July 18, 2008
Now there’s a funny title. Not such a funny article, though.
According to this article, for my age (25 is such a nice cut off), I need to have between $119k to $282k right now if I were to stop investing in order to maintain a 1 million dollar portfolio by age 70, assuming an 8% annualized return and inflation between 3-5%.
Alternatively, assuming my goal is to have a portfolio of 1 million dollars by retirement, and the chart isn’t clear if they’re using age 70 here too, or if they’re using age 65, I’m going to need to save $8,985,008 assuming 3-5% inflation. I guess they’re also assuming an 8% annualized rate of return?
I’m not sure, there seems to be a whole lot of assuming going on here, and you know what that means!
Means we don’t really know what-all’s going on.
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t decided what magic number I’d be comfortable with. I don’t think there is one. After all, I’m 25 and while I’ve been saving diligently, there are a whole lot of other factors that I’d been focusing on. My savings and retirement numbers are just that right now: numbers. I’m doing my best to maintain a higher rate of savings for as long as I can, but that’s because I’m playing catch-up.
If I had to pick a number, I’d ballpark about 2-3 million by the time I’m ready to retire, or go part-time. It seems like enough to provide for a relatively comfortable lifestyle. Nothing terribly extravagant is necessary, but I think it’s good enough for me to be self-sufficient with regards to medical care and daily life, and some travel.
Ultimately, though, I want to enjoy the journey to that point as much as I expect to enjoy life from that point on. I plan to enjoy the next forty years, not spend them anticipating how much fun I’ll have after these pesky in-between years are over!
July 15, 2008
Thanks to Karen for this tip:
The Hotels.com “welcomerewards program” is simple. After you use the site to book 10 reservations over the course of a year, you’ll get a free night’s stay at your choice of one of 45,000 hotels. What’s simple is that there are no blackout dates and no restrictions on the type of properties, either for earning a chance at a free night’s stay or for redeeming a reward for a free night’s stay.
Sounds pretty cool! I’ve never used Hotels.com myself, but I may look into this when I need more travel booking options.
July 10, 2008
BF pulled it off: he found a round trip itinerary for which we could redeem his free ticket voucher, so I’m going to Oregon to see my cousin in August!
It’ll be a long weekend for me, but unfortunately something came up at work and she has to go in, after all. Boooo. Perhaps I can bring her lunch at work. 🙂
We’ll probably go out on the town one night, and I hope we’ll go hiking on Saturday. Because I’m flying United, I’m already trying to mentally maximize my carry-on luggage and minimize the amount of stuff I’ll have to bring.
I’ll be staying at her house, and she has more toiletries and make-up than I’d know what to do with, so I don’t have to waste room on those things. Just the basics, really, two pairs of jeans and three tops. Appropriate shoes.
So excited!!
July 1, 2008
(ie: Supplemental income)
Ahhh, yes. My second income “make-up” check has come in, and I’ve divvied it up.
Originally this was going to be the All Responsibility Check: 20% to savings and 30% for taxes. Since I’m struggling with cash flow, I took 5% of it from the savings allotment and put it that in the expense account. I might as well. If I run short and have to dip into the emergency fund, I’ll just be really annoyed and I have a policy against dipping anyway. As Sistah Ant and I discussed once, it seems like a slippery slope to tread, dipping into the e-fund for non-emergencies.
I’ve an abundance of Citi and ED savings accounts but they’re all being used for specific purposes (Travel, Car/House Maintenance, easier access E-fund, expenses, Car Insurance), so I’ve finally returned to my old ING Direct account to hold my tax savings. That money is just going to be sitting there until next April, so I want it out of sight. Even better, ING is offering a 3% APY rate, so it’s actually doing better than ED.
I’m considering moving my entire emergency fund over to ING, actually, since it’s a fairly substantial amount. I think the Car/House Maintenance and Car Insurance funds can also be moved because those expenses won’t crop up so suddenly that I can’t wait a few days to transfer the money from ING.
Oh, and I still need a Moving fund; it’d be nice to have most of the sub-accounts in one place.
*thinking ….*
June 30, 2008
Creative funding for the summer weekend trips are not, repeat not, going well at all.
1. BF’s free United ticket only lets me fly out of Portland on the worst Sunday flights (7-9 hours of travel for a 3 hour trip) for any weekend we’ve searched. Friday through Monday is not an option here, I don’t think.
