We assumed: PiC would retire in 8 years and I would in 10, that he would last to age 95 and I til age 98 (hah), that we would continue with our current level of household income during that time.
We scored a paltry 31. At that point in time, they estimated we might:
Have $3,242/mo
Need $10,308/mo
Leaving a Potential Gap of $7,066 /mo
(This is based on a hypothetically “Significantly Below Average Market” which is just how I want these estimates to be – very pessimistic.) Not good!
Their recommendations:Consider increasing your retirement savings. If you have a workplace plan, at the very least try to contribute enough so you will receive your employer’s full match.
I would LOVE to. But I don’t have a workplace plan and it stinks that the only way to put away money for retirement is through taxable accounts if your employer is a dud in the benefits department.
That is why I’ve been focused on both dividend investing and index investing.
Reduce spending: I sure hope we’re not spending $10,000 a month in retirement! I need to have paid off our mortgage and be done with childcare to ensure that.
More than half that cost right now is daycare and housing (mortgage, property tax, insurance) so at least 20% of it will be less in a few years.
Looks like your current asset mix appears to be closely aligned with your Target Asset Mix.
We based this on the percentage of stocks in your assigned accounts. You should review this at least once a year, or when markets move significantly.
Woot! I picked our index funds all by myself. Mostly. I had a bit of analysis help from fellow money bloggers.
Almost a full year later, having made some big changes to our investing and cash holdings and adjusting assumptions, our score has improved to 60. A good increase but it still qualifies as “Needs Attention”. Without taking any possible Social Security into consideration, the current projection is that we’ll have $6,022/mo income.
New assumptions: moved PiC’s retirement age up by two years and mine down by 2 years, set both of our life expectancies to 98 years. The excessively high life expectancy isn’t because I assume we’ll really live that long but rather that we’ll need to spend a fair amount on healthcare in our later years and this is my way of adjusting our needed income expectations. If there’s a better way to do that, I’d love to hear it!
This doesn’t spell the end of our early retirement hopes like I felt it did last year when I first poked around. It gives us some decent goals to aim for in a largely uncertain plan based on a lot of assumptions.
If we did manage to close that gap significantly or even entirely, there’s still the potential college costs to think of. Certainly some of it will be covered by the early start on our 529 but at this point, I’m more comfortable planning for a combination of using savings, cash flowing some portion of it and having JB commit to some of the costs zirself.
:: How do you fiddle with your retirement expectations? How much might your future costs change?
How to Write About a Vanishing World. I have to admit that knowing this is happening has got me quite down. We’re destroying our planet, right now, for us and for our kids already born. How has dystopian science fiction NOT prepared us to stop it??
Tanja is reading my mind pretty much always: Climate change. How are you preparing for climate change in the long run?
Comments are off on this post for reasons I can totally understand but I wanted to comment here – Debt is exhausting! Apparently some people think mortgage debt is “good” (probably because of tax deductions?), I personally find it exhausting and want it GONE.
Parents, are you behind the camera or in the picture? I always forget to try and take pictures with the kids, so generally I have pictures of them playing but PiC has always from Day One made it a point to take pictures of him and JB together. Those two goofballs. I love that succession of pictures.
I don’t typically keep up with most rap feuds, though they can produce some amazing music and this is no exception, but a friend passed on the link with a note: TI had a feud with Shawty Lo so he filmed this video in Shawty Lo’s hood. I especially appreciate this in light of this money related story I just read about TI buying up homes in his old neighborhood that’s rapidly gentrifying and creating affordable housing. That’s a multi-millionaire I can tip my hat to.
One of my favorite things about having my office space settled is that even though it’s only October, almost all the Christmas gifts for the family niblings are ready to be wrapped. I might even tackle that wrapping this month to settle my stomach over the upcoming holidays. That’s because I have THE GIFT BOX.
It’s a really simple process. I keep a spreadsheet of the niblings’ ages, sizes, and favorite colors. When I spot a great sale on kids’ clothing or books, and I have a gift card, I pick out as many things as I can for up to $100 total, and voila! Their gifts are done. I can usually get a good armload of clothing so that’s always fun.
I’ll grant you that it’s not that exciting – they don’t get toys just clothing or books, but I’m all about practicality and frankly, all of the niblings have toys coming out of their ears. The clothes will get passed down through all the cousins and the books, well, you know how I feel about books. The more the better!
I also add more random gifts for JB’s friends, and the children of our friends, throughout the year during similar sales but those lucky kids get books, clothes, puzzles AND art supplies. We ran into the Aaron Brothers closing sale and picked up a stack of cool painting projects, all between $4 to $10 each, so that when ze gets invitations to an unexpected birthday party, we’re already stocked up and ready.
