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I expect to come in at around $8000 or maybe a bit lower. Current spending is less than $700 a month.
Traveling the US in an RV..
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I expect to come in at around $8000 or maybe a bit lower. Current spending is less than $700 a month.
Traveling the US in an RV..
That's pretty awesome!
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Planning between 20-30k for 2. We will be traveling the US in an RV
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We've been FIRE'd for 4 years. Annual spend has been right around $45-48k, with medical accounting for $15k to $20k per year. No rent/mortgage, but there's upkeep on the house, of course!
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We are targeting an annual spend of $68K CDN which includes a healthy allowance for travel and outdoor gear. The house is paid for thankfully so the $68K excludes housing costs. We could get by on less, and I admire those of you FIREing on lower numbers. But I am enjoying my part time work and want to make sure we are in a position to see our kids successfully launch.
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This is probably a lot more detail than anyone cares about but I find it helps us to write it out. Right now we are still on a OMY basis and plan to Retire June 1 after we pay off our new car, the kitchen remodel, and all our daughters student loans.
Our retirement budget is 120k
We are targeting about 84k base.
24000 for housing includes 20k PITI and 4k maintenance budget
24000 for health insurance and out of pocket
12000 for all utilities, house cleaners , yard workers, phone, insurance etc
24k for food, clothes, local travel, eating out, wine, entertainment, etc
That leaves about 36 thousand cushion, in good years; nice international travel, maybe the occasional new car or home remodel. In bad years, we can cut all or most of this 36k.
We are 60/58 so sometime in the next 10-12 years we will ramp up SS between 36k and 60k depending on start date. This will be strictly for buffer. The plan is to wait til we are 70, barring some brutal market downturn.
In 5 to 7 years we go to medicare, which should help the health insurance costs a little.
The first two years are strictly cash and capital gains so taxes should be minimal. After that , the taxes will ramp up gradually until we hit 70 and start the RMD's.
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SG: I am wondering how you plan to travel in RV for 700 month? Gas is expensive. Yes you can boondoogle or stay in a place that lets you pay a monthly rate. Just curious because we have found it to be a lot more expensive then we thought.
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SG: I am wondering how you plan to travel in RV for 700 month? Gas is expensive. Yes you can boondoogle or stay in a place that lets you pay a monthly rate. Just curious because we have found it to be a lot more expensive then we thought.
+1 I'd love to know more.
We're planning for $50K. We'll be 2 adults and 1 ~9 year old at that point. Seeing this talk about being able to RV for less, though, I'm wondering what we're waiting for. Stash is currently a bit north of $600K.
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What we have found with Rving is that if you travel a lot from place to place gas costs a small fortune. We don;t like to boondoogle because we want hookups. We paid 55/night for RV site but the people staying a month only paid 400 so that is definitely a way to save $. WE just did not want to be in one place that long. Many we met that were retired spend 6 months in one place and 6 in another with them mostly following the good weather so as not to be in a cold climate in winter.
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SG: I am wondering how you plan to travel in RV for 700 month? Gas is expensive. Yes you can boondoogle or stay in a place that lets you pay a monthly rate. Just curious because we have found it to be a lot more expensive then we thought.
I have solar and rarely pay to stay for the night. Most National and many State Forests have nice camping areas that you can stay for up to 14 days without issue and some allow longer stays with a permit. State and National Parks can have free or cheap camping and there are always parking lots. Some of these are quieter and have a nicer view than some campgrounds I've stayed in.
My RV gets 15 mpg and I made the decision before I started that I would attempt to keep gas costs at around $100 a month. I've gone over a few times but this ends up balancing out later during a month that I am less mobile in. I find that a week on a beach or in the trees next to a stream is an excellent way to spend time and since I have the rest of my life (in theory) to see everything, it's easy to decide to spend one more day not traveling.
Currently spending time with my dad at a DC hotel. It's a big event and they allow RVers attending the event to stay in the lot for free. I've also stayed in front of friends' houses, in their driveways, at casinos, Walmarts, rest areas and truck stops. Where I sleep is less important to me than what I do or see.
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thanks SG for the info:))
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thanks SG for the info:))
Go! Have a blast! You don't need to spend a fortune to have an amazing time!
