Going from Saving to Spending

[Alan]

That is very sad. But if faced with the same fate, even if I had more than 2 years of retirement before I got this diagnosis, it is still sad. Dying this early is sad, whether you have had 10 prior years of freedom to fool around, or been working up until now. It still sucks!

My Dad managed to be able to RE at age 60, and my mother, who was 8 years younger, stopped work also. Unfortunately she was diagnosed with cancer at age 61 and died aged 62, but they had 9 good years together and my Dad always treasured that time because they did so much together during those years.

 

[ziggy29]

If you can afford it AND want to do it, great -- but spending for spending's sake is stupid, IMO. If you only spend "because you can" and not because it enriches your life, then I'd submit that there are a lot better things to do with the money, whether leaving it to heirs or willing it to your favorite charities.

 

[NW-Bound]

I guess how "sucky" it is depends on how miserable one's work is, and whether one has had a chance to do whatever he or she always wanted to do. Sh!t can happen anytime, anyhow. My work gets interesting quite often, mainly because I choose what I would do. We like to travel and have been doing a bit of that in recent years.

The above said, I think I will log another "real" RV trip this summer, to be sure to have another "accomplishment" on my belt, just in case I may get diagnosed with something.

But, here are some recent happenings that already make me happy. My daughter already got a promotion where she works for less than 1 year, and with a good raise too. And she is going to move into the town home that she's buying in a month. And my son, an engineering major, is getting an internship at a major government research lab this summer.

Things are looking so good, I wonder how I have been so lucky.

 

[Khan]

If you can afford it AND want to do it, great -- but spending for spending's sake is stupid, IMO. If you only spend "because you can" and not because it enriches your life, then I'd submit that there are a lot better things to do with the money, whether leaving it to heirs or willing it to your favorite charities.

I find it easier to give money than to spend it.

 

[ronin]

After an outstanding 3 weeks of getting seriously knocked around the ocean, need a new board. Got a custom 8' 6" Becker Speed Shape 4.0 on order. A bar of wax and I'll be good to go for several more years. Well actually I may need more than 1 bar of wax.

 

[obgyn65]

There are days when I feel the same, but not always.

I find it easier to give money than to spend it.

 

[haha]

I certainly hope so, but we really do not know. Having survived 2 crashes in a period of less than 10 years, I do not know if I have learned to surf these waves any better. What if the next one is really the rogue wave, the real tsunami?

Have I scared anyone yet?

No, because we understand that you are a provocateur. What you say may have no relationship or even an inverse realtionship to what you think, or what you might do.


Ha

 

[NW-Bound]

Provocateur? Hmm... Maybe I am. Could be because I have admitted to being bullish, and being more than 70% in equities?

Maybe it is my nature to stir up trouble.

But I wonder what else I have said that you did sense some contradiction. What if I really meant what I wrote, but then my mind changed? Have you seen my state of residence in my profile?

 

[Andre1969]

I have a feeling that going from saving mode to spending mode is going to be rough for me. In fact, right now I feel like I'm going through some kind of mental withdrawal because starting this year, I cut back investing by about $600 per month, in anticipation of income tax time.

I goofed and sold a bunch of Apple stock last year when it went to around $200 per share, and that triggered a pretty big capital gain. And, of course, as soon as I sold, it shot up even more. Story of my life I guess. I did jump back in, and then some, as I saw it was doing nothing but shooting up, so I've benefitted from most of this recent run-up, albeit at the cost of having to pay some capital gains.

Around this time last year, I toyed with the idea of building a new house on my land, and having the old one torn down. As a rough ballpark figure, I estimated around $200,000. Well, since then, my portfolio's gone up around $180,000, and I managed to pay the mortgage down by around $25,000, so theoretically I could pay that $200K for the new house, and STILL be slightly ahead of where I was at this same time last year. But, now that I have the means, I don't want to do it.

I just hope I don't turn into a cheap old man!

 

[Gone4Good]

spending for spending's sake is stupid, IMO. If you only spend "because you can" and not because it enriches your life, then I'd submit that there are a lot better things to do with the money, whether leaving it to heirs or willing it to your favorite charities.

That sums up my view pretty nicely.

The last part is also why I don't fret too much about underspending my portfolio by a ton. That money will get spent, and, with any luck, in a way that makes a difference to somebody.

