Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We have a basement rancher (main living on street level, rec room, storage and heated/cooled workshop on lower walk out level), 2800 sq feet. We rarely break a $100 electric bill in summer. Last month was only $55 for electric. We have propane for water heating, cooking, and as the back-up to our heat pump (instead of heat strips). Our winter bills can be $100-150. Our annual propane bill is about $600. This isn't a super efficient house by any means, just the standard insulation, dual pane windows, etc. Our rates here are cheap, 10-11 cents per kWH flat rate. We are lucky not to have PG&E tiered rates like we used to in CA. Of course my job for 20 years was as an energy specialist handling residential and commercial accounts, so that might have a little to do with it (wink).
Our neighbor got our electric bill once by mistake and opened it thinking it was theirs. They brought it over and they commented that it must be a mistake on our bill because they pay about $300 in summer. We just shrugged.
In CA, my electricity bill is about $600/mo, natural gas about $100/mo, sewer & water about $200/mo, garbage $100/mo - so utilities about $1000/mo.
Now add in property taxes of $1100/mo - maintenance at least $200/mo - so without mortgage, 2300/mo = 27600/yr - at 4%, need $690,000 to cover, if add in additional to cover income taxes of 31% (22% fed, 9.3% state) gets to $906K to cover house without mortgage - $800K is not enough to cover even house.
BTW, with mortgage $4500/mo - $6800/mo, need a little over $2M to cover, ($2.7M to cover w/ income taxes) - part of the reason why selling this house.
In NV, electricity about $150/mo (have solar), NG $25, sewer & water $50, garbage $75, taxes $350, maint $100, HOA $100 - only need $850/mo, $10.2K/yr - $255,000/yr to cover, about $310K with taxes (22% fed) - just a fraction of CA house.
Forgot insurance - that adds about $250/mo in CA ($100 in NV) - raises the amount to cover $2550/mo; $30,600/yr - $765K to cover; $1M with tax - it is expensive in CA even with a paid off house.
It actually is even easier . If you are still quite always from retirement Just save as much as you can ….it’s simple …
What your bills and expenses were when you had one and possibly two paychecks coming in may have nothing in common with what you end up with and where you can afford to live …..
You can’t control markets , inflation or interest rates ….all you can do is sock away as much as you can .
Once you get close to retirement one can see what they have to work with and back into a lifestyle that fits .
If you can maintain your current lifestyle and location great , if not then we adjust.
Once you know what you have to work with calculators like firecalc or Fidelity’s can be useful for setting spending goal posts based on odds of success , but doing it to early may tell you little of what you need to know
…how are you going to get blood from a stone when the time comes if you can’t hit the pie in the sky numbers you threw in a decade or decades earlier or markets don’t cooperate.
So you really won’t know what you have to work with until you get close to the end of the game
My budget/planning spreadsheet is a living, working document. I updated it every week while I was working, and doing the same in retirement to adjust for the new reality. For example, with the recent inflation surge, my food costs have been adjusted upward. Gas and transportation cost went down below my old conservative estimate because I don't drive anywhere near as much as anticipated.
Everyone is different. I like to have a spreadsheet where I can know with relative certainty what my budget is today and into the future. In the years leading up to retirement seeing these numbers in black and white provided "inspiration" to make sure that I had a solid plan - also this estimate based on a tangible budget and withdrawal rate was comforting rather than simply hoping everything would work out.
This budgeting/planning exercise forces you to really think about your current expenses and how you want to live in retirement. Also this working spreadsheet led me to make better decisions in the last decade or two of my working career. Without this tool I might have been more complacent, with this tool I saw that I needed to increase gross income in order to increase savings rate, and I acted accordingly.
Most people are not going to go out and work a second job if they still don’t know what their expenses will look like decades out .
So it really depends how close to retirement one is , how definite their plans are and how motivated they are to work extra time to save as much as they can .
With inflation especially the wild card few are really going to know where they will stand decades away .especially since the inflation genie is out of the bottle and the fed is comfortable at higher levels going forward.
So no harm doing it but most of us are going to see what we can accumulate doing what we do and then back in to what we have , even if like many of our parents found , they had to move to lower cost areas by default.
very few americans take enough interest in their money to even learn to invest or the basics of it . forget about spreadsheets and acting proactively, that isnt even a pipe dream for most.
i am pretty good with money but i never tracked or had a budget in my life .
no reason to .
in fact even now in retirement all i do is have yearly goal posts we try to stay within and one click in fidelity full view tracks all we spent .
all i want is a total spent ytd ….i dont even care where it went as even if i know it is nothing i wouldnt do again
i have never had a situation in life where tracking the outflow by specific expenditures was needed , even when raising a family . if we did x we knew not to do y if it was discretionary and the non discretionary stuff is what it is.
all i knew was i wanted to invest and save as much as i could but i had little control over what the number would be while raising a family
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-13-2021 at 07:24 AM..
