Levels of FI

[braumeister]

No matter how much you spend you are cool if you can afford it.

I'm glad RobbieB has joined the forum, as his philosophy seems to match mine pretty well. I may not have quite the level of assets he does, but I use the same approach to spending what I have.

I w*rked my a$$ off for many years in order to enjoy the result, and that's what I'm doing. I spend far more per year now than I ever did in my w*rking years, and I see no letup in that.

The day will come, and probably not that far off, when I'll lose interest in all the travel, so that will remove a huge part of my current budget. But as long as I can sustain the spending level for that without affecting my FIRECalc projections, I'll enjoy it to the hilt.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I am with you guys) I have no desire to leave an inheritance behind but want to enjoy myself after many years of doing without. This is our time to enjoy)

 

[jkern]

And I'm surprised at how many people waste money by poor choices, too much house, too many new cars, etc., and spend $80k - $100k a year when they can live just as good on $50k with nothing more than a few simple smart painless choices. But they don't and then they can't retire in their late 40's or early 50's like many of us.

They are doing it wrong...the rest of us did it right.

Weather or not you can live just as well on $50k vs $80k to $100k is highly dependent on individual situations. For example, my essentials equal $40k for two people (housing, food, utilities, medical, dental, transportation). No mortgage, no debt. When I add routine spending (clothes, travel, gifts, entertainment, recreation) and non routine spending (replacement of car, furnishing, appliances, roof, etc.) my total cost of living for two is around $90k.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

What one spends is only a poor choice if one is not living within their means. We could get away with spending only $25k pa but end up spending up to 4 times that. Still well within our means. Other years we may only spend 2 - 3 times, all depends. Heck we saved for it, what else would we do with the money anyway?

 

[purplesky]

There are numerous blogs and stories out there about people who are RE and living various lifestyles. One young couple (20's) was living in a used RV living on a ridiculously small amount of money. Others are retired in their late 40's with a 200K/yr budget. This got me thinking about levels of FI as related to ER. Basically there is a bare bones FI where you can RE living in a small foreclosure (or tent, run down class C, etc...) all the way up to the 5000sq ft mansion but you have 10mil invested and a cola pension (and healthcare). For example, I could easily be RE in my course side townhouse in Arkansas. COL there is very low and I own the unit. 20-30K per year there which would include unlimited golf and a new (used) vehicle every 5 -8 years. The issue is that I (and DW) do not want to scale back for retirement. We actually are looking to increase in some areas. DW wants to trade her 6 yr old SUV for a 2 yr old vette. As of this moment we can support a 110K/yr budget in retirement. (0% SWR) My rough estimate with her wish list is more like 120-130K/yr. With that being said DW will work 6 more years to get 2nd pension (still only 50yrs old then) and I will pad the 401K for 2-3 more years. We could do 130K/yr now with a 4-5% SWR. Basically we are shooting for 120-130K/yr with 0 -1% SWR.

Has anyone on here found themselves wanting more after FIRE? Basically the numbers worked for an X K/yr RE but then you wanted more so those numbers no longer worked? I would like so much of a cushion that I could support a wide range or RE options.

Living in a van and Boondocking in Walmart parking lots and relying on my YouTube channel to produce income to live just does not sound like a great lifestyle.

I could retire now with a small pension and enough of a withdrawal rate from my portfolio to produce about $40,000 per year in income.

But I have expensive hobbies. So $40,000 per year for me definitely would not work .

I have a home recording studio with lots of instruments and computer gear and interfaces need to be updated about every five years.

Snowboarding is also a big passion and it's not cheap to snowboard for a month at a time.

I also like to take my jeep Wrangler Rubicon off road and when I break it money is required to fix it .

Did I mention I like Harley Davidson motorcycles.

So I already know that it will be worth it to keep working to produce a lifestyle that I want when I do you actually retire.

There might even be a Corvette in my future.

If I were forced to retire now for some reason I would make it work and be happy but at this point I would rather just keep working and keep my eye on the lifestyle carrot of about $120,000 per year in retirement.

