Spending Your Money

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I have about a 50/50 chance of living another 15 years. Pop lived 10 years more than that and I am taking better care of myself but who knows?

We are living off one SS, a tiny pension and savings until 70, at which time SS will be our primary income. I am planning to NOT spend a lot of our Roth in reserve for LTC if needed.

We could have a windfall or one of us could die early or be sandbagged by dementia (my great fear).

We will be OK any way the wind blows, but some futures are better than others.

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[daylatedollarshort]

I just finished a book by John Robbins. He is the guy who rejected his family (Baskin Robbins) and their money to write a vegan book called Diet for a New America. Later in life he lost all his money to Bernie Madoff and also had two special needs grandchildren who will need a lot of lifetime care. He let two fortunes melt away:

The ice-cream heir who saw two fortunes melt away | News | The Independent

I would rather save for unforeseen circumstances like special needs grandchildren rather than spend money on things we do not really need now. I am okay leaving what we don't use to our kids and charities. I'd rather have to think about what to do with the money rather than cutting it close on the spending plan and have to worry about running out. I don't want to end up broke like John Robbins in my retirement.

 

[Dog]

DH accuses me of being McScrooge because I'm happier seeing our net worth grow than spending $ on stuff. His argument is that we have always been frugal and now it's time to loosen the purse strings.
Yet, we seem to be able to do the things we like to do and neither of us want for anything.


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[NW-Bound]

...We have a couple older vehicles (7 and 10 years old) and it is time to replace one and the other doesn't fit our current needs but I'm having trouble pulling the trigger on spending ~$30k on a new vehicle... or $60k for two.

Our newest car is a [-]2013[/-] 2003. It has but 25K miles on it, and still looks spanking new because it spends its life inside the garage. I want to wear out the older two cars first.

I just finished a book by John Robbins. He is the guy who rejected his family (Baskin Robbins) and their money to write a vegan book called Diet for a New America. Later in life he lost all his money to Bernie Madoff and also had two special needs grandchildren who will need a lot of lifetime care. He let two fortunes melt away:

The ice-cream heir who saw two fortunes melt away | News | The Independent

I would rather save for unforeseen circumstances like special needs grandchildren rather than spend money on things we do not really need now. I am okay leaving what we don't use to our kids and charities. I'd rather have to think about what to do with the money rather than cutting it close on the spending plan and have to worry about running out. I don't want to end up like John Robbins in my retirement.

But, but, but John Robbins said losing all his money made him a better person.

Interesting story about how he rejected his father's fortune because he believed ice cream was bad for the public. Here's a man with integrity, whether you agree with him or not about ice cream.

PS. I have not had ice cream for a while. I think I still have some in the freezer. Time to go see if it is still any good.

PPS. Oops, the car was 2003, not 2013. And the ice cream was still good. I just had some.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

But, but, but John Robbins said losing all his money made him a better person.

I think if you wrote that losing all your money made you a worse person not a lot of people would buy your books. I would rather practice voluntary simplicity now than involuntary simplicity later. Though I am not sure if we are really practicing any kind of simplicity now. We still have a lot of clutter to get rid of. I took five bags of stuff to Goodwill yesterday and several bags to an animal rescue charity the week before.

I agree he is an interesting person and obviously a deep thinker in many ways. But the books on talent are right - talent often domain specific. One can be a best selling author and not necessarily be good at money management. They are different skill sets.

 

[Helios]

Great pic of Uncle Scrooge diving into his vault. Do you remember the value of his vault? 9 cubic acres of money! I wonder how many zeros it would take to put that value figure on paper.

 

[NW-Bound]

My motto is "When in doubt, refer to Wikipedia", which has this to say.

The sum of Scrooge's wealth is unclear....

In the DuckTales episode "Liquid Assets", Fenton Crackshell (Scrooge's accountant) notes that McDuck's money bin contains "607 tillion 386 zillion 947 trillion 522 billion dollars and 36 cents"...

A thought bubble from Scrooge McDuck sitting in his car with his chauffeur in Walt Disney's Christmas Parade No.1 (published in 1949) that takes place in the story "Letter to Santa" clearly states "What's the use of having 'eleven octillion dollars' if I don't make a big noise about it?"...

One website used the size of Scrooge's Money Bin as a basis and calculated that it could contain over $27 trillion...​

 

[Danmar]

We spent quite a lot more when we first retired getting set- eg two more properties, cars to go there, very expensive trips paying for friends and family. Settled down since then but nobody would ever call us frugal. Still if we only spend divs and pensions, this is pretty conservative I think. My plan is to liquidate 2-3% of the portfolio in years when results are good (maybe over 8%). We can think of lots of things to spend it on or give it away.

