Financial things for FIRE

[corn18]

I have been trying to make sure I have accounted for everything in FIRE from a financial perspective.

One oops I found thanks to this forum is I missed accounting for my Medicare premiums for both me and my wife. That was an oops of $3,470 a year.

Things I have accounted for:

Car purchase every 5 years (2 cars, keep 10 years each)
House maintenance
Taxes
Health care costs
Dental / Vision costs

I would sure like to catch anything else that is missing before pulling the plug on work in a couple of years.

What else should I be accounting for?

Corn

 

[REWahoo]

Health care costs
Dental / Vision costs

Are hearing costs included?

 

[corn18]

Are hearing costs included?

They are not. (I was going to reply "huh? Can you speak up?)

Hadn't thought about that. What should I plan for that?

 

[REWahoo]

What should I plan for that?

I've been pricing them and it looks like a pair of good hearing aids average around $4,500, although there are less expensive options (Costco under $2K).

This is what I found on the web after searching "how much do hearing aids cost?"

The cheapest hearing aids cost between $1,500 to $3,000. Midrange hearing aids cost from $3,000 to $4,500. Premium hearing aids fall in the range of $4,500 to $6,000 per device.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/health/hearing-aid-cost.html

 

[Koolau]

Travel
food (in and out)
gifts and charity (esp. if helping out kids)
Utilities (incl. phone, internet, cable, etc.)
Insurance - esp. Long Term Care (or maybe not)
Clothes/shoes etc. (could be nearly zero if you are like us)
Hobbies/pastimes

I'm sure this group will think of others but YMMV

 

[mpeirce]

I've been pricing them and it looks like a pair of good hearing aids average around $4,500, although there are less expensive options (Costco under $2K).

A lot depends on your insurance. My DW's Medicare Advantage plan covered the majority of her hearing aid's price. And she got pretty high end HA's - they work with her iPhone over Bluetooth.

 

[Llep]

Unexpected emergency travel and bereavement expenses. My biggest unplanned expenses early on in retirement were travel and other expenses related to unexpected sickness and death of close family members that lived far from me.

 

[Samething]

Veterinary care if you have pets. My fur baby had a medical issue recently and I am at $2k and counting for his care.

 

[corn18]

Veterinary care if you have pets. My fur baby had a medical issue recently and I am at $2k and counting for his care.

This one is in there. We spent $15k on our pets this year. Most of that was an ER visit and near death of one cat. Now he is on insulin and doing great. We budget $7k / year for our pets. That is ridiculous. Cheaper just to let them out the back door and fend for themselves but we all know that will never happen.

 

[OldShooter]

As an experience project manager, I always add a budget line labeled "ASIF." Depending on the project it might be 20-30% of the total.

Rule #1 of bottom-up estimating is that you can never identify all your future costs. Rule #2 is that Rule #1 applies to every estimate even when you have remembered Rule #1 when estimating.

 

[SecondCor521]

I think married folks would be smart to evaluate three different scenarios and make sure the plan in each case is workable:

1. Both spouses alive.
2. Husband dies first, wife becomes a widow.
3. Wife dies first, husband becomes a widower.

Also, you should have a list of things you want to do when you retire, just in case you or your wife are the kind to get bored. You'll probably never look at it (or maybe rarely), but it's nice to have the list anyway.

Finally, when you get close, try to time your exit to account for things like work bonuses, stock option vesting, vacation time, health benefits, etc. It probably won't make any big difference, but it does help the last few months go by a little more quickly if you're optimizing that stuff.

 

[corn18]

As an experience project manager, I always add a budget line labeled "ASIF." Depending on the project it might be 20-30% of the total.

Rule #1 of bottom-up estimating is that you can never identify all your future costs. Rule #2 is that Rule #1 applies to every estimate even when you have remembered Rule #1 when estimating.

Agree. We have about 20% of cushion in the base budget that is spread over everything, and another 20% in blow that dough discretionary every year.

 

[Dtail]

Agree. We have about 20% of cushion in the base budget that is spread over everything, and another 20% in blow that dough discretionary every year.

A different twist but the same in the end.
We have an emergency fund for this concept and try to use a more realistic budget.

 

[Helios]

Caught a blurb that next year hearing aids will be sold in big box stores greatly reduced prices. Some kinda legislation