Monthly Budget 4,000??

With both of us working and raising 4 kids, I chose to use the 'mantra' below when we put the kids in private school. It included some money put away every month to cover those unexpected incidents that seem to plague families who live on a tight budget (i.e., unexpected sudden trip to Holland when a parent died, auto repairs, hospital bills not covered by insurance). The money we could put aside was sometimes a great deal less that we would have liked but it was at least something. Maybe this was my motivation of living within our means.

If your outgo exceeds your income,
Your upkeep will be your downfall.
 

In my case, I scrimped and saved and planned for 20 years and then, lastly, I sat down with a certified financial planner and shared all of my assets and expenses and he ran them through a computer program. The end result was that I would have enough money to last me until age 100+. The key for me was to establish income streams well before retirement and then let my SS income grow at 8% until age 71 and judicious investing well before then. Now that I am 70+ I can pretty much do what ever I want to do. I have LTC insurance so that I know that I will never be a burden on my family.

What is hard is to change my thinking from being ultra frugal to spending on myself what ever I want. Yes, I keep my car for 15+ years, have not debts, no mortgage, own 3 houses and give to whomever I want. I did this all on incomes of 70K per year or less over about 20 years. It is not really that hard, just consult a competent financial planner professional and follow their advice.

Listen to mathjak107 and his kind and you can do it too.
 
After the first couple years of retirement my activity and spending have diminished. I have become a home body more or less. My nest egg is doing fine. I enjoy driving to some small towns in Texas just to rub elbows with the people there. I like to see how other folks live especially in small rural towns. I don't know if they are any happier especially now with the internet that brings them all the crappy news of the world they don't want any part of.
 

Seems a no brainer
Live within yer means

Mantra? pssssht
More like Credo

We don’t touch $1000/mo
Don’t even know what I’d do with it
I may buy gold, if anything

Been that way for pushing four years now
Heh, most folks here would think I live in extreme poverty

Well to do, for me, is having 14 cord of would stacked up for the next two winters
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and living each moment in the comfort, joy and satisfaction of hard work...with my hands, gives us

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That wood lasts only two years Gary'O? Did you move to Siberia?
 
That wood lasts only two years Gary'O? Did you move to Siberia?
Actually, that represented three, maybe four light winter seasons.
One season we did burn seven cord.
That winter was long, Oct thru April and into May.
Felt like Siberia.
Had a low of -37°F for three days straight.
A slight breeze at that temp will rip yer face off.
Live in the mountains, you get what it gives, take what it lets you have.
 
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With both of us working and raising 4 kids, I chose to use the 'mantra' below when we put the kids in private school. It included some money put away every month to cover those unexpected incidents that seem to plague families who live on a tight budget (i.e., unexpected sudden trip to Holland when a parent died, auto repairs, hospital bills not covered by insurance). The money we could put aside was sometimes a great deal less that we would have liked but it was at least something. Maybe this was my motivation of living within our means.

If your outgo exceeds your income,
Your upkeep will be your downfall.
one thing i want to mention is this old useless credo "live below your means " really means nothing ... it is as useless a saying as buy stocks with good growth potential ...

the problem is not only does means change but the ratio between discretionary and non discretionary spending is what it really is about ... how much is not only left for savings is very important but if everything is a need and not a want you may have little to cut back on if need be even though you are spending less then you take in .

so it is not just a case of live below your means , it is a case of having a healthy savings rate and ratio of discretionary vs non discretionary spending ... if you had buck left over according to the credo live below your means you would be adhering to it but that is not a good idea .

so people need a spending plan like they do for other aspects of life .

one methods suggests 50% essential expenses / 15% retirement savings / 5% short term saving , 30% discretionary spending .

you can see that is far more useful then just live below your means which in itself is not an actionable plan ... this is just a pet peeve of mine because it is spewed often but really means little
 
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After the first couple years of retirement my activity and spending have diminished. I have become a home body more or less. My nest egg is doing fine. I enjoy driving to some small towns in Texas just to rub elbows with the people there. I like to see how other folks live especially in small rural towns. I don't know if they are any happier especially now with the internet that brings them all the crappy news of the world they don't want any part of.
Ditto for us. We live not far away from Brenham and often take the drives to Roundtop and the German hill country areas. We were just talking about taking an overnighter to see some small town Christmas lights in December. Think there's a list of them somewhere on the web. Used to travel a lot, now we're nesters and really enjoying it.
 
@mathjak107
"i find it makes much more sense seeing what you have to work with then back in to the lifestyle to fit "

Totally agree. When my husband stopped working and we had to live on just my paycheck, that's exactly what we had to do. I would think it would be the same in retirement. We have figured out that we will have just about the same income in retirement as my salary is now. It was hard going the first few months after he quit working, but we made a few lifestyle adjustments and it's working out great. It's easy to spend that money when you have two paychecks. For us, it will also help out a lot to have no debt when I retire.
 
If you are realizing great returns in the stock market you owe me a debt of gratitude for staying on the sidelines. The surest way to predict an economic crash or bear market is for me to enter a booming one.

I'll stick with CDs and other safe places to stash my cash, IRAs, and other retirement funds. Better low interest than a loss of principal. Been through both experiences several times, and much prefer the former.
 
So you flew over 2008?
you still did not lose money with 50/50 with any 10 or 20 year time frame that included 2008 in its numbers .

. your returns were still positive over the 10 and 20 year period. you may have been down in years at times but over all if you stayed the course no one ever came out negative over any ten or 20 year time frame with a 50/50 allocation ...

not sure of why you are even bringing up one year out of ten or 20 .. if someone got scared and bailed out in 2008 then that is bad investor behavior , not markets .

these are the worst outcomes for 50/50 we had.

starting in 2008 would not even make the chart as a worst case for a 10 year period

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Bravo! Great job!

