Planning early retirement from IT

[FarAway401]

I was told you pretty much have to wear Nikes only. My other acquaintance paid $150 for a pair of Nike's for her 10y.o. daughter. What in the world?!?!

I buy my kids Nikes or Asics, not because of the brand name, but because of their quality. They still make quality shoes that last a long time. Probably not as important for 10 year olds, because they will outgrow them faster than they wear them off, but is a good move for when their feet stop growing or don't grow as fast.
I usually find a good model and buy the same one year after year, going a size up every time. I had a picture of 3 pairs of shoes my younger one had over the course of two years - three pairs of trail shoes from LL Bean, all the same color, each pair slightly bigger than the previous one .

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

FarAway,

You say in theory you should have 2.5-3k left over every month. Okay, what would happen if you took 2.5k off the top every month and put it toward retirement? Where would you be short if you did this? That is what you need to find out.

 

[FarAway401]

FarAway,

You say in theory you should have 2.5-3k left over every month. Okay, what would happen if you took 2.5k off the top every month and put it toward retirement? Where would you be short if you did this? That is what you need to find out.

I'd be short on paying our day-to-day expenses that we put on CCs, then pay off in full every month. Or mortgage payment.

Also, I recently enrolled in my company's ESPP, which takes 10% of my after-tax salary, so my take home is reduced, and we are now bringing about 9.5K between the two of us. It was even less first half of the year, as my husband is self-employed, and pays estimated taxes, and that schedule leaves more income in the second half of the year.
I ran some calculations and also looked into our recent credit card statements, and will be digging further into that. Right now, there is not much left of that 9.5k after paying all the bills, and doing small contributions to savings and college fund. But when I sell my shares from ESPP, that should cover tuition. I'm planning on participating in ESPP for as long as I'm with this employer - it is a convenient way to save and make some money, pretty much risk-free. Also, as I mentioned, my stock grants will start vesting in Feb. 2017, and what I don't have to spend on tuition, I will sell and put into savings or brokerage account.
What I need to work on is reducing our expenses, so that we can save an additional 1k/month or so, regardless of stock grants. (This is after contributing to 401k and SEP IRA to the max)

 

[daylatedollarshort]

What I need to work on is reducing our expenses, so that we can save an additional 1k/month or so, regardless of stock grants. (This is after contributing to 401k and SEP IRA to the max)

What we found helpful was printing out the annual expense tables in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, putting our budget in the same categories and comparing them side by side. A few things really jumped out right off the bat where we high, and over time we're even lower in some categories these days than average. Most households have to live on much less than $200K+ a year, but it is easy to spend that much if all you see are your similar income neighbors and co-workers spending habits, and statistically most of them probably do not have enough saved for retirement to maintain their current lifestyles.

 

[FarAway401]

What we found helpful was printing out the annual expense tables in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, putting our budget in the same categories and comparing them side by side. A few things really jumped out right off the bat where we high, and over time we're even lower in some categories these days than average. Most households have to live on much less than $200K+ a year, but it is easy to spend that much if all you see are your similar income neighbors and co-workers spending habits, and statistically most of them probably do not have enough saved for retirement to maintain their current lifestyles.

Thank you, those tables are great! I love data . Will compare to our expenses, I have a feeling I know where we will come higher or much higher than average.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Thank you, those tables are great! I love data . Will compare to our expenses, I have a feeling I know where we will come higher or much higher than average.

We stumbled upon the tables in our fifties, and realized if we cut our expenses we could ER the next day, otherwise we would have to both work at least an extra decade or likely more. So we just kept asking ourselves would we rather have to both work another 10+ years or retire and live a bit closer to a more middle class lifestyle than we had been, and we decided there wasn't much we wanted more than leisure time.

It's been several years and so far no regrets, except we both wish we'd looked at our expenses more carefully and ERed much sooner. We live in the same house and actually bought nicer cars and go out more. We just started price shopping, made the house energy efficient, had time for more DIY like our own taxes, and a lot of the little stuff all added up.

 

[JoeWras]

It adds up.

Glad I don't spend $489 per year on shoes.

Many of the other standard expenses are surprisingly close to my own experience, such as food.