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We bought lie flat business class tickets for a trip to Antartica for late Jan 2023. 3% of our spend rate. We have always been too cheap to do this in the past. But someone else on a another thread said "fly business / first class or your heirs will!". I can really see that happening in our...

I investigated the kiddie tax and gifting appreciated shares recently and while I am no expert, I came up with about $4700 (1050+1050+2600 2018 numbers) of LTCG that I could gift to each of my kids at the 0% rate. I ran some numbers through Turbo Tax which seemed to confirm this, but I will not...

Yes I did that and hopefully there are no unintended consequences. I came up with about $4700 (1050+1050+2600 2018 numbers) of LTCG that I could gift to each of them at the 0% rate. Turbo tax did confirm this. I do not use an accountant and this is a new area for me so I am cautious.

I gifted them shares of Vanguard Total Stock Index from my taxable account being careful to stay within the 0% Capital gains taxes for estates and trusts since we still provide over 1/2 of their support as students. It seems to have worked well and hopefully there is not something that I forgot...

I think that once they are out of college, we will probably end the request to talk with us first before withdrawing the money and have no further stipulations. Hopefully, by then they will actually seek out our investment advice, if we are lucky.

I did stipulate that they were not to take the money out unless they discussed it with us first and that it had to be for a worthwhile goal. I also told them that our future contributions were contingent on them following this rule. I don't anticipate any issues, but they are young and the money...

Both of my kids got their first W-2 paying summer jobs this year. They both completed freshman year at college. I agreed to 100% fund the first $2000 in their Roths just because they were working for the summer. I then matched their contributions dollar for dollar until the max of their...

Even though they were envious, most people thought we were crazy for leaving early. However, we have never been big spenders and could maintain our lifestyle without working, so we chose to quit. Our LBOM lifestyle is hardly frugal, but we wanted to raise our children in a lifestyle that they...

We rolled money into our 401k's to avoid prorating taxes on a back door Roth. Our 401k plans had good choices and low fees. As an additional benefit, the money rolled in to the 401k was accessible without penalty once my husband separated from service in the year he turned 55. A nice benefit for...

Well done, ElizabethT!

Hi Elizabeth T In my opinion, you have chosen great ways to use additional income. Most of our additional spending has been on home remodeling and travel. For me, I can't see any scenarios where my family will regret our increased spending on these items. But, if we had not done the travel...

After a lifetime of saving, it can be very hard to spend money! We are spending a lot more now than we ever have, mostly on travel before our kids go off to college. I kind of freak out when I see the overall spending numbers, but in our case the total is still under our Firecalc 95% success...

....and good luck with your decision! If it helps, our expenses are higher than yours. They have gone up a great deal in the last four years, mostly remodeling and family travel. ESP planner modeling might indicate that you don't have to cut as much as you think.

Our family also has teen twins and high expenses, but I would not be comfortable with that asset to spend rate. Consider using ESP planner to refine your projections. I found it very useful in helping me estimate how my spend rate might change as the kids went to college and how expenses might...

I also got the "plus" version.

Another vote for ESP planner. I haven't worked with it enough yet to figure out how to model Roth conversions and I wish you could model withdrawals from both taxable and 401K better. So far, I can only withdraw taxable or 401k first until it is depleted then the other one. I would like to...

0.7% for my car and 2.5% for DH since his is fairly new. We aren't car people, short commute to work and our house is expensive in the outskirts of the SF Bay area. True story though... once my husband (an engineering manager) was giving a ride back to HR to a prospective newbie college kid...

I've received four pension checks and still can't quite get used to being paid for not working.......It is great!

well done I've love life since I left work on June 12 2013. Can't stop smiling! Welcome to the class of 2013!

Good observation H2O dude. I was very unusual in that I worked for the same organization for 29 years. I've often wondered if there was always this much BS and I didn't see it when I was young. In reality, I think that both are true--the organization has more BS and I have less tolerance for it...

DH can leave now, but he just isn't ready to. He is thinking about Dec 2013, Feb 2014 or most likely June 2014.

Thank you all! It was a bit strange to quit a high paid job, but boy I am happier already! Most of my co-workers were simply envious. I worked for a once great institution that well...isn't quite as great now. While I wasn't happy at work, I can' t complain about the place. It funded my ER...

1. martyb - 55 - SOMETIME in 2013 2. DFA - 54 3. Chris2008 - 54 4. mystang52 (Glenn) - 60 5. SteveNU - 56 6. T-bird - 58 7. misty57 (DH) - 56 / RETIRED: 5/31/13 8. Coaster - 53 RETIREMENT DATE: 6 AUG 2013 9. Helen - 56 - May 10, 2013 10. Rita-61 11. KM - 55 - March 15, 2013 - RETIRED 12...

Today was my last day too! How do I add my name to the list? I am 52

I didn't chicken out ....I did it!! Last day was today. Thrilled to be FIREed! So many folks were stunned that I could leave employment while so young. Yippee!