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SG: That's amazing :) Do you ever find you need to occasionally go to a paid campground to use their services? Don't know too much about RV living but don't u need to hook things up occasionally?
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We are targeting $48k/yr which includes housing and healthcare for 2 people.
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I still have a long way to go, but I'm budgeting 30k/yr.
10k for expenses
10k for potentially ridiculous high health insurance
10k for fun/charity/buffer
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I'm budgeting £30k, but don't plan to spend it all - only spend £20k now, but haven't had any large home maintenance costs for a while.
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We are spending about $35k a year including healthcare but we could spend $56k and stay under our retirement budget.
I still only eat out once every two weeks and that is buying the Tuesday thin crust roasted garlic steak pizza at Papa Murphy's for $10 (man is that a good pizza!)
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48k for two in a pretty HCOL area. we buy what we want and travel where we want to while also being generally averse to spending money, and always spending in line with our values. this is a comfortable number for all of that. back in the day i felt like this number was really high for MMM--but it looks like things have changed! :)
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TOYS:
I figure the living can be easily done on 35 -50 K a year. The house is paid off.
Nobody on this site ever seems to talk about toys - 4 wheelers, motorcycles, trucks, snowmobiles, boats, etc.
Do a lot of people get their toys after retirement or is this something you should get while you are still working? While working, there is no time for toys. After working in retirement, you can get used toys and repair them. Maybe I haven't looked this site over enough, but how about toys?
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The toys will be here Nov 1. Two 2018 Ski-doo snowmobiles, the 2 up back country version with 154" tracks and 900 ACE four stroke engines. We plan to do some serious winter riding and maybe camping. Eventually we will take them with us to Alaska.
When you have a budget for 56k and yet live on 35k, you can do this kind of rather extravagant spending.
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TOYS:
I figure the living can be easily done on 35 -50 K a year. The house is paid off.
Nobody on this site ever seems to talk about toys - 4 wheelers, motorcycles, trucks, snowmobiles, boats, etc.
Do a lot of people get their toys after retirement or is this something you should get while you are still working? While working, there is no time for toys. After working in retirement, you can get used toys and repair them. Maybe I haven't looked this site over enough, but how about toys?
Something tells me you haven't read much of the blog. Toys are frivolous ways to spend money having no more fun than you could be having without them. Make them an occasional experience, not a financial liability.
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Something tells me you haven't read much of the blog. Toys are frivolous ways to spend money having no more fun than you could be having without them. Make them an occasional experience, not a financial liability.
Occasional experience is correct but they are not necessarily any more frivolous than a cruise or trip to Europe/Asia, things that many MMM followers (and MMM himself?) do.
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Currently living on 33k/yr not including health insurance, but just found a way to reduce that annual number to 30k. 5 people.
Hoping for single payer so that we can really live on $30k per year, especially once the kids are grown.
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Currently living on 33k/yr not including health insurance, but just found a way to reduce that annual number to 30k. 5 people.
Hoping for single payer so that we can really live on $30k per year, especially once the kids are grown.
Let's think long and hard about whether we want single-payer and the hell that comes with it just so we can save a buck.
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Something tells me you haven't read much of the blog. Toys are frivolous ways to spend money having no more fun than you could be having without them. Make them an occasional experience, not a financial liability.
Occasional experience is correct but they are not necessarily any more frivolous than a cruise or trip to Europe/Asia, things that many MMM followers (and MMM himself?) do.
You won't find me anywhere near a cruise. To each their own. So many infinitely (yes, infinitely) cheaper and better ways to enjoy creation.
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My base spending is $12,500, not including discretionary things.
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I break out my retirement (and current) budget into three categories:
Core Spending
Housing
Insurance
Core spending is a $2,000 - $3,000/mo number. The range depends on traveling
Housing depends on where I move in retirement. Right now its very expensive, but I choose to do that to live close to my office in a big city with a stand-alone house. This will stay high if we move to Hawaii, down in all other destinations.
Health Insurance will be an rear-kicker for the first 18 months, then should ease up with subsidies. I figure the first half to three quarter year I retire will be expensive, along with the 2nd year because I have a lot of money paid in February/March that will kick me out of subsidies for the following year.
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Currently living on 33k/yr not including health insurance, but just found a way to reduce that annual number to 30k. 5 people.