I do the same thing.

Big spenders aren't able to comprehend that we are doing what comes natural for us...
this is our normal and preferred lifestyle.
I would agree, the reason why we’re living comfortably now in our retirement is because we sacrificed and lived way below our means when our children were growing up. While other people were living high on the hog going on vacations driving around the big trucks and buying all the newest gadgets we didn’t have any of that stuff we saved our money and now we live very comfortably in Florida and have a pool in our backyard, unless your Paris Hilton that’s how you have to do it If you want to live fairly comfortably in your retirement.
 
I would agree, the reason why we’re living comfortably now in our retirement is because we sacrificed and lived way below our means when our children were growing up. While other people were living high on the hog going on vacations driving around the big trucks and buying all the newest gadgets we didn’t have any of that stuff we saved our money and now we live very comfortably in Florida and have a pool in our backyard, unless your Paris Hilton that’s how you have to do it If you want to live fairly comfortably in your retirement.
I would never guess at the finances of people i don’t know ....for all you know they may have more assets then you do ...or they may have a nice juicy pension and dont need much savings ..
People make comments about others wasting money all the time yet they know nothing about most of their finances ..

To be honest I always liked my spending and since 1974 I have bought new cars every 4-5 years ...

I always made sure I had money to invest though ....I started investing in my early twenties....so by becoming a better investor it let me spend more and I did not have to deprive myself of some of life’s perks ..today we are in great financial shape but all of those who saw me get a new car every few years knew nothing about my finances.
 
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I would never guess at the finances of people i don’t know ....for all you know they may have more assets then you do ...or they may have a nice juicy pension and dont need much savings ..
People make comments about others wasting money all the time yet they know nothing about most of their finances ..

To be honest I always liked my spending and since 1974 I have bought new cars every 4-5 years ...

I always made sure I had money to invest though ....I started investing in my early twenties....so by becoming a better investor it let me spend more and I did not have to deprive myself of some of life’s perks ..today we are in great financial shape but all of those who saw me get a new car every few years knew nothing about my finances.
That's true, you never know. Folks see our "big place on so much land" and may think we we inherited a lot of bucks or something (not that there's anything wrong with making money the old fashioned way, some of our best friends have done it) its just that we had a "plan" when we first married.

To build our own "starter castle" ourselves on land. Did that and never had a mortgage. Love it and since I'm a French trained chef, prepare gourmet meals at a fraction of the cost. Know those secrets...ha ha. To each his own. We are beyond being happy now. Kid is doing great and grandkids are super good. What's not to love, already! Would pray all those others are enjoying the fruits of their labors, also.
 
For some reason people think that anyone who spends more than they do on things is wasting money or not saving ....nonsense ....

you see the same comments all the time about Starbucks , buying lunch and iPhones ...but the truth is if someone saves 200 a month on their car and 300-400 a month on housing by doing things differently they can have starbucks every day and a Starbucks goody and still save more money then denying themselves their star bucks or buying lunch.

It makes no sense that everything has to be compared to what others do ...
 
For some reason people think that anyone who spends more than they do on things is wasting money or not saving ....nonsense ....

you see the same comments all the time about Starbucks , buying lunch and iPhones ...but the truth is if someone saves 200 a month on their car and 300-400 a month on housing by doing things differently they can have starbucks every day and a Starbucks goody and still save more money then denying themselves their star bucks or buying lunch.

It makes no sense that everything has to be compared to what others do ...
That's so true. Since I'm a French trained chef, have a big working kitchen and about every size pot, pan or ramekin you could find in Sur La Table... we never want or need to spend tons of money on upscale overpriced restaurants. Yet I buy the best meat or seafood money can buy so that might look extravagant as well as our lifestyle would,
yet in reality we save money and enjoy life better!
 
That's so true. Since I'm a French trained chef, have a big working kitchen and about every size pot, pan or ramekin you could find in Sur La Table... we never want or need to spend tons of money on upscale overpriced restaurants. Yet I buy the best meat or seafood money can buy so that might look extravagant as well as our lifestyle would,
yet in reality we save money and enjoy life better!
A French chef - wow ...90% of what I eat comes through the driver side window lol
 
A French chef - wow ...90% of what I eat comes through the driver side window lol
Yeah, and that is really sad. Some people just don't know what great food tastes like or even care to learn. Of course, you get used to hanging if you hang long enough, huh. My motto is "cook till I croak"...!
 
Yeah, and that is really sad. Some people just don't know what great food tastes like or even care to learn. Of course, you get used to hanging if you hang long enough, huh. My motto is "cook till I croak"...!
Actually my wife is a good cook ..but the kids gave her a screen name of badcook5 so we all kid her but she is really good ...we always tell her we say our prayers after we eat
 
Actually my wife is a good cook ..but the kids gave her a screen name of badcook5 so we all kid her but she is really good ...we always tell her we say our prayers after we eat
Wow, if my kids did that to me, they'd need to say their prayers BEFORE they ate!
 
This is a interesting and relevant post for ms gamboolgal and I since we are retiring effective 1-Jan-20.

We'll be keeping track of all expenditures the first year vs our estimated budget and it will be interesting to see the totals after the first year. Especially since we have been living oversea's - for me since 2003 and ms gamboolgal since 2008. We kept our home in Texas and our son lived in it so we have a good handle on some of the non discretionary expenses. But the non discretionary expenses are at this point - all estimated.

If I can remember and am not too embarrassed, I will try to remember to post the estimated budget vs actual spends.
Here are our categories - Comments welcomed
gamboolman....
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the only thing i track is dollars spent to date ..

unless we go over budget i don't really care if it went for X , Y OR Z .

it is only if cuts are required i would bother to track every expenditure
 


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