CincyDave
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Came in around $110K excluding travel.
Never had Korean BBQ. My kids always get a night out at any restaurant for their birthday.
My daughter wants to go to a Korean BBQ restaurant. I was like a what? Never heard of it.
Yes, I live in a cave.
Needless to say, next week I'll be experiencing my first Korean BBQ.
^ I hear that!
My older brother lives in Seattle proper, and they can walk to about 20 different places to eat within 5~8 blocks. They can also walk to 3 different grocers in the same or less.
She is a great cook and loves to do it, but they are getting meals out a whole lot more than they used to.
Two adults with an adorable dog. No mortgage.
Excluding travel: $42,000.
The number seems really low considering we live very well. Large new construction house in a great neighborhood, relatively HCOL state, nice cars, we eat organic, DH had a dental implant, and generally speaking, we buy what we want on a small day to day basis.
I think this highlights the reason being debt free is so important. We could easily get our annual spend below $40,000 without our lifestyle really changing.
We attribute it to having a paid off mortgage. That is the biggest difference from our situation a of couple years ago. Back then we still had a mortgage, lived in a state with higher property taxes, and paid HOA fees. Together those three factors added almost $18,000/year to our annual expenses.
Do you "account" for future repairs/replacements in your final figure? I have heard that home maintenance (including repairs/maintenance) can average 1% per year of the house value.
If one has a $500K house, in theory, they should set aside something like $5K/year even if they don't actually spend a dime that year on maintenance.
Very impressive. I can't imagine ever getting our spend to that level, even deleting charities, gifts to kids and deleting travel. It's true we live in a HCOL area, but just our HOA dues and other housing costs (for our paid for condo) plus cost of health care probably add to half what you spend in total. YMMV
One of the costs of living in paradise I suspect. Otherwise we would be there, not is a 3500sqft house but.
Yeah, everything in Paradise is expensive, but there are lots of ways to make it w*rk - except housing. Short of including 3 or 4 generations in a household, housing will, by far, be the stumbling block for most folks. Oh, there is always a blue tarp on the beach. A number of w*rking poor live that way. I'm sure they prefer that to moving to the frozen mainland. When I first visited in '75, I considered that life style but soon thought better of it. YMMV
Hawaii isn't the only place with nice weather. Even most frozen wastelands have a warm season. And of course, there is a lot more to life than weather.
My version of paradise doesn't include working.
Ours does not include working either, and definitely not living in a frozen wasteland ....... at any time of year. It does include living by the ocean though.
We could afford to live in Hawaii, but do not want to invest OTT in a home. Sooooo NW Florida fits the bill.
Hawaii isn't the only place with nice weather. Even most frozen wastelands have a warm season. And of course, there is a lot more to life than weather.
On what I earned I never would have been able to retire in Hawaii. But I was able to retire at 53 in a frozen wasteland and can afford to spend all winter (if I choose) somewhere warm.
My version of paradise doesn't include working.
Koolau,All true. We just decided that Hawaii had the best mix of things we wanted in retirement (not just weather - but that was a major factor.) It IS expensive, but we planned for that, so it w*rks for us. I could be happily retired just about any place in the USA but more happy where we are. YMMV
Koolau,
Are you in a rainy area? Just noticing the amount of rain on Kauai where we are visiting.
Heh, heh, we used to be. When we first moved to the Islands, we barely knew that there was a "rainy side" and a "dry side" to the Islands. I really liked the first place we settled, but during the rainy season (can start in Oct., and one year it did) we got rain every day. We had all the windows open and it was still hot even as the rain poured down. One day, we looked at the rain band map. We were right in the heart of the rain band. So that year was unusually rainy but every year was somewhat rainy.
So we moved from windward to leeward. Now, we certainly get rain, but I don't consider it "rainy" here. It's just right (most of the time) and, if anything, it's too dry and the hills can begin to look like Southern California or Arizona in the summer.
But Kaua'i is probably the rainiest Island most years. One of the rainiest places on Earth is Mount Waialeale. Oh, and NOW IS rainy season in Hawaii!
Weather gets drier (usually) as you go toward Big Island. In fact, most of Big Island has been under significant drought for several years now. Oahu has some drought, but only moderate. This year, we're pretty much making up for dry winters of late.
I love the rain as long as it doesn't last more than 3 or 4 days (unusual on Oahu) or if it's accompanied by high winds.
Funny story on rain bands. As we were moving from our old (rainy) place, a leeward friend helped me load up a bunch of stuff in his pick up. We didn't cover anything. Just as we left our townhouse complex, it started to rain. I said to my friend "Turn left here!" He hesitated and I said it again. He turned and the rain stopped. He looked at me like I was demon possessed or something. But I knew about the rain bands and they are THAT predictable under many circumstances. YMMV
Do you "account" for future repairs/replacements in your final figure? I have heard that home maintenance (including repairs/maintenance) can average 1% per year of the house value. Heh, heh, I WISH that were true for us, though most maintenance is handled by the HOA, we do pay for it and we do pay for it every month - not just when something needs to be fixed/replaced.
We have actual spending vs budgeted. Our budget fluctuates from $65-100k depending on maintenance / health events / "new" car. We have been spending $60k or less for 4 of 5 years. The 5th was a remodel year... The sell of the last house afforded us the extra for remodel as we sold it for $65k more than I had in the asset list.
Bottom line, we budget for, but rarely use it... So far
Heh, heh, our building is getting old. I need to budget MORE for maintenance. I have been having bad thoughts about the people who designed our building without easy access to all pipes.
There are two kinds of pipes. Those that leak and those that will. YMMV
Yeah, we gladly reworked lots of pipes 5 years ago when we purchased the 52 model. The crawl space was so tight, we just blew some holes through the subfloor. Probably need to dig out a bit more dirt...