Search results

$15,600 on eating out, $7500 on groceries, another $5000 for alcohol. Plus Costco is in the shopping category, so it's a good percentage of another $5000. Oh and another $5600 in entertainment and only $4000 in travel because of the pandemic. So probably right at the $40k. We eat out or order in...

Last Year's conversion used up all the 28% bracket, but I was more conservative this year and went for the 250k for the NIIT surcharge. I'm 2 years into my Roth conversion ladder, planning for 5 years, then withdraw from Roth for 5 years till hubby hits 59.5.

I thought about the RV thing, but it seemed pricey if we're just renting it for a month. I like comfortable hotels, and love shopping around so I'm usually able to find a nice Sheraton or similar most places I go. Our road trip will be a mix, and I'm even looking into some glamping spots in the...

Thanks all! Our original number was 2 million when we first started out, but moved to 2.5 million pretty early. It did go up to 3m about 3 years ago when we were getting close to 2.5 and really looked at our current spending. This is in retirement accounts. We have a lot of equity in our...

I joined in 2007 with about $300k in my accounts. This month we hit $3m in our retirement accounts, which is our FIRE number. :dance: I just turned 46, hubby is 49. We started "coasting" a few years ago, I quit my job at megacorp, started a business, got a new megacorp job in a different field...

I wish there was a sensor on a cell phone that you could set for something like 12 hours without movement/interaction that could alert people in your list. All the people I know will check in on their phones at least that often. Heck, even if just facebook would say X has not been on in 24...

Doing up to the 24% bracket since that'll be a discount still if the pre-TCJA tax brackets come back. I'm pretty unbalanced when it comes to Roth accounts, and I'd like to get a good chunk moved over. I'm also still working some, so can't get low enough for ACA subsidies, so I figured I might as...

We haven't had ours come back. We have 2 high risk and one moderately high risk people in our household and are being very cautious. We're also all out of work right now, so we setup a daily schedule for housecleaning so it can be broken up into 10-15 minute sessions per day.

I just got a Masterbuilt 40" Bluetooth Electric Smoker a few months ago and am loving it, but I probably recommend a different model. The Bluetooth is nice for checking on the temp, but every time I switch off the app, it disconnects, so trying to set an alarm for a certain temp doesn't work. I...

I was told calf stretches are the important part, and they've definitely helped. But I'll be looking into omni's site as it looks like they have an even more in depth program. Mine flared up last Thursday, in my left foot for the first time.

I'm not seeing that at all. Married Filing Separate or Single thresholds are 50% of Married Filing Joint, so there isn't a marriage penalty anymore.

DH has been "testing" retirement for the last year, and it has had it's challenges. He's alone all day, so wants to be social when I get home, and meanwhile I need some downtime, or time with friends. He is starting to get some social activities, so it's getting easier. It'll be interesting when...

Just remember about the capital gains rules for selling your primary residence. You can exclude up to $250k (500k for married) of your gains if you've lived in the house for 2 of the last five years. That's assuming you have gains on the house of course. :)

Currently in a 1+m house in San Diego. Bought 7 years ago for 650k, 4bed/2.5bath 2400 sq feet in a super hip neighborhood. Planning on living there during retirement, when I get there.

My work has a financial advisor that meets with people here. They can do fee only, or %. I actually talked to them for 30 minutes for free and got quite a few good tips. I'm thinking about getting a withdrawal plan from them eventually, they charge $250 an hour with a 6 hour retainer, which he...

Good for you. I think you feel bad because you've lost a friend, and by retiring, you're finally admitting the friendship is not something you can fix. You're also moving on to an unknown part of your life. You're going to have a lot of different emotions, and some of them may be grief for a...

I tracked my spending very closely for a lot of years, then started getting lazy. I started tracking again closely and got a bit of a rude awakening, spending about 30% more than we were when I stopped tracking. We were kinda hoping for a 100k yearly spend in retirement, but I realized we're...

I got a HP color laser printer at costco for about $350 and it's worked great, but the toner cartridges were starters and only did a limited number of pages. I swore off inkjets after clogging issues. Replacement color laser cartridges are around $80-100 per color, so a full set of toner...

Pain, lack of sleep and a bad review are all things that are hard to deal with on their own, and the fact you're dealing with all three at once make it a lot harder. I think you need to take it easy on yourself, you deserve a pity party. :) I highly recommend looking into therapy, there's...

Hate it as well, it actually tastes more like dirt to me than soap, but I don't eat a lot of soap. It's definitely a strong bitter taste and very overpowering.

Going in the next month! Starting with Puerto Vallarta, I'm hoping I'll like the size of the town (big enough to have a Costco) with lots of restaurants. I think I'd love living downtown, but the pricing might put me in a suburb that could be gated. I do plan on eating a lot of street tacos to...

I'm looking into living in mexico for a few years as well, and am also seeing extremely low numbers for living expenses. While I'm sure people do live that low, I know we would be spending a bit more, but it sounds like I could live pretty well for 60k, which is half of what I'm spending in my...

Heading to Puerto Vallarta for a week. Hoping we'll like it enough to be a semi-retirement place for us to live for a few years for a break from our HCOL life while we wait for our portfolio to hit our target. Our annual expenses at home are 120k, but by moving to PV and dropping that down we...

I'm getting really close to that number, but it's still a ways from our retirement number, since we live in San Diego and have a pretty high cost of living. I don't feel like we're in the top 5%, but I do feel pretty comfortable.

I had a friend that was making just over the limit for the full credit, so we did partial Traditional IRA/ part ROTH to get her the maximum credit. I promote the ROTH IRA with the credit to be a great start to investing, while having somewhat of an emergency fund as the ROTH, since you can...