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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Sounds about right. The 80% number simply says you take your costs and sub off the stuff that you spent while working, as mentioned above.
Some people might become heavy travellers and jump to 150-200% while doing that.
Some might start doing their own housekeeping and lawn work, maybe even home and car repairs, and drop to 50%.
Some might start doing their own cooking at home, dump some of the expensive tastes, find inexpensive hobbies, and drop even more.
An interesting tidbit I read recently is that a lot of potential ER's make up a dream list of what their retired life will be like; all the stuff they imagine they'll be doing instead of work. Unfortunately most people are undisciplined and when work structures are removed, they become even more so. A good way to resolve this is to prepare short, intermediate and long term goals and "things to do".
Unfortunately that will end up increasing your spending a little bit, but if you do a lot of the stuff with your own time, you get good bang for your buck.
Some people might become heavy travellers and jump to 150-200% while doing that.
Some might start doing their own housekeeping and lawn work, maybe even home and car repairs, and drop to 50%.
Some might start doing their own cooking at home, dump some of the expensive tastes, find inexpensive hobbies, and drop even more.
An interesting tidbit I read recently is that a lot of potential ER's make up a dream list of what their retired life will be like; all the stuff they imagine they'll be doing instead of work. Unfortunately most people are undisciplined and when work structures are removed, they become even more so. A good way to resolve this is to prepare short, intermediate and long term goals and "things to do".
Unfortunately that will end up increasing your spending a little bit, but if you do a lot of the stuff with your own time, you get good bang for your buck.