I have to say also I do you enjoy investing and I am a MaxSaver.
So the accumulation phase is enjoyable for me.

 

[sengsational]

I threaten her at times--but she rightly points out that I'd find it very difficult to move up in quality!

I'm only on post 6, and it's a 4 pager (so far), and I think this will be the big OT distraction. I'm off to watch Sully, so don't have time to read more.

But there is no way anyone besides my lovely DW who would have as much "quality"

 

[Cap_Scarlet]

I look at it this way...

During my working life I've had a good fix of expensive stuff including flash cars, flying business and staying in expensive hotels but you know what? The marginal utility (if I can call it that) just is not that great. In fact there is a far bigger kick in paying very little for something which turns out to be great than in paying a lot for something which can (at best) meet expectation i.e. you paid a lot for it so you expect it to be great. My favorite hobby is hunting down wines which cost less than $10.

That's not to say I'm not 'want free' but I think the things I want now will have real utility e.g. an expensive racing bike. I see no value at all in flying business or staying in expensive hotels. We will live in a ski resort in retirement and once I've bought my annual lift ticket (c. $600) thats it for the season (I own my own kit)

Our 'bare bones' retirement budget is about $45-50k with a slug of entertainment / travel on top of about $25k so $75k in total but all my spreadsheets have a buffer of around $30k on top of that.

 

[ItDontMeanAThing]

Has anyone on here found themselves wanting more after FIRE? Basically the numbers worked for an X K/yr RE but then you wanted more so those numbers no longer worked? I would like so much of a cushion that I could support a wide range or RE options.

Wanting more? A little Yes and mostly No.

I had a BIG cushion. Still do. Between conservative projections before ER and LBYM, the taxable account I figured would last until 59.5 has, at 62, enough for 2 more years at my YTD spending rate.

I find myself wanting a few things I couldn't have imagined as being willing to pay for while saving for retirement. I've rarely had more 'big wants' than I could afford or soon afford, so it will be easy to keep this in check. But who knows, so my answer to your question is 'yes and no'. I'd bet on 'no', but I'll know more if I give in next year to the first item on my want list.

Best reason to not delay ER is a saying related to all the posts above about trading time for money. They say retirement is like prison in that one has plenty of time to think about all the lives one didn't live. Been there, done that and learned a lot about myself. Life got better.

 

[Danmar]

I think most people seem to adjust their retirement date to achieve a desired lifestyle ( and hence portfolio size requirement). Some , like myself, adjusted (upwards in my case) our lifestyles in retirement to match the portfolio achieved as retirement was never a big objective for me until I got tired of working and this was quite late in my career. Lucky and unusual, I suspect.

 

[antmary]

Have to say...I treasure each and every morning, drinking my cup of coffee, and reflecting on the day to come. Priceless. Remember getting up early to go to work?

 

[Walt34]

Remember getting up early to go to work?

Please don't. I'm trying to forget all that....

 

[FUEGO]

Remember getting up early to go to work?

I still have to get up early at 5:30 and take the kiddo to the bus stop.

Then come home, enjoy a cup of coffee, read, watch netflix, snooze, whatever.

 

[Major Tom]

I still have to get up early at 5:30 and take the kiddo to the bus stop.

I get up at 5:30 also - to take a whiz, after which I go straight back to bed

 

[Nemo2]

We travel a little, we enjoy hanging out together, we average around or under, generally under, $40K Canadian a year, (~ $30.4K US), we don't touch 'the nut', we don't care if friends/relatives get it when we're gone, and we don't feel that we're 'missing' anything.

But that's us.

 

[Bigdawg]

here is an example of me (maybe) wanting more: I have a 17 yr old Chevy truck. Love it. Got it for 3K under book. Had 110K on it when I got it. 155K now. All is well. But, I get in the wife's new(er) SUV that has heated seats. Oh mmm! Nice during the MD winter's. Recently on a work trip I rented a Mustang GT. Heated AND COOLED seats. Extra nice. Now when I get back in my old comfortable chevy truck it doesn't seem quite so nice. That's kind of what I was talking about in my OP about maybe wanting more and/or getting used to having more. Hey, in college beans, wieners and ramin noodles were just fine. Now, not so much.

