Withdrawal calculator

[Nick87]

That’s the beauty of it. After a few months you’ll know very close what they will be. And, you aren’t limited to what your budget is in those categories. Maybe your vehicle fuel bill is high one month because you drove out west to hunt. You can move money from another category to cover it. The point is that you shouldn’t be spending more than you make in a month, on average.

I’m sure it’s not for everyone, but for us, it was a game-changer. Financial stress has all but disappeared. We are contributing to retirement like never before. Paying CC on the day we get the statement, not the due date. And, we spend more, guilt free, on family vacations and fun stuff because we can look at the category and see that we have money dedicated to it.

I'll take another look at the app. We do the same just on paper. We've never really had a credit card balance but we do use them for a lot of things like gas and online shopping. But now we pay them weekly to help track things easier. That helps a lot too.

 

[Robg2]

Regarding tracking spending, I pulled out my hair trying to track everything, but some people might find that detail useful. What I settled on was just looking at my bank account final "debits" (total money going out each month) and then parsing things out that weren't actual expenses like money I transferred to a brokerage account, which will be spent later.

The one thing I track is vacation expenses since they are discretionary and large, especially if you like casting to bonefish. Other people might want to break down other discretionary spending, but food, gas, and utilities are what they are so I keep them as a lump.

 

[Nick87]

That’s the beauty of it. After a few months you’ll know very close what they will be. And, you aren’t limited to what your budget is in those categories. Maybe your vehicle fuel bill is high one month because you drove out west to hunt. You can move money from another category to cover it. The point is that you shouldn’t be spending more than you make in a month, on average.

I’m sure it’s not for everyone, but for us, it was a game-changer. Financial stress has all but disappeared. We are contributing to retirement like never before. Paying CC on the day we get the statement, not the due date. And, we spend more, guilt free, on family vacations and fun stuff because we can look at the category and see that we have money dedicated to it.

Moving it form one spot to another makes sense. We allocated all of our monthly expenditures and then give ourselves a weekly allowance that is to be used for whatever but other than father's mothers day, birthdays etc anytime we eat out it comes out of our weekly allowance. We started with 5% of our weekly net pay. I dave money wwy more when its cash in my pocket. Very hard for me to jamd it over to someone that way. When I initially told my wife the amount I wanted weekly she went nuts. I said its still a hell of a lot cheaper than not having a set amount I'm sure of that. If you dont do something similar it's awfully easy for money to dissolve. We used to set a certain percentage into savings every week and then invest or do home projects from there. That worked really well. But now our plan is to only put x amount into our checking for bills and the rest goes into a seperate account. And weeks I dont work we still pay ourselves out of there so it's like were on a much smaller salary than I'm actually making. Now that my work isn't as weather dependent as it used to be its a lot easier to do it that way.

 

[44hunter45]

Who is planning for Long Term Care as a retirement expense? It used to be in our benefit package, but the company discontinued new enrollments.

 

[NoWiser]

Moving it form one spot to another makes sense. We allocated all of our monthly expenditures and then give ourselves a weekly allowance that is to be used for whatever but other than father's mothers day, birthdays etc anytime we eat out it comes out of our weekly allowance. We started with 5% of our weekly net pay. I dave money wwy more when its cash in my pocket. Very hard for me to jamd it over to someone that way. When I initially told my wife the amount I wanted weekly she went nuts. I said its still a hell of a lot cheaper than not having a set amount I'm sure of that. If you dont do something similar it's awfully easy for money to dissolve. We used to set a certain percentage into savings every week and then invest or do home projects from there. That worked really well. But now our plan is to only put x amount into our checking for bills and the rest goes into a seperate account. And weeks I dont work we still pay ourselves out of there so it's like were on a much smaller salary than I'm actually making. Now that my work isn't as weather dependent as it used to be its a lot easier to do it that way.

We live based on 4 paychecks per month between us. Money gets put to mortgage, groceries, and childcare first and then allocated to categories based on importance. She has horses so she gets what it takes to keep them alive. I get slightly less to a dedicated hunting/fishing account. Then we both get a modest allowance. We also fund two ROTHs with it to the tune of almost $1,200/mth. A vacation fund also gets filled each month. Four times a year we end up with 5 paychecks per month between us. This is when we build on our emergency fund and have some flexibility to treat ourselves. All of this is in addition to 403b, 457b, and pension contributions taken out of our checks.

If we were disciplined enough to review our finances weekly, like you, we wouldn’t need YNAB. But, it would never get done, so this works for us. It’s been exactly a year we’ve had it now. Our lifestyle hasn’t changed one bit. If anything, we spend more on family fun. But we somehow have way more money. I have no idea what it got wasted on before, but it obviously went somewhere senseless.

It has really allowed me to take a deep dive into what we’ll need in retirement. I used to think we were doomed to work until 65+. If the market produces 5% (inflation adjusted) returns over the next 15 years, we are done with full time work at 57 and fully retired at 60, assuming no unexpected health issues.

 

[El Jason]

Who is planning for Long Term Care as a retirement expense? It used to be in our benefit package, but the company discontinued new enrollments.

We are

 

[Nick87]

We live based on 4 paychecks per month between us. Money gets put to mortgage, groceries, and childcare first and then allocated to categories based on importance. She has horses so she gets what it takes to keep them alive. I get slightly less to a dedicated hunting/fishing account. Then we both get a modest allowance. We also fund two ROTHs with it to the tune of almost $1,200/mth. A vacation fund also gets filled each month. Four times a year we end up with 5 paychecks per month between us. This is when we build on our emergency fund and have some flexibility to treat ourselves. All of this is in addition to 403b, 457b, and pension contributions taken out of our checks.

If we were disciplined enough to review our finances weekly, like you, we wouldn’t need YNAB. But, it would never get done, so this works for us. It’s been exactly a year we’ve had it now. Our lifestyle hasn’t changed one bit. If anything, we spend more on family fun. But we somehow have way more money. I have no idea what it got wasted on before, but it obviously went somewhere senseless.

It has really allowed me to take a deep dive into what we’ll need in retirement. I used to think we were doomed to work until 65+. If the market produces 5% (inflation adjusted) returns over the next 15 years, we are done with full time work at 57 and fully retired at 60, assuming no unexpected health issues.

You and i are in very similar situations as far as age and retirement goals etc. I may pm you and bounce a couple things off of you.