Rich_by_the_Bay
Moderator Emeritus
DW impulsively ran a canned Quicken report to check our YTD expenses.
At first glance it was a shocker, way higher than I thought. After a moment of panic, we dug into it and realized that the report included savings for retirement as an expense (i.e. transfers to our portfolio accounts - an expense ("outflow") to quicken); it failed to include refunds which would reduce our expenses; and it included a few major purchases including a cheap car, a $2000 dinghy tow hitch setup for the RV, and a not-cheap king bed and headboard (we plan to handle major purchases from a separate acct after ESR turns into full FIRE). It also covered two semiannual big insurance premiums paid in Jan and July which won't repeat until next year, hence misleading for a 7 month snapshot. This 7 month slice came to a tidy sum when annualized.
There were a few other flukey, quickenesque issues but finally we whittled it down significantly. In the end, it was very close to our assumptions. Phew!
Just a word of caution especially for those who are not fully retired - go over those expense reports very carefully and match them with real world sanity checks. We'd have been blown away if the original report above were the basis of our planning.
At first glance it was a shocker, way higher than I thought. After a moment of panic, we dug into it and realized that the report included savings for retirement as an expense (i.e. transfers to our portfolio accounts - an expense ("outflow") to quicken); it failed to include refunds which would reduce our expenses; and it included a few major purchases including a cheap car, a $2000 dinghy tow hitch setup for the RV, and a not-cheap king bed and headboard (we plan to handle major purchases from a separate acct after ESR turns into full FIRE). It also covered two semiannual big insurance premiums paid in Jan and July which won't repeat until next year, hence misleading for a 7 month snapshot. This 7 month slice came to a tidy sum when annualized.
There were a few other flukey, quickenesque issues but finally we whittled it down significantly. In the end, it was very close to our assumptions. Phew!
Just a word of caution especially for those who are not fully retired - go over those expense reports very carefully and match them with real world sanity checks. We'd have been blown away if the original report above were the basis of our planning.