View Poll Results: My annual household expenses excluding taxes is:
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$24,000 or less
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29 |
10.70% |
$24,001 to $36,000
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35 |
12.92% |
$36,001 to $48,000
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47 |
17.34% |
$48,001 to $60,000
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50 |
18.45% |
$60,001 to $72,000
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34 |
12.55% |
$72,001 to $84,000
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23 |
8.49% |
$84,001 to $96,001
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18 |
6.64% |
$96,001 or more
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35 |
12.92% |
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11-02-2008, 10:38 AM
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#41
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Boise
Posts: 7,863
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SecondCor521
I was going to post a number, but then there were so many caveats. The way RIT asked for the number, I calculated $40,600 per year. It should be way less than half that amount after the kids are grown and gone and the mortgage is paid off. Probably closer to one third.
2Cor521
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Demographics: single, three kids with me a third of the time. Newer modest house, older modest car, reasonable mortgage.
2Cor521
__________________
"At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may in fact be the first steps of a journey." Violet Baudelaire.
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11-02-2008, 11:09 AM
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#42
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Lexington
Posts: 714
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Single, grad student, living with a roommate.
Expenses including rent (not including income tax or tuition, which are both much larger ): $9k/year
Expenses not including rent: $3k/year
I can use up to $48k/year, inflation adjusted, once I graduate, to meet my savings goal of retiring at 40. I will probably use most of this the first year, due to buying a house, but plan to otherwise use significantly less than this and ramp up into it. I will probably have a roommate for company and to reduce the big expenses (the downsides of this are very minimal for me), at least until I find the person to spend my life with.
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11-02-2008, 11:17 AM
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#43
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 4,764
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We spent 52000 last year. This year we are on track to spend 60000. We had to put 6000 into the house. Of course if I count the new car we are looking to spend 31000 more this year But normal expenses were inline. Entertainment was more this year we did more traveling.
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11-02-2008, 11:31 AM
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#44
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Nebraska
Posts: 1,543
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Right now it looks like I will be around $44,000 this year. That does include $4500 for my Berlin trip last spring and a new washer and dryer that I used my rebate check on. I also had a new tile bathroom floor installed in the basement for about a thousand. I really hope I can stop doing "extra" things like the tile floor during this next year. Seems like there is always something that needs to be repaired.
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11-02-2008, 11:50 AM
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#45
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: athens
Posts: 802
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Without taxes, or DW generosity around Christmas, we're just south of $3000/month. After DD graduates into her own post-graduation job next year (I hope), it should be closer to $2400-$2600 I think. Of course the real trick is to equalize the income and expenses and minimize those "one time expenses" taken from the nest egg without living the life of a hermit. It's still 4%, right?
__________________
Can't you see yourself in the nursing home saying, " Darn! Wish I'd spent more time at the office instead of wasting time with family and friends."
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11-02-2008, 02:15 PM
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#46
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 283
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3200 sqft Condo in SW Ohio - No mortgage or car payments - two people retired for past 6 years-
Our basic living budget is just over $60k not including prop taxes, fed and state taxes, and savings. The Basic Expenses have been going up about $4k/yr since retiring in early 2003.
JohnP
__________________
Dad's Dream; to have enough money someday to live the kind of life my wife and kids do...
Life is what happens while you are making other plans... John Lennon...
the more you look, the more you see...
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11-02-2008, 02:24 PM
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#47
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Hooverville
Posts: 22,983
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Net of US Inc Tax $43,000
US Inc Tax $17,250
__________________
"As a general rule, the more dangerous or inappropriate a conversation, the more interesting it is."-Scott Adams
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11-02-2008, 03:49 PM
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#48
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 5,596
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I indicated $48-$60. We could make due with less but are comfortable where we are.
__________________
I purr therefore I am.
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11-02-2008, 07:34 PM
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#49
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: North-Central Illinois
Posts: 3,228
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11-02-2008, 07:48 PM
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#50
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: North of Montana
Posts: 2,768
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We've never calculated it. When I was W*orking, my best year including bonus was about 135K. Being Canadian, I willingly coughed up about 45K in tax. At that time we also saved a bit & spent 20K on kids doing higher ed.
Now, we don't track expenses. I guessed that we need 60-72K$. Less than we were spending (at the peak) on tuition, savings, taxes, KD etc.
Bear in mind that to generate 60-72K we need to tap the investments to the tune of about 3%. FireCalc says "ALL RIGHT".
__________________
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate conclusions from insufficient data and ..
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11-05-2008, 03:23 PM
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#51
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 35,712
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I did not and will not vote. Reason: I don't know yet where we fit!
Following are our actual expenses, as I obtained from my wife's spreadsheet. You see, as I keep track of our portfolio and our income, my wife keeps track of our expenses. As LBYM practitioners, we have not had the need to budget since we married 28 yrs ago. As long as we stuffed our 401Ks, and IRA or Roth in the years when we qualified, and still had plenty leftover to take to the Scottrade and Ameriprise "casinos", who cared? Found a good airfare to Europe? We're on!
As long as our "cash buffer" (checking account) ran in the high 5 figures, who needed a stinkin' budget?
After coming to this forum, and see how the real early retirees plan their expenses, I suddenly realized we have been way too casual. Yes, the recent market performance plus my fortuitous stock picks allowed us to splurge, but something has changed. I am still making some money from free-lance part-time work, but that may dry up.
Yes, we have been LBYM'ers, but it's time to realize that our means have taken a "haircut". And what if it takes another haircut, ie. a "crew cut"?
Anyway, here are our actual past expenses.
2001: $45.1K
2002: $43.4K
2003: $66.9K
2004: $58.2K
2005: $122.0K
2006: $111.0K
2007: $92.8K
2008YTD: $83.4K
Horrendous fluctuations! And it seems our expenses have reached a "permanently high plateau", to borrow from Irving Fisher.
A little reflecting showed me what happened. In 2001 and 2002, I had some family and career traumas, in addition to being post 9/11, so we did not spend much. Then, in 2003, I suddenly realized that I could never take it with me, and we discovered Europe travel. Of course we got hooked. And the bull market kept feeding my accounts. It was great when we went trekking for 2 weeks, and came back to discover we had more than when we started. Being budget travelers, we could not spend it fast enough.
Then, in 2005 my wife quit her megacorp work in disgust. Great! As I was working only part-time, we had even more time to travel. And then, we spent more money to remodel our 2nd home in the mountain. And our children started college. And we started to buy our own medical insurance.
As all good things must eventually end, WallStreet collapsed, taking the economy and my stock values with it.
We are still OK though, with the 73% of the highwater mark in Oct 07, of which 68-70% is currently in cash and I-bond, while the other 30% is fluctuating wildly.
I just have to sit down to see what are truly "one-time" expense items. I remember the past press releases from one of my former megacorp employers. In the early 90's, when there were doubts that it might not survive, its quarterly reports heroically put a positive spin on the earning, or lack of it thereoff. "Excluding these one-time items, we would have made $xxx per share". The problem was there were always some one-time items, one quarter after another.
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11-05-2008, 03:50 PM
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#52
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 4,391
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The Good Life Awaits you
Really low expenses...
1 sack of beans
1 sack of rice
1 box of shotgun shells plus all the varmits I kin' catch
you can live the good life too !
Stop workin' and start livin'
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