Case Study - Fire in the Sky

[DUNDONE]

I thought we were doing pretty well until I started reading these FIRE forums. If we would have known, we could have shaved a few years off our “FIRE”. I guess there is no sense of cry over spilled whatever…
Please see look at the spreadsheet to see our financial standing.
So here are my questions:
For scenario 1:
Let’s just assumed that we are not disciplined enough to get a handle on our expenses  and continue on our current path.
Is the projection reasonable with me stop working in 3 years and DW stop working in 9 years.
I’m assuming a 2.5% SWR and the ability to help the kids with college.
For scenarios 2:
Our budget has always been “save what you feel is needed and not worrying about what you spend.” This is probably what is causing the big fat invisible elephant in the room to the tune of $44k in expense we can’t truly accounted for.
OK, fire away, face punches and what not.
The goal is still 2.5% SWR and the ability to help the kids with college.
Here are some of the actions and things we have already done:
1.   Signed up to mint for tracking expenses. If there are better options please comment
2.   Suspended qualified dividend payout
Looking at many of the threads, I see that we are paying a little bit too much for heating gas, electricity, and water. We will need to look into this.
Things needed to do:
1.   Tracking and reel in expenses
2.   Reading and understanding long term tax planning

[ysette9]

Dude, what is with this 2.5% withdrawal rate? Are you expecting the collapse of western civilization? Perhaps some casual perusal of reading such as this https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/700/ would help. Please check out the graphs in reply #711. Even at a 4% withdrawal rate your chance of dying far exceeds your chance of running out of money. Is your goal in life to go to the grave fabulously rich? Personally I’d rather be comfortably rich and have spent fewer years working, but that is just me.

[DUNDONE]

Thanks for the link. It's a very nice discussion. I will go back and read a bit more of that post.

A few things:
1. The graphs are base on 100% stock allocation. I wonder how different it would be for other allocations.
2. I'm really in the 3% - 3.5% camp. So, why the 2.5% SWR? I did not budget for the kids college education, so the .5% - 1% is earmarked for their education.

[reeshau]

1. The graphs are base on 100% stock allocation. I wonder how different it would be for other allocations.

It's not much different, actually.  The original Trinity study found optimal odds between 50-75% stock allocations.  But, there is a high degree of overlap between the three scenarios.

https://retirementresearcher.com/trinity-study-updates/

[DS]

A few things:
2. I'm really in the 3% - 3.5% camp. So, why the 2.5% SWR? I did not budget for the kids college education, so the .5% - 1% is earmarked for their education.

In this case the stache goal would be 3 - 3.5% + nominal amount of expected education expenses.

[ysette9]

Exactly. What you really should be doing is using something like cFIREsim to model your base true income needs in retirement and then add in lumpy-but-finite spending needs such as college tuition and mortgages, as those all come to an end.