 

[FUEGO]

I get up at 5:30 also - to take a whiz, after which I go straight back to bed

On the bright side, I'm making serious headway in my netflix queue between 6:15 am and 7:45 am (when round #2 of walking kids to places commences).

And just think, by 9 am, I've walked 2-2.5 miles, played in the park, maybe hit a few tennis balls around, AND watched 2 hour long episodes of something on netflix. That's ER productivity to the max if I've ever seen it.

Also interesting is that other people are up and doing stuff at 5:50 am on my walk to the bus stop. Even saw one guy loading guns into his car (I hope he was going to the range or going hunting?!?!).

 

[Car-Guy]

i get up at 5:30 also - to take a whiz, after which i go straight back to bed

tmi, imo.....

 

[Major Tom]

My apologies. No offense intended.

 

[Car-Guy]

My apologies. No offense intended.

Just kidding. When you gotta go, You gotta go.

 

[purplesky]

here is an example of me (maybe) wanting more: I have a 17 yr old Chevy truck. Love it. Got it for 3K under book. Had 110K on it when I got it. 155K now. All is well. But, I get in the wife's new(er) SUV that has heated seats. Oh mmm! Nice during the MD winter's. Recently on a work trip I rented a Mustang GT. Heated AND COOLED seats. Extra nice. Now when I get back in my old comfortable chevy truck it doesn't seem quite so nice. That's kind of what I was talking about in my OP about maybe wanting more and/or getting used to having more. Hey, in college beans, wieners and ramin noodles were just fine. Now, not so much.

If a new car is going to make you happy then you should go for it.

While you're driving your new Mustang GT in a rainstorm , you might see a Ferb hitchhiking. you can pick them up and get them to safety.

 

[Koolau]

"Has anyone on here found themselves wanting more after FIRE? Basically the numbers worked for an X K/yr RE but then you wanted more so those numbers no longer worked? I would like so much of a cushion that I could support a wide range or RE options."

I would have to say "yes" but...

I was FI at 51 but stayed until 58. I still liked what I was doing and I was able to pad the portfolio (as well as get the kids through school.) Once i was no longer having fun, I quit and now enjoy a life-style that, though I planned for it, still boggles my mind to an extent. I'm still quite frugal in some areas, but am willing to spend for what I really want. In our case, living in Paradise was the biggest splurge that we might not have afforded if we retired earlier. It's all a very personal choice - probably most dependent upon whether you can still endure going to w*rk for a while longer.

So, though we wanted more at retirement than we had planned for, we actually had more to make it happen. Maybe that's a "cheat" to OP's question.

YMMV

 

[mystang52]

Has anyone on here found themselves wanting more after FIRE? Basically the numbers worked for an X K/yr RE but then you wanted more so those numbers no longer worked? I would like so much of a cushion that I could support a wide range or RE options.

"Everyone" always wants more. But the key is what makes you happy. DW and I had numerous discussions before I ER'd regarding our post-retirement lifestyle (DW still w*rking by choice). I am a zealous budgeter, so I know what our expenses are (including sinking fund for major unforeseeable expenses).
Our assets, and current and future pensions, are way more than enough for our lifestyle. We know what makes us happy, and do not see any changes in that lifestyle. It's all a matter of how much you need in retirement spending, and if your assets and retirement income can support that.

 

[W2R]

"Everyone" always wants more.

Not quite, IME. Some people are genuinely content with what they have, for whatever reasons.

 

[FUEGO]

While you're driving your new Mustang GT in a rainstorm , you might see a Ferb hitchhiking. you can pick them up and get them to safety.

I don't think dropping those Ferbs at their van down by the river is "getting them to safety". Slum living is rough.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Ah...it's a little after 10 AM and I am sitting on the front porch enjoying some wonderful coffee without a care in the world. Do I want more? Certainly not today.