wmc1000
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
ESRwannabe - might caution you on your numbers after retiring - does that $18K include health insurance premiums? Or does state job provide that after retiring?
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That's what I think [a lot of effort to spend that much a month]! Except that we're foodies.
ESRwannabe - might caution you on your numbers after retiring - does that $18K include health insurance premiums? Or does state job provide that after retiring?
Hah! Depending upon where you live (and where you travel interstate for restaurants), that is one quick way to run the spending up!
Like spending on "fine" wine/liquor, though, it is very easy to cut when needed. (Easy, but not fun.)
I hate to say it but just as we see growing income gap we see growing housing recovery gap. So in that respect owning house in Silicon Valley is great thing.
That ultra expensive Palo Alto CA or Greenwich CT are in much better position for future price appreciation then cheap Lincoln NE. Now I took extremes just to make a point.
Yes real estate market eventually will go down, but not exactly because of tax or highly compensated workers moving to less expensive places. Chinese investors are contributing a lot to the housing boom we currently see in California, Seattle and recently Florida. The next downturn will most likely start when those investors will run out of money or there will be some other actions taken by American or Chinese government to limit it.For as long as the status quo is maintained. If California's taxes etc get even worse and convince a bunch of companies to move (and take their highly compensated employees with them), I'd expect the real estate market in many places to plummet.
Thanks. It helps that we cook most meals at home and my main fun activities are free (walking the dog on the beach and doing my free senior water fitness classes). And it helps we have older, paid for, cars.
Housing is a huge expense in SoCal... We get by with the lower spending numbers because the house is paid for and we've got prop-13 locked in low property taxes and none of the dreadful mello roos taxes/bonds. I couldn't afford to stay retired if we still had a mortgage payment.
Determining a Budget is one of the most important steps in Retirement. We've tracked expenses for several years, and have a real good feel for our number.....
Raising is easy. Reducing is hard.We didn't do that but because of this site I figured I should and can now report that I'm on track for spending $2,100 per month.
Unfortunately DW is not as keen as I am about tracking so I don't really know what she spends, but it's probably around $2K /month.
This is a number we need to raise, with more vacations..