daylatedollarshort
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2013
- Messages
- 9,358
I did look at it and I'm fairly average once I adjust for a couple of very large differences (HI is 4k in the CES survey -- I WISH !), I don't have a mortgage, and I can't find vacations.
I think the data is useful for things like home maintenance costs and perhaps things like furniture and appliance replacements. ie: the things that I have called "future one time expenses". Totally agree that I may not be average but the CES data will at least give me a place to determine if I'm in the right ballpark.
We found it helpful to look for areas of opportunity to cut where our spending was out of line with other households. The first thing that jumped out for me was hair costs. I cut out the trendy salon in the high rent area and found a great stylist at a strip mall. Total remaining lifetime savings: 24K. Find 10, 20 or more of those expenses to cut and it really lowers the total nest egg requirements. Even cutting a $10 a month expense comes out to almost 5K lower nest egg requirements with a 40 year time frame.