 

[Meadbh]

Unlike many here, I have no pension, so I really, really don't want to run out of money. I am in year 3 and still budgeting and spending carefully. I am using a total return approach as dividends would not be sufficient to cover basic expenses and taxes. I have a rental property portfolio which gives me some no correlated assets. I can afford some luxuries in my LBYM budget and next Spring I plan to visit Tuscany, which is on my bucket list.

 

[Bikerdude]

I'm fairly confident that I will be OK. The only caveat would be if I had an extended LTC event. At 160K per yr (skilled nursing home) that would make a big dent after a while.

 

[Independent]

I've been retired for 9 years. We're on the other side of this trend. Financial markets have been good enough for us, but we've given far too much away. I'm more concerned about the long term today than I was when I retired.

 

[W2R]

Have any you been retired for a number of years, and at first wondered if you'd be able to make it?

To now, realizing you'll never come close to spending all your money.

I would think that for many on this forum, it's become a reality.

Before I retired (six years ago), I spent a lot of time trying to envision worst case scenarios. What could happen to de-rail my retirement plans?

Some of the problems I thought of have not happened thus far; for example, runaway inflation. And then, other problems I never even dreamt of did happen; for example, the nationwide drop in home values. But overall, conditions have been nearly ideal since I retired, with a booming market and much less inflation than I feared.

Claiming SS last year was a nice boost to my retirement income. The probability that I will run out of money is probably pretty low, unless unknown health issues, LTC costs, or runaway inflation knock me down. Given the unknowns, I don't think I could ever honestly say, "I'll never come close to spending all my money".

 

[NW-Bound]

I've been retired for 9 years. We're on the other side of this trend. Financial markets have been good enough for us, but we've given far too much away. I'm more concerned about the long term today than I was when I retired.

Yes, I remember the past posts where you talked about supporting family members.

The market has been great the past few years, so we are doing OK despite spending more than expected. But, I was also only half-joking when frequently mentioning my small motorhome as housing of last resort, in case something unimaginable and terrible happens. Having the mental preparation for a large range of possible outcomes is helpful to me, because it will not let me take anything for granted.

However things will work out, there are a lot of people in worse shape than I am in, and they live on and cope. Why should I be any different?

 

[Independent]

Yes, I remember the past posts where you talked about supporting family members.

The market has been great the past few years, so we are doing OK despite spending more than expected. But, I was also only half-joking when frequently mentioning my small motorhome as housing of last resort, in case something unimaginable and terrible happens. Having the mental preparation for a large range of possible outcomes is helpful to me, because it will not let me take anything for granted.

However things will work out, there are a lot of people in worse shape than I am in, and they live on and cope. Why should I be any different?

Good points. When I was much younger, I was intrigued by "voluntary simplicity". I drifted away from that when my income went up and I found I could do some things that had never seemed possible.

But, I think I could re-adjust my expectations if necessary. Instead of a motorhome, I think along the lines of less-than-1000 sq ft house with one small car, short trip to public library, simple meals at home, a bicycle, a garden, and a good internet connection. In my midwestern town, that's very doable.

And, as you say, that's really a very low probability event. We still have more assets/income than most Americans our age. So it's mostly a matter of perspective - should I compare myself to the typical poster here, or to the typical American? My "problem" is that I don't see us taking the European river cruise that I assumed we'd be able to afford. That's a whole different level than worrying about the next meal.

 

[NW-Bound]

Even if SS is all that we have left, we should not have to live in a 200-sq.ft. motorhome parked in the New Mexico state parks (annual pass for $225 for non-residents or $100/yr for NM seniors) and national forests, unless we want to. But I would not bring that up with DW (I already know the answer), and while I am curious to try that for a few months for an adventure, I don't think I want to do that full-time.

We did live in the small class C for 2 months at a time on cross-continent trips of up to 10,000 miles, but we were traveling, not parked in one spot. Traveling costs money for gas and RV parking (to visit cities), and is not the same as camping out for weeks in the boondocks. But reading people's blogs on how they live and enjoy the outdoors with so little money opens my eyes to all kinds of possibilities that I did not know about. Many of them live a very active and healthy lifestyle that way. They are going to be healthier and outlive me.

So, my point has been that one can still live a good and healthy life with a lot less than most people think they would need. Knowing what is possible takes away a lot of anxiety about the unknown future.

 

[Corporateburnout]

I actually have a budget in Quicken titled "worst case scenario" spending and it shows that we can under spend our projected SS income, taxable account dividend and a very small pension by 5k by mainly eliminating travel, dining out and having one car instead of two.

I hope we will never have to resort to that level of spending but it gives me the peace of mine that it's doable.

