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Old 05-29-2015, 08:51 AM   #21
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We used bonuses for vacations/cars/home projects. Raises typically were used to increase savings rate.
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Old 05-29-2015, 09:51 AM   #22
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Those of you saying all toward FIRE: why did you choose that? Were you in a job you hated or disliked strongly?
We saved the vast majority of bonuses/raises to meet a FIRE goal by a certain age, which was 100% of the gravy in the years after the 2008/9 crash. In other years, we splurged a little bit. This enabled us to meet our FIRE goal despite the setback of the crash.
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Old 05-29-2015, 11:33 AM   #23
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I'm a somewhat religious (obsessive??) budgeter. When I get "found money" I roughly divide it into 3: 1/3 back to house finance funds, 1/3 pure fun (for me, that might include running race fees or a toy for one of my bikes), and 1/3 to vacation fund.
I'm not that exact about it, but it's the general approach I take.
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Old 05-29-2015, 02:59 PM   #24
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I'm a somewhat religious (obsessive??) budgeter. When I get "found money" I roughly divide it into 3: 1/3 back to house finance funds, 1/3 pure fun (for me, that might include running race fees or a toy for one of my bikes), and 1/3 to vacation fund.
I'm not that exact about it, but it's the general approach I take.
Is the house finance fund for repairs or a new place or what?

What about before you retired?
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Old 05-29-2015, 03:19 PM   #25
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Is the house finance fund for repairs or a new place or what?

What about before you retired?
"House finance" for us basically means retaining it for either repairs/repair fund (like I said, I'm a diligent budgeter) or just into savings for later withdrawals. My mortgage was paid off several years before retirement, but when I had a mortgage I always applied some of the found money to making an extra payment to principal.
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Old 05-29-2015, 11:41 PM   #26
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We just saved any extra income.
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Old 05-30-2015, 12:34 PM   #27
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Those of you saying all toward FIRE: why did you choose that? Were you in a job you hated or disliked strongly?

If I were to spend any gravy, it would be toward renting (leasing) a second home somewhere warm and it would be less than a quarter of the gravy and relatively easy to undo (yearly lease).
I kept my graduate student standard of living for 25 years after finishing school and working full time. True I didn't like my job before I reached FI, but that wasn't the main reason. Right after I hired in we took several waves of layoffs, so I never had a budget or a plan to reach FI, just an urgent need to cover an expected loss of income.

In retrospect panic mode wasn't necessary as my employer slowly turned the corner and is now in a solid position. But no regrets, I certainly wouldn't want to trade places with another middle-aged engineer who partied hard early in life and now needs his paycheck.
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Old 06-02-2015, 01:47 PM   #28
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We bought a cabin in the mountains 5 years ago....

Still plan to retire as originally planned in 11 years.
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Old 06-02-2015, 02:21 PM   #29
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We bought a cabin in the mountains 5 years ago....

Still plan to retire as originally planned in 11 years.
I imagine if you had invested/saved the money for the cabin instead it would have cut your date down at least a year or two. Has it been worth it?
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Old 06-02-2015, 11:35 PM   #30
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Me and DW have applied this "extra" to the slush fund. We use it for home improvement and other items that aren't budgeted but we want. We also noted that saving the little extra would not really decrease the amount of time to get to FI significantly.


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