We aim not to go to more than 5 parties a year so that keeps us from overspending on random kids.
I’m sure this all sounds a bit cheap, so much cost control!, but it’s just not a priority to spend real money on STUFF at this age. I’d rather spend discretionary money on our library, the homeless shelter, the humane society, and educational museums.
On the environmental front, this year, once I practice enough hand sewing drawstring bags for our own use, I’d like to find cheap happy looking fabric to make up fabric gift bags for at least Christmas presents to reduce the waste of paper gift wrap. If I work up a batch for other gifts too, all the better! But this is likely to be a year round project.
Stephonee pulled off a grand student debt repayment by credit card scheme. All details here.
Basic Economic Security in the United States: How Much Income Do Working Adults Need in Each State? This breakdown puts us in California as needing somewhere between $94,000-$106,000 per year. If we didn’t have to save at all then I suppose that might do it but I can’t comprehend a world in which I didn’t always need to save. Even when we’re no longer making income, I have trouble envisioning that future in which we just spend a limited income and don’t save actively. I’m so programmed.
This seems like a bad idea: “Nectome is a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company…For Nectome’s procedure to work, it’s essential that the brain be fresh. The company says its plan is to connect people with terminal illnesses to a heart-lung machine in order to pump its mix of scientific embalming chemicals into the big carotid arteries in their necks while they are still alive (though under general anesthesia).”
Folks shared their plans for saving for their children’s educations over at Stacking Pennies’s post on saving for baby.
I’ve always felt uncomfortable with stocking up the 529 aggressively, or more aggressively than we have been doing. I simply don’t know what JB will choose when the time comes, going to college and graduating is a relatively new thing in our immigrant family. All of PiC’s family went to college and even went on to higher education. That was true even if you went back a generation.
In my immediate family, I’m the only college graduate. My parents went to college but didn’t have the time or money to graduate, they were already raising us by then. Grandparents? Hah. Grandma was smart as a whip and she used her natural intelligence to the fullest, parlaying a 2nd grade education into raising a huge family and running a tiny farm and growing it into something that sustained her into her 80s.
It always disappointed Mom that I didn’t go on to graduate school because she hoped for more, and better, for me, but that just wasn’t my path. Formal education, Asian though I am, simply wasn’t my forte. Working hard and smart was. I got my English BA and hit the working road hard. Honestly, there’s not much a Masters would do for me in my current line of work, I’d have to pursue a PhD to make any difference in my working path and even then I doubt it’d be worth the investment. The ego boost doesn’t seem worth the price tag, either.
Our current savings plan: We’ve been working on contributing $14,000 (the maximum for one parent) per year to JB’s college savings aiming to go north of $100,000 but … there are too many unknowns here for me to be really comfortable with that much or more.
I simply cannot predict JB’s interests and commitment to higher ed, and what the landscape of higher ed will be in 15 years. I’m tempted to forgo much more in the way of contributions to the 529 and simply invest in our brokerage toward our hoped-for early retirement and mortgage paydown, and plan to cash flow college should the expenses rise above the saved amounts. We’d be abandoning tax free growth but if ze didn’t use the money, there would be a penalty to get that money out as well.
:: Am I being too risk averse (avoiding that penalty) with that line of thinking? What would you do?
Simple crafts I might actually do this year, thanks for the tutorial, Kristine! (The drawstring bags! I will make shoe and laundry bags for travel, they will live in our suitcase.)
I adore food prep posts like this from Frogdancer. I might not be able to do all the same kinds of prep but it gives me IDEAS. And I’d like tips on doing this sort of thing sustainably as well.
Just as Hugh Jackman is Wolverine for me, a diehard Marvel fan of old, Chris Evans IS Captain America. I’m sad to know he’s done though I realize 8 years is a long time to be playing one character if you want to keep doing new and challenging things in your work. Thanks, Cap / Chris.
Instead, current research suggests that prevention should focus on those perceptions and behaviors that did strongly predict assault. Although they’re often referred to in the literature as “personality variables,” they aren’t immutable characteristics any more than personality itself is immutable. “There’s a small number of sociopaths, but there’s a lot of it that’s cultural,” Testa said. In other words: Are these men supported by peers who also voice negative attitudes about women? Is it considered socially acceptable to look for the drunkest girl at a party and try to take her home? Are there social consequences for young men who ignore consent?
