Saved well but still not where I need to be

[Bestwifeever]

Me either, but my budget is less than 1/3 of what is being discussed here and I do have country club dues. So not much room for a decrease....

Not to mention the meds!

 

[Dawg52]

Not to mention the meds!

Right, country club dues and meds are non-negotiable.

 

[Katsmeow]

I am appalled at the cars and utilities. We spend about $2500 a YEAR on electricity, natural gas and water. For the phones, I get a blackberry paid by my employer. The other 3 people in the family are on a cellphone family plan with unlimited texting. These 3 phones cost about $150 a month. With landline and DSL internet make that $200 a month for phones which some folks would find expensive.

The cars. You put car insurance in a separate category, so I'm not sure how you can spend $1050 on cars. Details?

I can totally see spending this. In fact I've been spending more.

On the house we are putting on the market today to sell, our last electric bill was over $900 and was over $1000 the month before (house is all electric and winter was colder than usual). We live in an area with heavy AC use in the summer and electric is over $1000 a month in the summer months.

The house is almost 4500 sf and is not energy efficient in the least.

Now I suspect this will be changing with the 1900 sf house we just bought (first electric bill was $117) but with a large house I can sure see utilities over $1000 a month particularly if it is not energy efficient.

As far as spending $1050 a month on cars we about that. Fuel is about $400 to $450 a month (long commutes to work, this will go way down with retirement). Tolls are about $250 a month -- discretionary but if we didn't incur them a 45 minutes drive would be a 2 hours drive. Again, will go way down with retirement.

Auto insurance is high since we have a male teenage driver in the house.

The OP's costs don't seem outrageous to me really (and I agree he left out the fun stuff) but he has to decide if he wants to change the lifestyle or not.

For us, we decided that being able to retire now meant changing houses. We bought our new house last month and it is much cheaper to maintain. We worked out between mortgage and maintance and utilities the old house was costing us over $50k a year! (New house we paid cash for).

When I had to decide whether to work years longer to maintain that house (lovely though it is) I had little difficulty deciding to downsize to something we could pay cash for that had much lower maintenance costs.

 

[LOL!]

^Yes, as I recall, we went through this exercise already with you Katsmeow.

As I re-read this thread, I'm thinking the following:

"I'm a f--ing multimillionaire. I should be able to spend $10K a month without problems from my portfolio. What are all these folks telling me that I spend too much? I deserve the good life."

 

[pawsplus]

I can totally see spending this. In fact I've been spending more.[SNIP]

The house is almost 4500 sf and is not energy efficient in the least.

Now I suspect this will be changing with the 1900 sf house we just bought (first electric bill was $117) but with a large house I can sure see utilities over $1000 a month particularly if it is not energy efficient.

Well, sure. That's kinda the point here, isn't it? Why do three people (who really should be TWO people b/c the OP's daughter needs to get her own life and her own apt IMO) need a 4500 SF home??

As far as spending $1050 a month on cars we about that. Fuel is about $400 to $450 a month (long commutes to work, this will go way down with retirement).

What are you driving?? I drive 3000 miles a month b/t 2 jobs and I spend about $180 a month.

 

[Global1]

Death by a thousand cuts!

Thanks for all of the feedback. I hope that I can provide a useful contribute to the forum for others as you all have done for me. As I read through the responses I get a sense that many feel like I said at the beginning - nothing extravagent, it just all adds up.

More info - I drive an 11 year old car (a picked up a significant discount on a BMW on my travels while in Germany, then picked up another there 2 years later - my wife's current car). $250/mth times two is part of the car expense - targeted for future purchase. House is 2500SF. Utilities are what they are. Probably could downsize but have company frequently. I certainly hope that their will be savings when daughter starts to work others have told me not to expect that to go completely away from day 1.

 

[Danmar]

Lots of adice about what kind of car to drive, or insurance to buy blah, blah, blah. Your expenses are fine. We spend multiples of every category. 51 is pretty young and if you don't hate your job the solution seems obvious to me. You need to work more and save more money. Nords post was great. You ain't ready.

 

[MasterBlaster]

My retirement guy says that pretty much everyone thinks there will be 100% SS coverage through 2037. After that, 70%. So younger people may have issues, but most of us older folks won't, or will have limited issues. I'm 47, so in 2037 I'll be 75. I'll still get 70% of SS after that. It's not MUCH money, but it's something.

And with any luck things will improve in that area. They ARE working on it.

While I would agree that everyone may get something, I wouldn't count on an increased amount that high income people get now. Relying on present SS payments just wouldn't be prudent.

Keep in mind that what you posted is only an educated opinion by one person. They won't ask your retirement guy when massive deficits force changes in all government outlays. In my opinion changes will come later this decade forced by the bond markets and the higher costs of continued debt. It won't be pretty once those Boomers start to retire in large numbers. Increased taxes alone won't be able to cover all of the promised benefits.

Also the quoted 2037 number assumes that there really is a SS trust fund to draw down. The large SS deficits (absent a trust fund) start around 2017 or so. So in reality SS will have to compete for resources just like all of the other programs.

 

[Katsmeow]

^Yes, as I recall, we went through this exercise already with you Katsmeow

Yes, and it was all helpful and helped me prioritize my goals. I realized that if I wanted to spend an extra $50k a year on a house then I needed to have another $1.25 million in the portfolio while if we were willing to downsize severely that we could retire, well, now. And...now won out. In my case I found that cutting little expenses wasn't really doing it. I could get rid of some cable channels or have one less TV (did both of those) and it saved me $50 or so a month. That is valuable but changing houses was the key.

pawplus

Why do three people (who really should be TWO people b/c the OP's daughter needs to get her own life and her own apt IMO) need a 4500 SF home??

I'm the one with a 4500 sf house not the OP. In our case we had 6 people living in it when we bought it. By fall we will be down to 4 people so decided we didn't need it, hence putting it on market to sell.

What are you driving?? I drive 3000 miles a month b/t 2 jobs and I spend about $180 a month.

I drive a Prius and drive about 1500 miles a month. Fuel costs are low.

DH drives a Nissan Quest and drives about 3000 miles a month. But he is retiring in a couple of months to those fuel costs will go way down.

 

[aaronc879]

DH drives a Nissan Quest and drives about 3000 miles a month.

3000 miles per month? He must have one hell of a commute. I put on barely 4000 miles per YEAR and I do have to drive to another city for my job.

 

[audreyh1]

WOW! Well at least those incredible commuting costs will go down in retirement.

Audrey

 

[Katsmeow]

I wondered if I had maybe overstated our driving so went and looked at maintenance records from a year ago. My driving has averaged almost exactly 1500 miles a month. I did overstate DH a bit...he actually averaged 2600 a month. We are really looking forward to the reduction in driving with retiring.

 

[pawsplus]

In my case, I live 45 miles from job #1 (in the boondocks) and I also have job #2 (barefoot hoof trimming), which takes me all over. So 3K miles/mo is a conservative estimate. But I have a Toyota Yaris that gets 42 mpg, so that really helps.