Hoping for single payer so that we can really live on $30k per year, especially once the kids are grown.
Let's think long and hard about whether we want single-payer and the hell that comes with it just so we can save a buck.
Have you looked at existing single payer systems? What is this hell you speak of?
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Currently living on 33k/yr not including health insurance, but just found a way to reduce that annual number to 30k. 5 people.
Hoping for single payer so that we can really live on $30k per year, especially once the kids are grown.
Let's think long and hard about whether we want single-payer and the hell that comes with it just so we can save a buck.
Have you looked at existing single payer systems? What is this hell you speak of?
I won't speak for the person that wrote "hell for single payer system", but for us a single-payer system isn't an option for us because my wife has suffered from a Spontaneous Spinal CSF leak (tear in the protective layer of the spinal cord) she got from working out. Its an injury she is prone to have again. Single payer systems struggle every day to treat this injury because its a fairly recent discovery. Many citizens on the support forums in Canada, UK, and Australia have to travel to NC (Duke) or CA (Stanford or Cedars Sinai) on their own dime to receive care or suffer from a crippling but curable injury.
It completely changed my opinion on the value of innovation in healthcare...
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I have no idea how to plan for medical expenses especially since we'll have three children still at home. We're planning to load up an hsa over the next three or four years to help defray costs for a while.
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Numbers in this thread made me check the url to make sure I'm on the MMM forum and not the bogleheads forum.
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"hell for single payer system"
Yeh - I wonder about that too. My brother was telling me today that he has a Canadian buddy that retired at 60. He was told that health care is not a major concern of his friend.
This forum reaches all over. Is single payer a bad thing for retirement, a good thing or like most things good and bad? Medicare saved my mom's life so I guess I am biased.
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SG: That's amazing :) Do you ever find you need to occasionally go to a paid campground to use their services? Don't know too much about RV living but don't u need to hook things up occasionally?
I don't *need* to, but sometimes it's convenient and pleasant to stay a night or two at a campground (state or national park so generally under $30), empty the tanks, get water, go for hikes, take a shower and so on. With some diligence you can find free water and dump stations but I don't always want to travel to one of these places. My next destination is Shenandoah National Park with a free dump station (after paying the park entrance fee) and possibly water although their website indicates that a couple areas are having water problems. May or may not stay overnight depending on availability.
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Numbers in this thread made me check the url to make sure I'm on the MMM forum and not the bogleheads forum.
i'm not mustachian by any stretch but the knowledge and opinion of how to retire early here is much better than boggleheads forum. The boggleheads forum is overly conservative.
I've often thought of starting a FAT FIRE blog where the focus isnt as much on minimal consumption but maximizing the dollar for the consumption you choose to do. Its one thing to reduce spending but i disagree with ERE and MMM on buy something expensive once and use it forever. You should buy something of high quality but at a great price, and there is no talk anywhere here outside of grocery spending about how to do this the correct way. and somethings should be disposably like shoes. there is no cost savings in resoling 300 dollar shoes anymore b/c the cost to resole is more than what i pay for all leather shoes that are of reasonably high quality. thats just one example but many many things can be bought properly to allow you to live what appears to be a typical USA middle/upper middle class life on far far less. out side of the necessities in life these things can be purchased when the price is right vs just because you want it and want high quality.
so i guess i stick around for the great knowledge that is here on how the math works behind it. B/c its better IMO than boggleheads. but what could improve is the talk around how to consume responsibly on what you choose to have in your life.
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Single, no children or plans to have them in the foreseeable future.
Not retired yet, but I'm planning to spend about $2K per month when I retire. Barebones spend target is about 1.5K per month, the rest will be discretionary/variable spend depending on the performance of my investments.
I am also planning to start an online business or work on part time freelancing gigs, so if I can make additional money, I will spend some of it on luxuries. I don't want to depend on it though, so I will not pull the plug until I am reasonably sure that I can live quite comfortably off of my investment income.
i am planning move to South East Asia or alternate between Eastern/Southern Europe in Summer and SEA in winter (a snowbird on a budget).
For health care, I will either self insure or buy a long term travel insurance policy to insure against catastrophic events and pay out of pocket for routine/smaller health care expenses.