2. I can do a Friday night-Monday night weekend for the Phoenix trip, but we’re rapidly running out of open weekends this year. I’ll push that to September, but work is going to be a major scheduling obstacle.
3. My one way SW voucher that expires 8/14/08 isn’t good enough to get any of my return flights from Portland, so that’s not an option, either, but it must be used soon. There’s always the revival fee option, but I don’t plan to pay $50 for that; it’s nearly the cost of a one way ticket!
So, sadly, the trips BF wants me to take are either set, or nearly so. The trips I wanted to take to visit friends and play? Not so much. There’s got to be a way to be more creative about these trips.
June 24, 2008
Yikes, it’s already nearly the end of June! Two weeks ago, I realized that June had well and truly started, and if I was going to visit Portland and Phoenix this summer, I’d better get my tuckus in gear!
I missed my chance to make the Portland trip this month, and the Phoenix trip in August, so I thought to cram them both into August. Then I was informed that I was attending a wedding in August with BF. Hmm….. August will be insane if I go on a trip every weekend. Yes, the opposite of relaxing. Also, there’s a sporting event to be attended in October, also for BF. Portland will have to happen in August, Phoenix will probably get pushed to September, I believe. Work is claiming one of my weekends in August, so there’s just more than enough going on that month.
So there’s a lot of travel juggling going on. My travel budget this year is a wee one, so I have to be very creative in mixing award flights, gift cards, and real cash money.
The wedding flight ran $149, just within the $150 budget I’d allowed. I wanted to buy it immediately, and use the $100 GC for the October flight. But I didn’t take my own advice because I wanted to consult with BF about dates and times before I purchased the tickets. He’s still out of town, but I just guessed and purchased the tickets before they went up more than the $15 they already had. *tsk* Yeah, the price went up. No, I’m never going to learn.
I might as well get that SW gift card now so I have the GC and discount code ready at hand when I have to purchase the October flight.
There’s a quiet voice inside me whisper-screaming: Hey!! Skip one of those trips and use the money to pay bills! BILLS!!!
I’m ignoring that voice. I’m ignoring it.
The temptation to skip it all and leave the money in the travel fund “just in case” is overwhelming, but I just don’t see how I can renege after promising over and over that I’d visit these friends for the last few years. The PF blogger in me keeps saying that I’m going to use up ALL of my travel money by October and then what’ll I do? Things at work are still chaotic and I’ve got no plans for replenishing this fund. But that’s what the e-fund is for, Chicken Little. The sky’s not going to fall down if I go and have a nice weekend with childhood friends, and it very well might if I go back on my word!
Terrorism isn’t the reason I’m going, though. If I don’t do it this year, I might never. If I talk myself out of a promise this year, I very well may do so again next year. There’s never going to be a perfect time, at least not for the next ten years because I imagine the perfect time is something like, I have 5 months’s worth of vacation time, $100,000 in the bank for nothing but pleasure, etc. Not. Going. To. Happen.
As it is? I have nearly 180 hours of vacation time. I could be out on sick and then vacation leave for two months.
I’m going to play, dangit.
June 13, 2008
*sigh* So after my rant about American’s decision, United has decided to follow suit and charge for the first piece of luggage as well.
Kacie has a good point: Southwest just plans to fly a little bit slower and save money that way; I wonder if these other airlines can’t or won’t follow suit because they’re so frequently late anyway that they can’t afford to spend time instead of gas?
And perhaps it’s simply easier and quicker to charge the customer extra than it is to implement gas efficient solutions? It seems to me that it’s smarter to reduce the requirements for gas, since the price-related scarcity is the root of the problem, than it is to simply wring another fifteen to forty bucks out of customers who may be able to choose to fly less frequently as a result of the increased costs. Yes, I sure do have a stake in saying that, but I also like to have more than one solution to a problem, especially such a major one. Sure they’ll have to raise prices to compensate as well, but let’s look at the overall picture, not just the most obvious, glaring issue.
Personally, I’m looking at alternatives to traveling with either of these airlines when I have a choice, though I don’t have a say when it comes to business travel. Since all expenses are paid for business trips, I suppose I don’t have to take it as personally, and continue to be a super-condensed packer.
