Great thread!! Something we ponder as well. Some things are easy to spend on. Long flight air travel (greater than 4 hours) now that we are 60+ is either business class or premium economy. Overnight European flights we do business class. Of course, so far, every flight has been discounted with CC miles or points. We could never bring ourselves to pay full price for anything. But that is more common sense than frugal, I feel. Exact same item, lower price.
DW REd at 56, has been retired for 8 years, and 5 years younger, I'm still doing OMY, as I just can't give up the pension increases that each year earns, even though we've met our savings and secure income goals. She wants me to retire ASAP, and I am resisting. We both have decent pensions that will easily pay our living expenses plus much more. My SS will be max, hers about half. Those alone will bring us to $115k/yr with no debt, and something over a mil saved.
We've never lived wealthy, and bought our first, ordered the way we wanted it new car ever, for a whopping $30k, had dealt intending to pay cash and was offered a better price if we went financing with them. Based on our credit score we got the lowest rate of 0.5% financing, and I still put down $10k even though there was no reason. I should have financed more as we are getting 1.05% on the cash accounts...just hate car payments, haven't had one in many years.
Net income in retirement will easily exceed what we were used to, when employed, by just on not paying in to SS & Med, lower taxes, and no longer automatically saving.
DW REd at 56, has been retired for 8 years, and 5 years younger, I'm still doing OMY, as I just can't give up the pension increases that each year earns, even though we've met our savings and secure income goals. She wants me to retire ASAP, and I am resisting. We both have decent pensions that will easily pay our living expenses plus much more. My SS will be max, hers about half. Those alone will bring us to $115k/yr with no debt, and something over a mil saved.
We've never lived wealthy, and bought our first, ordered the way we wanted it new car ever, for a whopping $30k, had dealt intending to pay cash and was offered a better price if we went financing with them. Based on our credit score we got the lowest rate of 0.5% financing, and I still put down $10k even though there was no reason. I should have financed more as we are getting 1.05% on the cash accounts...just hate car payments, haven't had one in many years.
Net income in retirement will easily exceed what we were used to, when employed, by just on not paying in to SS & Med, lower taxes, and no longer automatically saving.