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I take a similiar approach to figuring out how much money I can spend during early retirement. I created an Excel spreadsheet that lets me divide up the money into the various buckets. Here's a tip that I would like to share--let's say you have a certain portfolio size and you want to know how...

Lil, I think that there is a Catch-22 here. Delaying the start of your family until your thirties may mean that it will be more difficult to the harder it is to get pregnant, since fertility rates drop with age.

I'm not from Iowa, but I have a suggestion: Try www.quotesmith.com Just to give you an example of premiums they quote, I input information for a family of three in Des Moines: Husband and wife both age 50 with a 19 y/o daughter in college. The premiums quoted ranged from $166 (high deductible)...

I live on a modest budget, however 25% of it is allocated to leisure costs. I retired to enjoy myself so spending this much on leisure is my way of maintaining quality of life. I scurtinize all my elective spending to make sure that it adds to my quality of life. If it doesn't, I eliminate...

Hi Cody, Glad you're back! I look forward to hearing about your jaunt and whether you've still been able to maintain the same expense level. I retired earlier in January this year on a somewhat barebones budget and so it's good to hear from others who are making it work. Patnbj

Yes, I do live in the US. Here's a sample annual "$50 per day" budget for one person: Housing/utilities------------ 3600 Transportation------------- 1800 Groceries-------------------1800 Entertainment/travel------- 6000 Health (Includes insurance) 2400 Misc ----------------------- 2400...

Yes that's right. I haven't been living a life of deprivation. I've gone on three trips so far this year--one to Hawaii. I also eat out in some of the finest restuarants around.

proud_texan asked, Does that include budgeted items or just actual expenses? I've worked up a budget (we retire in January) and my figures are considerably higher. Yes that's actual expenses. And yes I do have a lot of discretionary spending in my budget. Entertainment (traveling, social...

When I was in the planning stages for ER, I thought I could live on expenses of $50 per day. After eight months of retirement, I have to come clean and admit--was I ever wrong. What was I thinking? :-[ You see, I've only managed to spend $41 per day. ;D And that includes much higher than...

First of all, it doesn't sound like you have lost your job yet, just reading the tea leaves. It sounds like you doing well progressing to retirement, but you don't have enough money to pull it off yet. What I would do is to find an area of IT that is still in demand and less likely to be...

To be exact, $50 in 1984 (when Paul retired) = $86.70 in 2002. Based on what inflation rate? Disagree with me if you want, but please show all your cards.

Ed_B, There is a way for people who retire at age prior to being able to collect SS, to project what their benefits will be. http://www.ssa.gov/planners/calculators.htm On the SSA website link shown above, there are three calculators: quick, online and detailed. Choose the detailed one...

LOL, how come you guys think you're are the only ones who care whether or not your dates are FIRE-compatible? ;) I'm female and have had a hard time attracting guys who are interested in retiring early or at least frugal with their money. You probably wonder why a girl would be interested in...

Re: Chicago: Hungarian lyrics in "Cell Block Tango Now I don't now any Hungarian but here's a translation I found on the Internet. "What am I doing here? They say, the famous Hungarian police, that I killed my husband. But I didn't do it, I am not guilty. I can't believe that Uncle Sam says I...

I'd like to hear thoughts about counting Social Security as a part of ER income. If you don't count on it, why not? If you are counting on it, do you have a backup plan if funds dry-up? I'll answer the questions myself first. Yeah, I count SS in the retirement income mix. I'm a boomer and...

Another way to find a good school district - see if the state and/or local newspapers publish report cards. Reviewing those for the municipality where I live showed, as espected, that the poor neighborhoods tend to offer the worst bang for ones education buck. However superior public school...

With some creativity (and no frills) a couple can still live on $50.00 per day, albeit not necessarily in the style they might prefer. Just for the heck of it, I added in inflation. Terhorst came up with his figures in the mid-eighties. He said that a couple could retire on $50 a day...

Here's a link to a website that explains how reverse mortgages work. http://www.reversemortgage.org/

I used the FIRECalc to determine what the survivability rate for a given payout period. I set the # of years to 14, kept the default init. portfolio value as $1000 (It seems if you use a lower amount, the calculator loses too much precision during rounding) and checked/set the "suggested max...

Cody girl writes, I have Blue Cross Basic PPO. It has a high deductable and doesn't cover certain costs like prescriptions, pregnencies, etc. I use it more as an emergency hospitalzation, accident, or serious illness plan than a standard medical plan as I only go to the Dr. once a year for a...

For now, I go the high-deductible route and my premium is $114 per month. I realize that there are some risk in this approach. To mitigate it somewhat, I did a "worst-case" scernario analysis to figure out what was the highest deductible that I could feel comfortable with. I picked one that even...

Lately I have been thinking about the potential impact of home ownership can have on one's safe withdrawal rate. We all know that a paid-off house affords one lower monthly expenses, thus lowering ones withdrawal rate. But usually we do not count home equity as part of our portfolio. However...

First of all thanks for creating the FIRECalc tool and for enhancing it! Enhancement suggestion: In addition to the existing inflation adjustments, add the ability to specify a specific % (this could be a range from say 0 to 20%). The reason why is because I find that most of my expenses grow...

I have a challenge for everyone. Let’s say that you agreed to appear on one of those new reality-based shows. Only instead of dining on bugs :-X or being locked up with some obnoxious people >:(, the object of this game is to live on as small a net worth as possible for one year. The game...

With no debt and saving a high % of my income, I have found that my expenses equal about 25% of my income.