Retiring at 40 in a year. Update to a previous post. Advice welcome.

[Bigdawg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrophyWife I think it's an assumption that everyone plans to pay for college for their kids. We chose not to. One son got a full ride with the ARMY ROTC and the other went to a state school and cash flowed school by working. I don't think as parents we owe our kids a free ride to college. I found the process to be very character building for them (and me) as we both would have liked to pay for them. We stayed focused on paying off our home and getting debt free. BTW-Our sons knew that we would not be paying for college since the time they were in jr high. In the end we were able to pay a small amount to supplement them and we now match some of their retirement savings. I think it's important to help when you can but not at the expense of your retirement.

+1000

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

I am genuinely amazed at people (and applaud them!) who can live on less than $2K/month. I am looking at retiring (again) in another year or two, and healthcare alone for us will be $1K - $2K/month (Texas). While we do enjoy going out to eat, nice vacations, and a pretty good lifestyle, I'm estimating about $10K/month in expenses. I could probably cut out a lot of that, but bare bones for me would be maybe $7K/month (mortgage, property taxes, insurance, zero vacations, never going out to eat, very basic food, no cable, zero home maintenance, do my own haircuts, etc.).