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Living in Florida, I can tell you your utilities are too low. And you have no money dedicated towards medical and eventually prescriptions. Also continual maintenance of your mobile home and insurance. I would advise working at least part time until that car is paid off. Just 15 hours a week at $10 hr. should do it. Or try and get a full time job when you move and pay that car off.
I agree. That car payment is way high, with over 4 years to go. Sounds like a pricey car. It's an unbalanced % of the expense budget.
I live in a neighborhood for decades and now many of us are retired. From my observations and the people I have known,, people do what they do in retirement similar what they did when they were working. I do think that many just maintain the habits and lifestyle of what they like and what they have been doing their whole lives. I have know relatives and friends, who now in retirement, have more money and also have less expensive of no children and no mortgage but they are as frugal in spending as they were when they were struggling.
If people did not drink, they are not going to start drinking.
If people did not eat out too much and enjoyed most of meals at home, it does not necessarily mean that they are going to starting eating out so much more in retirement.
If people did not pay that much attention to music and entertainment, then in retirement they are not going to spend their time and money on these activities.
If when they were working and they did not enjoy traveling, retirement does not mean, even they have more time, that travel will become a big part of their lives.
If they had hobbies, then those hobbies will continue through retirement. I do not see many, again even with more time, start a new interest.
Retirement does not mean for many that it is big change in their lives and activities, it just means that they are not getting up to go to a job. Of course, there are others who see freedom of retirement as a reason to pursue more and new activities but that is not everyone. As I said, there is very large group that just keeps their lives as they are.
So, for many people, they do not need so much in retirement to spend on the grand adventure of latter life, as they have and will be living the same life. It is the people who live the more costly lifestyle who need to maintain that level of living and if they can, I am happy for them but if they cannot, it will be a sad retirement in disappointment.
Livecontent
I agree to a certain extent, though there are some exceptions. People with ample funds when they retire may actually travel more than before as they have the time and funds. Or they may play more golf than when they were working. But ChuteTheMall's budget is not that kind of budget and was lacking some important items (like taxes) and the other things I mentioned. He talks about his gas expense and going out, but if he has no budget for going out - what's he going to do?
If he gets together with other folks for a meal. Is he going to just sit there and drink water? What about going to a movie once in a while, or joining some kind of club or buying someone a Birthday gift or Christmas gift. You need some funds for these things. His budget is tight, and what I pointed out is that if your going to be living on $2,000 a month, he will need to lose the $500 car payment real fast.
He can cut his mobile phone budget by $60, and get either a $40 unlimited plan, or better yet. Buy a Ooma phone ($4.50 a mo. for tax) and buy a cheap dumb phone and use a pre-paid plan like the T-Mobile 1000 minutes for $100. Since he has a phone at home, the mobile is just a fill in for when your out and about and lasts lots of folks a year. He should forgo Cable TV, and invest in an OTA antenna, a Roku device, and a $7.99 Netflix subscription. That extra money he saves from doing those things will pay for his utilities, which he under estimated.
Don't know what he is able to live on now, so can't say if it is going to be a downward adjustment or not.
If he is used to living on less and is successful at it now, then all the better. But I don't think he fits into this category or he wouldn't have a $500 mo . car payment. Just a guess of course.
If you can keep your 401K withdrawals as planned, there should be zero income tax owed. It seems to me that you should plan on having at least six months of emergency savings set aside in order to avoid having to take an unexpected lump sum withdrawal from your 401K. Not only could your timing be bad in terms of the market, but a lump sum withdrawal could result in unnecessary income taxes. Run your numbers again and keep in mind that your social security benefits will not be taxed and you will be entitled to $10,150 (2014 Stnd Deduction & personal exemption) tax free.
Medical insurance? You're either going to need to sign up for it or eventually pay a penalty. Plan on biting the bullet and opting for a plan with the lowest premiums and subsidy. (I only suggest the lowest cost plan since it's better than having NO plan.)
