The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

Getting to Financial Independence, even if you don't Retire Early is a great spot to be in. To me, it means you have choices - which is always a great thing.

I like sharing with people that it is possible, and with far less money and far less time than is normal.

I always expected to retire at a normal age. So still cackle to myself that we were able to hack it to retire before I turned 40.

I am not minimalistic enough to say that I would choose to live at my current spend level if I had unlimited money unlike some - but in a money vs time tradeoff, I am perfectly content with less money not to have to work every day.


That's fantastic! Congrats!
 
Getting to Financial Independence, even if you don't Retire Early is a great spot to be in. To me, it means you have choices - which is always a great thing.
One thing that I wish more considered is that many don't get to choose when they retire. I feel like everyone should have a bare minimum of reaching FI by age 55 to avoid the stress of job hunting near retirement age.

I am not minimalistic enough to say that I would choose to live at my current spend level if I had unlimited money unlike some - but in a money vs time tradeoff, I am perfectly content with less money not to have to work every day.
This is something I still battle with. I have a few very expensive items on my "want" list but I'm trying to put them off until we are close to FI. I figure at that point it'll be a very simple equation of "Is it worth working 1 more year to buy a 911?"
 
I think we managed so well partly because we had such a short "want" list. But man oh man - after a year of lockdown, I'm longing to redecorate. And since stocks did so well during the pandemic, I actually have the money to do so "properly".

But I am dying a bit at the cost of a a large sectional for $1500-2500 (Cdn). Most of my couches cost me $300. My most expensive couch was purchased 2 yrs ago for $600 and I hate it. The other couch in my living room cost me $50 at a yard sale and still makes me smile. As for refurnishing the rest of the house, ouch, ouch and more ouch. I'm gasping a bit at how much " grown up" furniture costs. Not sure I can do it - still haunting listings for secondhand furniture.

I dunno. This spending thing is crazy. I just spent a $100 on a pair of waterproof trail running shoes. Never spent more than $30-50 before. And then $40 for running shorts. Eek! All my other stuff is $1-5 from thrift stores.

All these "must-haves" are going to kill my annual expenses lol. They are generally well-considered purchases. But man, do they add up. I am getting a bit too spendy and feel the need to tighten up a bit more. Just don't want to go too miserly and living with too inconveniently (like I have the tendency to do).
 
I dunno. This spending thing is crazy. I just spent a $100 on a pair of waterproof trail running shoes. Never spent more than $30-50 before.

Sometimes I also have a difficult time spending money. I try to weigh out whether the item is worth it. Your redecorating is more subjective because it will be more like “will my family get enough enjoyment out of this $2000 sectional to justify the purchase?”

Your shoe example tends to be a bit easier for me. More expensive is not always better quality, so you will need to do a bit of research. But I tend to find that “good” shoes are actually cheaper in the long run. My sister and I have had this conversation multiple times. She won’t buy an expensive pair of shoes because her family “goes through them too fast”. But, from my experience the more expensive shoes last longer. If you need to buy a pair of $25 sneakers every 3-6mos, a $100 pair that lasts several years is actually cheaper over the same amount of time. My husband and I have some shoes that last 10+ years.
 


Just don't want to go too miserly and living with too inconveniently (like I have the tendency to do).
I'm sure a lot of us have spending issues. We're retired and comfortable but have watched our spending all our lives. Just moved into a smaller townhouse, and our old sofa and recliner wouldn't fit well. So we splurged on a fancy electric reclining sofa (was comical when the power went out last Friday night!). We bought a good brand on sale that should last, probably the last sofa we will ever buy.

Shoes are the one clothing item I spend on to get good brands. I go through 2 pairs of Asics a year with walking, and need a particular model because of my feet/knees. I treat myself to a new pair of Haflinger slippers every year; I wear them year-round. Sandals are Keens and Merrill, walking leather shoes are Clarks. Having just moved I decided I may never have to buy any clothing ever again except for socks and underwear, I have too much.

Some things are just worth spending on, we all have to decide what those are. Travel is still our biggest expense
 
I agree in many ways. I am quite picky about running shoes (because I walk/run frequently and have messed up my feet before). I joke that I am an Adidas addict - usually walk out with 5-7 pairs for my family when there is a good sale. But I have always been able to find good quality shoes on clearance for $30-50. My last pair of waterproof Teva trail running shoes were awesome - and scored at a athletic goods warehouse sale in a clearance bin for just $30.

