Better off after February!

[FLSUnFIRE]

My NW dropped 7% in February but my trailing 12 months expenditures dropped 5.5% so my annual trailing expenses/NW decreased from 2.89% to 2.78%... Guess I'm still moving in the right direction.... While you're watching the market, watch your expenses too!


Didn't expect that but sort of a fun thing to notice as I ran my EOM numbers today. (Last March expenses were higher than now as I had a lot of one time expenses related to buying my home so maybe I can pull this off two months in a row even if the market rout continues)



FLSUnFIRE

 

[NW-Bound]

Since retirement, I have seen our expenses vary as much as the stash does. I have no budget and spend as needed, and quite a bit of the expenses is of the one-off type. However, if these non-recurrent expenses keep taking turn to show up, then there's something very wrong with my lifestyle.

Thankfully, while the expenses generally declined, the stash grew due to the bull market. It has been working out greater than expected. Even if the market god takes some back, I will still be OK.

And I have my SS in the back pocket. Finally, there's some advantage to being old. Hah!

 

[Dtail]

Since we use a % of portfolio spending concept, tracking our expenses is especially important in down markets.

 

[audreyh1]

Since we use a % of portfolio spending concept, tracking our expenses is especially important in down markets.

Interesting, I don’t worry about carefully tracking expenses in down markets. I’ve already got over a year’s typical budget set aside at the start of the year. And after this major bull run we have accumulated some excess income.

 

[Hermit]

My income increases about $25k/yr starting in March (SS on my account). It's hard to beat that kind of cash increase! Unfortunately, taxes and IRMMA will soon be a killer.

 

[Dtail]

Interesting, I don’t worry about carefully tracking expenses in down markets. I’ve already got over a year’s typical budget set aside at the start of the year. And after this major bull run we have accumulated some excess income.

It is kind of from the other side. I take out the withdrawals monthly instead of the whole amount at the beginning, so in a down market the withdrawals are at a higher % of current values, even though the withdrawal calculation was based on last years' ending balance.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

So two months later... I find myself with a decent but not too horrible haircut on my portfolio and my trailing 12mo COL continues to drop (2.6% of NW) as I have been in my new home for a year and the spike in spending associated with moving/furnishing/overlapping housing is dropping off and will until July when my expenses stabilized a bit. As a result, I am ending this month with the highest ratio of assets to trailing annual expenses ever for me. I still expect a lot of volatility without much return as actual economic damage sorts itself out over the next year or two but, once again I find it very interesting that, despite the bleakness, my position on paper is the best it has ever been (expenses matter, certainly not the market helping me right now)!