 

[Moemg]

The first few years after retirement I was a cautious spender and then came the stock market drop and I became a scared spender . Now I am back to being a cautious spender .

 

[Nords]

After an outstanding 3 weeks of getting seriously knocked around the ocean, need a new board. Got a custom 8' 6" Becker Speed Shape 4.0 on order.

Very nice! Does the board really have the atomic-power logo on it?!?

Is there a story behind what happened to the old board, or is this new board a different set of performance characteristics? How'd you choose the parameters?

One of the reasons I ask is because I wonder if it's better to buy & rehab three different planks from desperate Craigslist sellers than to have one custom board. We've had enough guests at Hale Nords in the last year to make it worth buying a couple used 10'0"s to keep around the house for surfing lessons.

But I also remember the look on my daughter's face as she talked the shaper through the design of her custom high-school graduation present, and how happy [-]I've[/-] she's been with it.

 

[ronin]

Although I have 4 boards in the quiver, I really only ride the one. It is perfect for me. I've had it for a number of years and as you know, eventually you accumulate shatters and pressure dings. Surfing pretty much every day during this great Indian summer of a winter in some fairly good juice I've managed to bang it off my feet, legs, arms and head enough to age it a little more rapidly than normal. It still is plenty functional but I thought about it and what the heck, I can throw away a really old beat up back up board that I use for teaching others on occasion and replace it with this one that is still in decent enough shape; plus if I manage to snap the new one (which isn't out of the question) I'd have old Betsy too hold me through til I replace it again.

It should be a fairly exact duplicate. Becker is a shaping fool and cranks out tons of perfect boards, and has had plenty of practice on this design. I usually have to see it and hold it in my hands before I know that it's "the one" rather than custom order, but I've seen a number of others of this shape that my friends have and know that it will be perfect enough.

 

[freebird5825]

I'm FIREd, yes, but I continue to build my retirement portfolio on a much smaller scale than while w*rking. I still budget strictly to stay well within my fixed income, but I do give myself permission to have fun. It's all a question of balance.
I will feel more "retired" in 4 years when I apply for my deferred pension. And of course, at age 62, when eligible for SS.
I pay very close attention to the threads here about SWR. I read every article and tuck it away in the ol' cranium (below ) for future use.
I am learning so much from the collective. Thank you

 

[67walkon]

Great thread! We will have a problem with this. My wife and I have always been thrifty, except for certain things. She re-did our bathrooms last year, but even then, the cabinets came from Cabinet Liquidators and she worked at finding bargains rather than just paying whatever a GC said it cost. But for the most part, we are relatively cheap. If underwear cost $10 at a big department store but $5 at Walmart, ours are coming from Walmart, or for me, from Costco.

It has been interesting these last few years. I've had a 6 figure income and we live in a neighborhood where many of the homes are still worth over $1,000,000, including ours. But we have been the only neighbors who work in the yard, had our kids do chores and things like that. Now, we have our mortgage just about paid off, and we could write a check for the small balance, and quite a few of those neighbors are struggling with foreclosures.

I know that shifting from savings to depleting savings will be tough for us. We're actually trying to set it up so we have enough income from savings not to have to touch principal, and we're very, very close, but it will be a big adjustment to spend money that is in those retirement accounts.

It is great to read these threads on here. Although I should be working right now, but work is slow and this is more interesting today.

 

[Nords]

Although I have 4 boards in the quiver, I really only ride the one. It is perfect for me. I've had it for a number of years and as you know, eventually you accumulate shatters and pressure dings. Surfing pretty much every day during this great Indian summer of a winter in some fairly good juice I've managed to bang it off my feet, legs, arms and head enough to age it a little more rapidly than normal. It still is plenty functional but I thought about it and what the heck, I can throw away a really old beat up back up board that I use for teaching others on occasion and replace it with this one that is still in decent enough shape; plus if I manage to snap the new one (which isn't out of the question) I'd have old Betsy too hold me through til I replace it again.

Excellent, thanks.

I find myself tempted to fill in the distance between 7'0" and 10'0" in six-inch increments, inclusive. Maybe two 10'0"s would be even better. That way we'd have enough for all our houseguests without having to rent...

 

[73ss454]

67, according to your first post you shouldn't have a problem living off of your money. I think most forum members would have retired long ago in your position.