This time I can't shop around so much due to the lockdown (even without it, we'd be staying home anyway). And since I hike on trails a lot, waterproof shoes have bumped up my "need" list so I finally decided to pay more.

Also really missing my thrift stores lol.
 
I'm sure a lot of us have spending issues. We're retired and comfortable but have watched our spending all our lives. Just moved into a smaller townhouse, and our old sofa and recliner wouldn't fit well. So we splurged on a fancy electric reclining sofa (was comical when the power went out last Friday night!). We bought a good brand on sale that should last, probably the last sofa we will ever buy.

Shoes are the one clothing item I spend on to get good brands. I go through 2 pairs of Asics a year with walking, and need a particular model because of my feet/knees. I treat myself to a new pair of Haflinger slippers every year; I wear them year-round. Sandals are Keens and Merrill, walking leather shoes are Clarks. Having just moved I decided I may never have to buy any clothing ever again except for socks and underwear, I have too much.

Some things are just worth spending on, we all have to decide what those are. Travel is still our biggest expense

Do you mind sharing what brand sofa you bought? We have been looking to upgrade ours for while but I am so stuck on deciding what is worth the cost--I am prepared to splurge but only for something of sufficient quality.
 


Do you mind sharing what brand sofa you bought? We have been looking to upgrade ours for while but I am so stuck on deciding what is worth the cost--I am prepared to splurge but only for something of sufficient quality.
Well as usual reviews are all over the place, but we went with the Flexsteel. It wasn't a huge splurge as sofas go (but a lot for us) about 2500 + tax on sale. I am liking the leather more than I thought I would, and the power recline is fun. Since we've only had it a month I can't comment on the longevity but as 2 retirees we are pretty gentle on furniture. I am always cautious about recommending anything because someone else may get a lemon!
 
Well as usual reviews are all over the place, but we went with the Flexsteel. It wasn't a huge splurge as sofas go (but a lot for us) about 2500 + tax on sale. I am liking the leather more than I thought I would, and the power recline is fun. Since we've only had it a month I can't comment on the longevity but as 2 retirees we are pretty gentle on furniture. I am always cautious about recommending anything because someone else may get a lemon!

Thanks. I'm not sure about leather with our cats--we have two dining room chairs (yes, only two, it's a long story) that have leather seats and the cats scratched them a bit before I could cover them, although that was many years ago when the cats were little. They have pretty much left the furniture alone once we found other things they like to scratch on. And I promise not to blame you if we do get Flexsteel and end up with a lemon. Having researched mattresses lately, I am quite convinced that even the best company produces a bad product at some point.
 
We have a leather couch and chair--probably 20 years old now--that have stood up well to pets. We do have a cover on the couch now, but that's mostly because the dog (a) loves that couch; and (b) the dog likes to "dig" on it, and we don't want her ruining the couch. I love that couch! Just try getting the dog off of it!
 
Been really trying hard to wrap my mind around a realistic retirement budget.

Good news: "found" another small pension. Bad news: I can't even come close to figuring out what it will payout. lol

I'm completely confused about medical coverage post retirement. Seems like once you qualify for medicare, you still need some sort of gap coverage, correct? How much does that cost (any kind of ballpark would be helpful).

Unfortunately, I'm realizing that our post retirement expenses don't seem like they are going to be all that much lower than our empty nest expenses. (We don't have an empty nest yet, so it's still a reduction from current!) DH has a company car, gas card, ipass, phone......all that he can use for personal as well. We don't pay anything for health insurance and have very low deductibles on OOP portion. So, we will have to add all that back in I guess. Also, most of our retirement contributions are employer paid, so it's not like that gets redirected to our monthly spending. Ugh! Looks like we are still very much on track regardless, but I was thinking our expenses would really shrink and it's just not so.
 
@4luv2cdisney you definitely need to figure out what that pension will pay out. Is there not someone you can contact for more info?

I'm not well versed but for medicare there's part a (hospital stuff) part b (non hospital type stuff) and then you can buy supplemental which will cover things like dental, vision, etc. I believe there's also medicare advantage plans which are private companies basically taking over the government's responsibility to provide you part a and b along with some other stuff. I'm pretty sure all of this depends on your income and state.

For your reduction in expenses start taking a look at things, is the company car you're only car? If you have two now do you need two in the future? For phone service there's plenty of low cost options that may suit your needs.