 

[NW-Bound]

I am not into spreadsheets. I just look at my Quicken screen for the actual expenses for the last 12 months. I ask myself, what if I took away this discretionary expense and that expense, what would be left.

By discretionary expenses, I mean the cost to carry a 2nd home, charity and gift giving, and travel, etc... Bingo, I only need a bit more than SS to live pretty much the same life. Well, maybe not quite the same because we love to travel.

So, I would have to find something else to cut. Oh, I know. With Medicare at 65, my healthcare expenses should go down enough to allow travel again.

Party on!

 

[brett]

I am the same. It is difficult for me to spend money. It isn't that I won't because we are frequent travellers. It is just that I continue to be careful with our spending. I will spend, but am still very careful to get the lowest price that I can and the most value I can. Price is important to me but it is secondary to value.

This thing with spending is just me. My spouse is not a big spender but I never really care what she spends or on what she spends. GO figure.


My/our ending financial situation has made me very thankful for what I have etc. We find ourselves giving much more and very regularly to certain charitable organizations.

 

[W2R]

I am not into spreadsheets. I just look at my Quicken screen for the actual expenses for the last 12 months. I ask myself, what if I took away this discretionary expense and that expense, what would be left.

By discretionary expenses, I mean the cost to carry a 2nd home, charity and gift giving, and travel, etc... Bingo, I only need a bit more than SS to live pretty much the same life. Well, maybe not quite the same because we love to travel.

So, I would have to find something else to cut. Oh, I know. With Medicare at 65, my healthcare expenses should go down enough to allow travel again.

Party on!

SS created a lot of flexibility for me, that's for sure. It didn't sound like all that much beforehand, but it makes a huge difference for me. I think that starting SS is part of the reason why I am not worried about the financial implications of buying and moving into my dream house, even though that meant a permanent drop in my nestegg principal.

Medicare has been nice too, but my medical costs have gone up since I started on it. I think this was partly due to chance, since I have had more uncovered optical/dental expenses for which I self insure. Also I'm paying for Medicare Part B every month now.

Medicare has been wonderful to have for my cataract surgery, with my BCBS as secondary. So far my total outlay has been $142.50 for eyedrops, and nothing more. That's less than the expensive trifocals with ultra gorgeous imported designer frames that I bought at Lenscrafters last summer and will not need. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[kcowan]

I actually have a budget in Quicken titled "worst case scenario" spending and it shows that we can under spend our projected SS income, taxable account dividend and a very small pension by 5k by mainly eliminating travel, dining out and having one car instead of two.

I hope we will never have to resort to that level of spending but it gives me the peace of mine that it's doable.

I also maintain 3 scenarios: most likely, optimistic and pessimistic. Have been doing this since we retired.

Realistically, I think we are tracking the high road and will then become average and finally become much less profligate (omitting LTC budgets).

 

[omni550]

.... the expensive trifocals with ultra gorgeous imported designer frames that I bought at Lenscrafters last summer and will not need. Oh well, live and learn.

In true LBYM fashion, perhaps these frames can be recycled into sunglasses (fitted with non-corrective dark lenses)?

omni

 

[W2R]

In true LBYM fashion, perhaps these frames can be recycled into sunglasses (fitted with non-corrective dark lenses)?

omni

Oh great idea! Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. I am SO VAIN about glasses and I think these frames cost me $250. It would be nice to get some use out of them. They are utterly drop dead gorgeous.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I like saving money and making passive income. I am going to continue to work on that part-time every year until my brain wears out. I don't think spending more money on ourselves beyond our current level of spending would = more happiness. Most of the research studies on money and happiness seem to support that idea.

While LTC or other unexpected expenses could eat up the estate, I think it is likely we're at the point now where we've started to discuss how much to leave the kids and how much to go to charity and what to fund. I think it is pretty cool to be able to do that. I don't want the money to go to some bloated organization. I want to keep it local and specific - like fund extra attorney time at a local legal clinic for people with criminal records trying to get jobs, donating to the local elephant sanctuary or donating to groups that help the homeless get into housing.

So I still try to save money, look for the best happy hours, look for Groupons on sale, look for passive / low time effort ways to make extra income like credit card sign up points or get paid to apps, because I enjoy it and the extra money can go to worthy causes.

 

[pb4uski]

Oh great idea! Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. I am SO VAIN about glasses and I think these frames cost me $250. It would be nice to get some use out of them. They are utterly drop dead gorgeous.

If you are a member check out Costco... I just picked up new lenses that they fitted into an old pair for frames for me. They charge $18 if you bring your own frames but that seemed fair enough since I saved $150 on the lenses compared to the optical shop adjacent to my optometrist.