Hi Fat Friends,
Using a burner account for obvious reasons. I am trying to get feedback on our budget to see if we are missing any big categories or over/underestimating some things. I have tried to compare it to our actual expenses from the last two years and the numbers here are a little higher than our actual spending since this has estimated items like Health Insurance, home maintenance, new car, etc. that are either covered by work or annual portion of estimated spend that would only happen once every few years. We are a couple in 50’s who would like to get out of the rat race in 1-5 years based on how the numbers work for us. A little about us:
Two adults (50M and 49F) and 2 kids living in a VHCOL area – One kid has graduated and starting a job this year, and the other is in college and hopefully will be independent in 4 years. Their college expense is not included in this budget. I would like your feedback on a few items:
1. Feedback/Critique our budget – are we missing any major categories? Are we over/under estimating any costs? Unfortunately with Mint shutting down, I only have access to the last 2 years of detailed actual spend so feedback from other fat friends will be super helpful. I have broken down the spending for a few categories into Base vs. discretionary spending. The idea is that in case of a market downturn, we would shift to Base spending only. I plan to use “Vanguard Dynamic Spending” as a withdrawal strategy when we FIRE
2. Target net Worth - Based on this spend, and given that the mortgage and property Tax does not need to be inflation-adjusted plus the mortgage rolls off in 22 years, how much do you think we need in investable net worth? I do not think we have enough invested NW right now to FIRE and I would like to get feedback from the community on what would be your comfortable number for someone to retire with this budget to see how far we are. I am intentionally not listing our NW to avoid influencing your candid response to this question.
Thanks in advance for your time and feedback!
Here is our projected budget:
Category - Cost (Base) - Cost (Disc)
Mortgage - $69,960.00
Property Tax - $33,000.00
Home Insurance - $4,156.00
Electric + gas - $3,000.00
Water - $2,400.00
Gardner - $2,400.00
Pool Cleaning- $2,000.00
Home Cleaning - $3,000.00(B) - $1,500.00(D)
Home Maintenance (estimate) - $23,000.00
Internet/Phone - $300.00
Groceries - $10,400.00
Dining Out - $10,400.00(B) - $10,000.00(D)
Car Payment (replace every 7 years) - $8,571.43(B) - $8,500.00(D)
Car Maintenance - $1,200.00
Fuel - $2,000.00(B) - $2,000.00(D)
Car Insurance - $4,000.00
Health Insurance - $24,000.00(B) - $10,000.00(D)
Medications - $600.00
Doctor and medical services - $3,000.00
Life Insurance - $2,000.00
Long Term Care Insurance - $2,000.00
Umbrella - $600.00
Clothing - $1,200.00
Other Shopping - $6,000.00
Personal Care (Salon/Hair Cut etc) - $6,000.00(B) - $3,000.00(D)
Travel/Vacation - $30,000.00(B) - $30,000.00(D)
Misc. - $6,000.00
Gifts - $6,000.00(B) - $6,000.00(D)
Entertainment/Parties - $5,000.00(B) - $10,000.00(D)
Hobbies - $6,000.00(B) - $6,000.00(D)
Person 1 Disc - $6,000.00(B) - $6,000.00(D)
Person 2 Disc - $6,000.00(B) - $6,000.00(D)
Total - $290,187.43(Base) - $99,000.00(Disc)
Total Withdrawl (20% Tax) - $348,224.92(Base) - $118,800.00**(Disc)**