You should also think about how your tax bill will change, there's a decent chance without really knowing your situation that you will have a much lower effective rate. Your standard deduction is 24k for married filing jointly and capital gains is 0% on the first 80k. This means you can have a significant amount of income without having to pay any taxes on it.

What you think of your income now may not be that accurate either. As an example if a couple made 200k gross you might be saving 15% in a 401k (30k) which leaves you with $170k which you'd pay roughly 17% federal taxes (29k) leaving you with a take home of 141k. The thing to remember here is you don't need 200k to maintain that lifestyle, you'd only need a max of take home 141k and if we said if your effective tax rate shrank down to 12% you'd only need 158k. Long story short your income stream may be 21% less than your working income but would give you the same amount of cash to spend on your expenses at the end of the day.

Take this all with a grain of salt and know that each situation is different. There's plenty of info out there and all it takes is time and effort to plan.
 
After an exceptionally bad week last week I decided to finally sit down and calculate our actual time to FI. Previously we had just tracked our progress towards a number thrown at a dart board knowing we needed at least that before RE was an option.

Found that we're 35 months away from covering all household expenses assuming some pretty low numbers for our side businesses. I find that both encouraging and depressing haha.
 
After an exceptionally bad week last week I decided to finally sit down and calculate our actual time to FI. Previously we had just tracked our progress towards a number thrown at a dart board knowing we needed at least that before RE was an option.

Found that we're 35 months away from covering all household expenses assuming some pretty low numbers for our side businesses. I find that both encouraging and depressing haha.

I'd be jumping for joy if I was 3 years away.
 
We recently got our monthly statements for April. We know that every month is different, but in April, at least, our investments gained more in the month than DH makes in a year. This is great news for those in our family who (a) plan to go to college in the next few years, and (b) love to travel. We were explaining to DS15 last night, how our goal isn't to leave him buckets of money so much as to be able to pay for long-term care, should we need it (we call it the "Million Dollar Disease" fund). And, should we die quickly and easily, he and his siblings are welcome to whatever's left.

On another note, we got yet another offer from our bank to refinance. While we would get a slightly lower rate, we're currently at 3.625%. Dropping to 3.25% wouldn't save us much, especially when you count in closing costs. Plus, we plan to pay off the mortgage before DH retires (not in any rush, with that rate). That's in 9 years or so. So, I don't think there would be much of a payoff in refinancing. But, it's always good to run the numbers, as a mental exercise, if nothing else.
 
I'm completely confused about medical coverage post retirement. Seems like once you qualify for medicare, you still need some sort of gap coverage, correct? How much does that cost (any kind of ballpark would be helpful).
DH has medicare parts A & B, also D for drug coverage and a medigap plan. He pays a monthly premium for B, D, and his current medigap through AARP (United healthcare) is about $131 a month (it was $148 when we lived in PA).
Part B has a set fee, might be $144 a month now?
Part D will vary based on your plan, his is less than $20 a month, but covers most of his prescriptions completely.
His AARP plan does not pay for the medicare deductible, which is pretty low (few hundred/yr maybe?) That price also goes up every year based on AARP's schedule. It does NOT include dental or vision, those might be in a medicare advantage plan but there are limitations on which doctor you can go to with those, and we travel frequently.
 
@4luv2cdisney you definitely need to figure out what that pension will pay out. Is there not someone you can contact for more info?

I'm not well versed but for medicare there's part a (hospital stuff) part b (non hospital type stuff) and then you can buy supplemental which will cover things like dental, vision, etc. I believe there's also medicare advantage plans which are private companies basically taking over the government's responsibility to provide you part a and b along with some other stuff. I'm pretty sure all of this depends on your income and state.

For your reduction in expenses start taking a look at things, is the company car you're only car? If you have two now do you need two in the future? For phone service there's plenty of low cost options that may suit your needs.

You should also think about how your tax bill will change, there's a decent chance without really knowing your situation that you will have a much lower effective rate. Your standard deduction is 24k for married filing jointly and capital gains is 0% on the first 80k. This means you can have a significant amount of income without having to pay any taxes on it.

What you think of your income now may not be that accurate either. As an example if a couple made 200k gross you might be saving 15% in a 401k (30k) which leaves you with $170k which you'd pay roughly 17% federal taxes (29k) leaving you with a take home of 141k. The thing to remember here is you don't need 200k to maintain that lifestyle, you'd only need a max of take home 141k and if we said if your effective tax rate shrank down to 12% you'd only need 158k. Long story short your income stream may be 21% less than your working income but would give you the same amount of cash to spend on your expenses at the end of the day.

