haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Without tracking we are mostly flying blind. I started tracking expenses in the late 80s, not having anything to do with retirement at that time, but only to answer my annual yearend question-where did all my money go? I found that I really had no idea. I got interested in accounting and set up some double-entry books which answered that question, and a lot of others too.
Now I just use a complete but simple single entry Excel sheet. The hazard here is that I could and sometimes do miss some expense, and never know or find out only by chance. There is no error checking built into the system. (If anyone is using an Excel double entry simplified ledger, please let me know! I would prefer it.)
Even with tracking, I believe that there is much more unpredictability in one's financial comfort when retired without a pension than when working, or having a government pension.
Four years ago when stocks were way down, people talked pretty much like OP on this thread- "if I need to cut back, I'll find a way". And I think with respect to the pretty well off crowd that hangs here now, most of us could do this reasonably well.
Once we are retired, what other way can we be emotionally comfortable? I believe however, that in an big economic squeeze, many of us will find this harder to do than to plan to do. While I do most of the usual things that we do, like try to minimize expenses, get value for money, etc- I think that philosophically I come from a somewhat different place. It is my belief that God's idea of the proper variance and volatility of life events is quite a bit wider than ours.
There is really no very good way to hedge this. If someone has $10 million does he really want to live as if he had $3m, just to have a greater margin? Most of us would not.
Note: When I post, I often say "I believe (whatever)". I notice that not many posters use this construction. More commonly a post just gives "how things are", according to the poster. But I feel that very little can be said that is in reality anything more than a belief of the speaker. So when I say I believe, it is because I don't know, and I know I don't know, but like anyone else I am always making working hypotheses, most of which get changed or even totally rejected with more information and experience.
Ha
Now I just use a complete but simple single entry Excel sheet. The hazard here is that I could and sometimes do miss some expense, and never know or find out only by chance. There is no error checking built into the system. (If anyone is using an Excel double entry simplified ledger, please let me know! I would prefer it.)
Even with tracking, I believe that there is much more unpredictability in one's financial comfort when retired without a pension than when working, or having a government pension.
Four years ago when stocks were way down, people talked pretty much like OP on this thread- "if I need to cut back, I'll find a way". And I think with respect to the pretty well off crowd that hangs here now, most of us could do this reasonably well.
Once we are retired, what other way can we be emotionally comfortable? I believe however, that in an big economic squeeze, many of us will find this harder to do than to plan to do. While I do most of the usual things that we do, like try to minimize expenses, get value for money, etc- I think that philosophically I come from a somewhat different place. It is my belief that God's idea of the proper variance and volatility of life events is quite a bit wider than ours.
There is really no very good way to hedge this. If someone has $10 million does he really want to live as if he had $3m, just to have a greater margin? Most of us would not.
Note: When I post, I often say "I believe (whatever)". I notice that not many posters use this construction. More commonly a post just gives "how things are", according to the poster. But I feel that very little can be said that is in reality anything more than a belief of the speaker. So when I say I believe, it is because I don't know, and I know I don't know, but like anyone else I am always making working hypotheses, most of which get changed or even totally rejected with more information and experience.
Ha
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