It was perhaps the one thing Mom never understood about me and even somewhat feared in me. She once asked me not to get “too involved”. There’s no doubt it’s led me to make foolish choices, and was the driving force behind my first not wholly honest transaction when I dipped into the coin dish without asking permission or forgiveness to fish out quarters to buy a book from a classmate in first grade. I would have gotten away with it entirely too if it hadn’t been for a teacher telling my parents at parent teacher conference time. I loved books more than food or sleep and honesty, drilled in me deeply, was only forgotten once in my sheer madness for books. Mom never understood it and she probably wouldn’t understand why I foster this love in her grandchild. PiC doesn’t have the book hunger either but he willingly goes along with feeding the flame, reading JB’s current favorites night after night after unforgiving night.
I know JB isn’t here to be our second act and I’m not trying to imprint a clone of either of us but of all things ze could have from me, let it be my love of reading and love of money management. One will feed zir mind and comfort zir soul, the other will help keep those together with a nourished body.
It will of course then likely be the source of many sleepless nights as ze will likely choose to read until four in the morning given the chance but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Even with the memory of the sheet scorched 28 years ago when I unwisely draped it over a naked bulb to hide the light from my parents. I’m the reason we shouldn’t have nice things.
I taught JB how to wash zir own hair months ago, but then the skill just sort of laid there, unused. I wondered about it but kept my mouth shut and carried on washing zir hair as usual. There was the usual amount of manipulation in that “as usual”. Grouchy JB would gripe and moan about not being ready to have zir hair washed the second I started washing it. On good days, I would just agree and say, ok then if you’re not ready, rinse the soap out! I wonder when ze is going to realize that by the time ze rinses out the shampoo and realizes I’ve put in the conditioner, we’re already 3/4 of the way there and I’ve tricked zir. On bad days, we’d fuss at each other and my cleverness would be out the window. But the hair would still be washed, by me.
Out of the blue, ze started taking down the bottle of shampoo intending to wash zir own hair. I just made some suggestions on how a smol person might more easily pour shampoo from a large 30 ounce bottle into one’s hand and stood back. Ze took the initiative to lather up. It wasn’t thorough at all but I didn’t criticize, preferring to let zir make it a habit more than caring about it being done well.
Ze was being out and out rude the other day as we prepared for bed, then threw zir toothbrush at me. Ze didn’t have the gall to throw it so that it connected – I think we’ve established that that triggers the nuclear option. But it was definitely at me. And we do not throw things as an act of anger in this household. You’re allowed to beat up a pillow – you’re allowed to punch and kick a pillow if it’s time to Hulk out. But throwing things is not allowed.
I looked zir right in the eye, looked at the toothbrush (which was at the end of the 6 month span anyway), and tossed it with toothpaste smear and all right in the trash. Zir bestie has gotten that before. But we’ve only had to threaten it before.
Now, I don’t believe in bluffing so I choose my threats carefully. I have to follow through on them, every single time, if JB doesn’t get zir act together. But there was a moment of petty satisfaction when ze realized that if the rules are clear already, as in I’ve already said that you forfeit your belongings when you throw them, ze doesn’t merit a warning when ze is pushing the boundaries. It’s just going to happen.
There were so many tears. But then ze straightened up and stopped being QUITE so defiant. For about ten minutes.
Make better choices!
Speaking of discipline, I’ve been working really hard on keeping my cool when JB is openly antagonistic, defiant, and sulky. REALLY hard. So instead of raising my voice, I lower it. I breathe deeply to oxygenate my brain (and incidentally as a big red flag for zir that ze has left DefCon 5 and the numbers are now ticking downward).
We almost always give zir a chance to correct the behavior unless ze has slapped, kicked, bitten, pinched, hit, or otherwise physically harmed someone. The chance is generally: Should you be [doing the bad thing] or should you make a better choice?
If ze hasn’t gone to another world in zir head, rage world, then ze will stop to think and choose “make a better choice”.
So petty. SO SO PETTY.
JB: I don’t LIKE your turtles.
Me: Ok.
JB: I DON’T like your TURTLES.
Me: I didn’t ask you to like them.
JB: I don’t like my UNDERWEAR
Me: Ok.
JB: I DON’T LIKE MY UNDERWEAR.
Me: Ok. Maybe you can like them tomorrow.
JB: NO I’m not going to like them EVERY DAY.
Me: Ok, wear diapers then.
JB: I WANT DIAPERS.
JB: Can I have a yogurt?
Me: Yes, but only after I take a bite.
JB: Why?
Me: Tax.
JB: WAT.