Take this all with a grain of salt and know that each situation is different. There's plenty of info out there and all it takes is time and effort to plan.
DH has medicare parts A & B, also D for drug coverage and a medigap plan. He pays a monthly premium for B, D, and his current medigap through AARP (United healthcare) is about $131 a month (it was $148 when we lived in PA).
Part B has a set fee, might be $144 a month now?
Part D will vary based on your plan, his is less than $20 a month, but covers most of his prescriptions completely.
His AARP plan does not pay for the medicare deductible, which is pretty low (few hundred/yr maybe?) That price also goes up every year based on AARP's schedule. It does NOT include dental or vision, those might be in a medicare advantage plan but there are limitations on which doctor you can go to with those, and we travel frequently.


$131+$144+$20 = $295 for 1 person and there's no dental or vision. Ouch!

So, even if I guesstimate $800 / mo. that sounds like it will be low.

We currently don't pay any medical premiums for very good coverage. We have low deductible, go to whatever doctors and don't need pre-approvals, etc - some things I hear others complain about. I have a feeling this part is going to be quite a struggle! lol

Our retirement savings is also mostly employer paid (about a 20% contribution but nothing comes out of DH's paycheck), so no money coming back into our budget there either.

Our retirement income will be from pension and social security, with a bit from retirement savings (all taxable) filling any gap if necessary.

I'm not sure we could go down to 1 car. DH is always out and about (even if he doesn't have to be) and I wouldn't want to be stuck. So an extra car, insurance and gas..... Ugh.

So, it's kind of looking like our mortgage will be replaced (and then some) with a few items we don't pay for now. We are already planning on using the extra spending money we should have 10 years going into retirement will be spent replacing siding, windows, doors, a new kitchen... basically, we want to make the house like new again and not have any major projects to worry about in retirement.

Still think we are going to be fine, but I want to make the right adjustments to our plans earlier rather than later.
 
$131+$144+$20 = $295 for 1 person and there's no dental or vision. Ouch!

So, even if I guesstimate $800 / mo. that sounds like it will be low.

We currently don't pay any medical premiums for very good coverage. We have low deductible, go to whatever doctors and don't need pre-approvals, etc - some things I hear others complain about. I have a feeling this part is going to be quite a struggle! lol

Our retirement savings is also mostly employer paid (about a 20% contribution but nothing comes out of DH's paycheck), so no money coming back into our budget there either.

Our retirement income will be from pension and social security, with a bit from retirement savings (all taxable) filling any gap if necessary.

I'm not sure we could go down to 1 car. DH is always out and about (even if he doesn't have to be) and I wouldn't want to be stuck. So an extra car, insurance and gas..... Ugh.

So, it's kind of looking like our mortgage will be replaced (and then some) with a few items we don't pay for now. We are already planning on using the extra spending money we should have 10 years going into retirement will be spent replacing siding, windows, doors, a new kitchen... basically, we want to make the house like new again and not have any major projects to worry about in retirement.

Still think we are going to be fine, but I want to make the right adjustments to our plans earlier rather than later.
Yeah, medicare advantage plans are a better deal if you can get one you like in your area. Cheaper and they cover more, just limitations on where you can go. We had an HMO for years with the kids that I really liked, everything was covered. DH's company gives him $125/month toward the supplement which helps a bit.
 
One thing that I wish more considered is that many don't get to choose when they retire. I feel like everyone should have a bare minimum of reaching FI by age 55 to avoid the stress of job hunting near retirement age.
Yes, after DH was laid off, I read somewhere that something like 1/3 of all Americans are "forced out of work" rather than retiring at the time of their choice. How could you be "forced out"? Lay offs, illness, family needs, closing of a business. And, yes, finding a job after 50 is hard.
But I am dying a bit at the cost of a a large sectional for $1500-2500 (Cdn). Most of my couches cost me $300.
If you're really, really sure this is YOUR couch, do it. You use a couch for hours every day. We paid something like that 20 years ago, and ours is just starting to show its age.
DH has a company car, gas card, ipass, phone......all that he can use for personal as well.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying: when my husband was laid off, he lost his laptop and phone. If you're getting such things from your employer, be ready to buy replacements -- and immediately. Those have become needs these days, and they're definitely needs for a job-hunter.
Yeah, medicare advantage plans are a better deal if you can get one you like in your area.
I'm more than a decade away from qualifying, but my mom says the same thing: Advantage is the deal.
 

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