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Fitness is a passion of mine, so it gets prioritized. $180/month for the gym I go to (it's all coach-led classes of 5-10 people, and I go at least 4x/week). I buy workout clothes maybe 2x/year, but I'd guess it's $50/month on average. Shoes are more expensive - $150/pair, and maybe 3 pair a...

Haha... I can honestly say that this is one scenario I had not considered. But if that had happened, there would be a lot worse things to be worried about.

"King, eh? Well, I didn't vote for you."

Absolutely. In 2004 I was laid off from my dot com gig (in the US and A). Was a tough time to find a job, so was out for about 9 months. Wanting to avoid cost of COBRA, I applied for private insurance (much cheaper). One question was "have you ever had migraines?" for my 8-year-old son, I...

Well, a big chunk of it is in good old MSFT. Was $230 when I retired. Now $420. That's maybe half of the run up. The rest just spread out in a normal diversified portfolio (but about 80% in stock mutual funds).

Retired 18 months ago with a $4.7M nest egg (just investments). My hope was even if we kept our current spending that we could maintain that $4.7M. Checked on Friday and investments have grown to $6.5M... I told my wife "Since I retired, our investments have grown $100K... every single month...

Wow. I am curious, do you people eat every day? haha. We budget $1500/month for the two of us for groceries (this includes wine and paper products - anything we can buy at the grocery store), and we are right at this number for this year. Last year we were just under (about $1,450/month). We...

I don't know why people are asking you to cut back on the time you spend with friends (the $4K/year eating out part). If anything, I think you should step that up! You've got plenty.

No better time than the day the bonus hits the checking account!

When I started my countdown timer, it was at 256 days. Seemed like a lifetime at the moment, but they flew by. A few hard weeks of work, a few vacation days in there, the odd holiday or two, and before you know it, you're 2 weeks away. For me, the last two weeks were awesome - work was being...

Ha! I use this one all the time!

Overhead Bin Space Anxiety is one of my top reasons for wanting (needing?) to get on the plane first. For the longest time, it was making sure I had the right status (so only fly one airline), and later it was just making sure I was sitting on the proper side of the curtain. Slightly off...

I always know it's Fall in central Texas because it is only 97 degrees instead of 105.

if you stay in your current house, then equity is an interesting but mostly irrelevant figure. I can increase my NW just because zillow updated my home value, but that doesn't mean I can buy more groceries. What makes a difference is accounts you can pull from to buy things you need. You can...

Retired about 9 months ago. I too, initially struggled with spending my hard-earned savings; after all, I've spent my entire life focused on accumulating wealth, not overspending. But even with spending about $50K on various home improvement projects (new AC, tankless hot water heater...

It sort of implies that the $5M is in retirement accounts only: "Few Americans manage to save anywhere near that sum in their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts. A $5M retirement nest egg..." I took that as their total investment assets, since they talk about how much each group has...

Stop trading time you'll never get back for money you'll never need. As Jeffman52 says, OMY will almost always make your financial situation better. I left about 10 months ago, and if I had chosen to stay (for 3.5 more years), I would have vested six figures in RSUs (not to mention the salary...

Contributed the maximum into 401k since that was a thing (including "catch-up" allowances). When I was 40 years old, I had $27,000 in a brokerage account that I used to play the market (reminds me of my father's adage "every man has a great idea for making money that will not work" haha)...

I get the psychological point of view of paying off the house, but when I look at the numbers, it doesn't make any sense (for us anyway). We have a 30-year mortgage at 2.5%, so we have zero intention of paying that off early (my only regret is that we didn't take more cash out when we did our...

100% agree. Current earrings before retirement for us was completely irrelevant. If we tried to replace that I’d work forever.

Exactly. Booking via a consolidator has benefits, and if everything goes well, it's fine. But friends of mine have had issues (incorrect room type, missing reservation), and the hotel just says "dunno, contact [consolidator] to work it out." Booking directly is the way to go for me. And I've...

I used to do a ton of international travel when I was working. Now, it's just for fun! Going east, my strategy would be to drink as much water as I could on the plane and sleep as much as possible as well (it helped if I only got a few hours of sleep the night before). Oh, and only fly business...

I was fairly stunned that I did not miss the bi-weekly paychecks, quarterly commissions and quarterly RSUs. When my bank account gets below the amount that I feel comfortable, I transfer some money over and treat it like a payday. I anticipated that it would take me a year or more to get used to...

Now you’re talking. You’re single, you’ll be retired, flush with cash, and able to have these kinds of experiences. Fast forward two years: will you look back and think “I sure am glad I worked and didn’t go to [insert country names] to learn Spanish and experience different cultures.” I’m...

What pushed me over the edge was the adage that I learned here: I was tired of trading time I'd never get back for money I'd never need. I ran all the calculators I could find, and every one of them said "what are you, nuts? Just retire already!" I've been able to get a dog, which requires...