The car? I would sell it and buy something less expensive. But, if you don't want to - then sure, I'd try to pay it off before retirement.
If they had hobbies, then those hobbies will continue through retirement. I do not see many, again even with more time, start a new interest.
Livecontent
Ha. A friend of mine, who has made his living writing his whole life, says it really bothers him when people say they want to start writing or write a book when retired. He says, "Maybe when I retire I'll take up brain surgery."
Ha. A friend of mine, who has made his living writing his whole life, says it really bothers him when people say they want to start writing or write a book when retired. He says, "Maybe when I retire I'll take up brain surgery."
Again just semantics. I am not saying that when one retires they all of a sudden start new hobbies (though they might) But that they have more time and freedom to do the ones they have previously been limited in doing due to work. When your a golfer and you work, you may only be able to play once a week if your lucky. When your retired, if you have the funds, you may play golf 3 times a week (very common for some)
When your working, the longest vacation you could generally take is two weeks. When you retire, you could vacation for 3 months and see multiple countries.
Most retirees must adjust their spending down during retirement. Others are fortunate enough to adjust it up.
Another poster just intimated that nothing was allocated for entertainment of any kind. Which means in his case, at least $50 might be in order, so he could buy at least maybe two inexpensive meals out and a movie ticket (or whatever interests him) once a month. That's not suggesting he take up new hobbies. Just getting together with friends might require you spend a few bucks. The poster has not responded, so we may be preaching to the choir anyway.
Last edited by modhatter; 02-22-2014 at 12:49 PM..
Ha. A friend of mine, who has made his living writing his whole life, says it really bothers him when people say they want to start writing or write a book when retired. He says, "Maybe when I retire I'll take up brain surgery."
Quote:
Originally Posted by modhatter
Again just semantics. I am not saying that when one retires they all of a sudden start new hobbies (though they might) But that they have more time and freedom to do the ones they have previously been limited in doing due to work. When your a golfer and you work, you may only be able to play once a week if your lucky. When your retired, if you have the funds, you may play golf 3 times a week (very common for some).
While I can sympathize with Brightdoglover's friend, who as a professional writer resents the idea that just anyone can become a writer at will, I also agree with Modhatter that there is nothing wrong (and a lot right) about people who want to engage in writing as a hobby.
I do think it's irritating when people pass themselves off as a "writer" in a misleading way; that is, making it appear they are a professional writer when they are a hobbyist writer. And yes, I admit the boundaries are rather fluid.
Well, $30,000 per year equals $2,500 a month. Given your parameters of a paid off house, one car, and a low cost of living area, I believe that is very doable. .
Me, too.
I spend about 25K per year. Granted, I have good health care benefits at work, but I also pay almost 1K per month in rent for a studio apartment in the SF Bay Area (and that is cheap for this area...no joke).
While I can sympathize with Brightdoglover's friend, who as a professional writer resents the idea that just anyone can become a writer at will, I also agree with Modhatter that there is nothing wrong (and a lot right) about people who want to engage in writing as a hobby.
I do think it's irritating when people pass themselves off as a "writer" in a misleading way; that is, making it appear they are a professional writer when they are a hobbyist writer. And yes, I admit the boundaries are rather fluid.
Yes to that. And people will find out soon enough what their level of involvement/talent/effort a new pursuit or increased pursuit of an activity is. As they say in psychology, "Process, not product." When I was 30, I studied the saxophone and played in a student band. I was never going to be anything but mediocre and had no intention of (as so many people asked) "Doing something with it."I wanted to do it to the extent that I did, never thought of being a professional player or any such.
On the other hand, I recently bought two oil paintings online from a woman who is retiring as a hairdresser and devoting more time and energy to her "hobby" of painting abstracts of horses. They are wonderful and I'm sure will get more showings and more accomplishment with her time and energy freed up in retirement. I think such pursuits run a full spectrum of enjoyment in the process and so-called professional accomplishment.