My budget/planning spreadsheet is a living, working document. I updated it every week while I was working, and doing the same in retirement to adjust for the new reality. For example, with the recent inflation surge, my food costs have been adjusted upward. Gas and transportation cost went down below my old conservative estimate because I don't drive anywhere near as much as anticipated.
Everyone is different. I like to have a spreadsheet where I can know with relative certainty what my budget is today and into the future. In the years leading up to retirement seeing these numbers in black and white provided "inspiration" to make sure that I had a solid plan - also this estimate based on a tangible budget and withdrawal rate was comforting rather than simply hoping everything would work out.
This budgeting/planning exercise forces you to really think about your current expenses and how you want to live in retirement. Also this working spreadsheet led me to make better decisions in the last decade or two of my working career. Without this tool I might have been more complacent, with this tool I saw that I needed to increase gross income in order to increase savings rate, and I acted accordingly.
Yeppers!! My 'Retirement' spreadsheet started out as a simple budget with four columns. Then it expanded to 8 columns with each year in a column. Then investments creeped in, then mortgage calculations, then building planning and budgets for new buildings...
It is now 9 pages (tabs) deep. Certain columns and rows contain master variables that update most of the sheets. It took a long time to build, but now I can change or insert one of the master variables, and project a hypothetical impact on all our financial budgets out to age 90. It even covers theoretical SS cuts, and long-term survivor mode. It obviously doesn't contain all known knowns, nor known unknowns, or even unknown unknowns, so isn't counted on for actual expenses. Still, as it is based on a known budget, it has been spot on during the last few years of retirement, and is a great thing to play with to keep ones mind active!
spent 34 years working for the feds, I don't get SS (my wife does along with a state pension) Been retired almost 15 years under old Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS retired at 55). I will never run out of money according to retirement calculators. I'm still saving money (no debt) and I'm still in my 60's. Pensions are wonderful things.
my wife has a pension but it would not extend to me .
it comes in handy and pays our rent every month so we love it like we do ss which appears in our account every month .
i am not a lover of annuities but my wife being a widow once already likes them as part of a plan more than i do , but so far we have not added any .an immediate annuity is like buying into a contributory pension
Yeppers!! My 'Retirement' spreadsheet started out as a simple budget with four columns. Then it expanded to 8 columns with each year in a column. Then investments creeped in, then mortgage calculations, then building planning and budgets for new buildings...
It is now 9 pages (tabs) deep. Certain columns and rows contain master variables that update most of the sheets. It took a long time to build, but now I can change or insert one of the master variables, and project a hypothetical impact on all our financial budgets out to age 90. It even covers theoretical SS cuts, and long-term survivor mode. It obviously doesn't contain all known knowns, nor known unknowns, or even unknown unknowns, so isn't counted on for actual expenses. Still, as it is based on a known budget, it has been spot on during the last few years of retirement, and is a great thing to play with to keep ones mind active!
I love me a good spreadsheet, and THAT sir, is a thing of beauty.
__________________ ____________________________________________
My posts as a Mod will always be in red.
Be sure to review Terms of Service: TOS
And check this out: FAQ
Moderator: Relationships Forum / Hawaii Forum / Dogs / Pets / Current Events
spent 34 years working for the feds, I don't get SS (my wife does along with a state pension) Been retired almost 15 years under old Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS retired at 55). I will never run out of money according to retirement calculators. I'm still saving money (no debt) and I'm still in my 60's. Pensions are wonderful things.
Yeppers!! My 'Retirement' spreadsheet started out as a simple budget with four columns. Then it expanded to 8 columns with each year in a column. Then investments creeped in, then mortgage calculations, then building planning and budgets for new buildings...
It is now 9 pages (tabs) deep. Certain columns and rows contain master variables that update most of the sheets. It took a long time to build, but now I can change or insert one of the master variables, and project a hypothetical impact on all our financial budgets out to age 90. It even covers theoretical SS cuts, and long-term survivor mode. It obviously doesn't contain all known knowns, nor known unknowns, or even unknown unknowns, so isn't counted on for actual expenses. Still, as it is based on a known budget, it has been spot on during the last few years of retirement, and is a great thing to play with to keep ones mind active!
Sounds fantastic!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikala43
I love me a good spreadsheet, and THAT sir, is a thing of beauty.
MichiganGreg, perhaps, with a moderator's help & consent, you'd consider posting a de-populated version of the spreadsheet as a "sticky" here in the Retirement Forum so mere mortals can download it, input their own data, and play with it for their own situations.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