I have a female cousin who tells people she is a writer although she has never published anything. I know this cousin well enough to know that she is being pretentious in an effort to boost her fragile ego. Over a year ago (if I recall correctly) I started a thread in the Writing Forum out of curiosity to get people's reactions. I made the mistake (?) of calling my cousin a loser, but that was just a remark in passing and not the main point of my original post. I gather that lots of posters in the Writing Forum are also wanna-be writers because, boy, did I did hammered big time! Especially about calling my cousin a loser, which to me was beside the point. They wanted to make it into a thread about the relationship of Escort Rider and his cousin, but lots of them said anybody who writes is a writer, period. (I disagree with that, of course).
Just to clarify, I have nothing against wanna-be writers, or "aspiring writers" would be a more positive spin. It's great to aspire to something! And yes, I am aware of examples of writers who had dozens of rejections before finally getting very successful works published. One of those was John Kennedy Toole, author of "A Confederacy of Dunces", a marvelous comic novel that I enjoyed greatly and admired.
But my cousin just burns my ass with her pretentiousness. I think we should admit if we are aspiring writers, or hobbyist writers and not try to pretend we are professional writers by implication.
The footnote to my thread in the Writing Forum is kind of interesting. Frustrated by people's focus on
condemning the criticizing of a family member in public, I started a thread in the Non-Romantic Relationships Forum entitled "Basic Attitudes Towards Family" about whether it should be considered taboo to criticize a family member to outsiders. Wow! For some people it sure is taboo and I got hammered all over again, but at least the hammering was on-topic that time.
Oh dear! Fragile egos are the source of so much drama!
Not to belabor the "who's a writer and who's not" debate, some clarification (b/c I'm tired of this subject! but also b/c it is possible for retirees who can write to moonlight).
There are many kinds of writers. With a master's in journalism, I was a newspaper reporter (i.e., writer) and editor; a magazine feature writer and editor at a state department; and a publications specialist at a women's college, all of which involved a great deal of professional writing.
For the nonprofits I worked for, even when at the management level I was a writer of all kinds of materials including press releases, print and web text, handbook text, etc. I edited medical textbooks and academic textbooks (though I didn't write these, to edit them you have to know writing and standard editing styles inside and out). As a literary writer, I've had my work published in some of the most reputable literary journals in the country (not abundantly, but still, these are darned hard to get your work into). I've also had a snippet of my writing read on NPR.
I am not a novelist or a memoirist or a technical writer, but I do consider myself a writer and even more an editor. Though my quick posts here on CD are loosely written and without consistent thought regarding grammar, I have taught college-level editing and contributed to a handbook on that subject. I have passed editing tests with flying colors.
Point is, one doesn't have to be published by Houghton Mifflin to be a "writer." The digital desktop revolution in the 1980s (with word processing giving digital access to "common" people), many individuals discovered that they could indeed write and write well. Many of us were able to earn a living at writing and editing whereas previously on typewriters it was a daunting task. Many who never considered themselves writers began taking classes and rose up the ladder in various genres.
I have a list of classic books (today there are thousands) originally self-published by virtual "unknowns" (self-published because they were rejected repeatedly by publishing houses) that went on to be published by the big houses and were on best-seller lists.
Yes there are a lot of hobbyists who do amateur poetry and awkwardly try to write their memoirs. They might better say "I write" rather than "I am a writer." However, there's even a market for writing by less accomplished individuals. Magazines (esp women's) will often take personal account stories, pay their authors, and edit the to-be-published pieces heavily in-house. Anthologies of personal essays by amateurs, often expertly edited, appear on the market from time to time.
Those who are retiring may have a "recessive" writing gene and may want to try their hand at writing. Why not? Study the market (get the book Writers' Market), take some classes or workshops, and see where it leads. It may wind up being a nonlucrative hobby or...a way to make a little extra money. Especially if what you're writing is related to your field. A family member of mine, a retired professional, now writes monthly columns on topics in his field for a national magazine. I'd say he's a writer, even though he denies it.
(that's my final word )
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Thoughts on being a "writer"
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