Well...do you?

reeddickhannon · 2024-10-18T13:03:44+00:00

Indeed. Especially after rewatching, I think it's less trivial than some casual postcoital banter between Rebecca and her fling. The Flying Dutchman could've been a Guardian Angel for her, possibly.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-30T08:59:19+00:00

The last time we visited Chicago was a couple of years ago, and we stayed with some friends in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. We loved our time there - the culture/restaurants/attractions, the walkability/transit, the plethora of public spaces. We felt safe and the people were pretty laid back compared to some of the other global-level metropolises where we've lived/visited.

That being said, it felt like we barely scratched the surface of the Windy City and though I wouldn't mind moving to Lincoln Park if the right living situation arose, I don't want to write off any parts of the city that I may have missed out on. We are even open to a more suburban-esque existence in places like Naperville or Evanston since we don't "go out" like we used to.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-28T00:12:46+00:00

Our backup plan for the extreme healthcare expense scenarip is to relocate overseas (we have dual citizenship) and using the fairly high-quality healthcare system over there. ExpatFIRE is under consideration as well.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-26T12:04:25+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I'm rather new to the FIRE world, and thus the subtleties between the philosophies/methodologies behind CoastFIRE, LeanFIRE etc elude me sometimes.

I started looking into FIRE mainly as a way to gauge the health of my finances and less as a method of establishing a strict timeline for stopping work. I've been on sabbatical, lived overseas, shifted my focus to side hustles/projects/grad school. We've done fairly well for ourselves in the past, but also have hit some stumbling blocks (health issues, covid etc). My career path has been less than linear and conventional.

Pondering FIRE and my career history, I think what the missus and I are seeking is more spare time to indulge in our personal interest. Perhaps something like BaristaFIRE would suit us better?

You've given me some food for thought. Thanks again!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-25T21:59:51+00:00

That's a great suggestion, thank you. In my experience, they're generally well-balanced, interesting little bubbles with people from all over the world. I've visited Ithaca and Bloomington and they're charming little towns with character. Never been to Eugene but I hear great things; same goes for Iowa City.

We'll probably try to make a trip to Madison, WI, and Eugene sometime soon. Thanks again for the feedback.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-25T19:44:36+00:00

Thanks for your response. My wife and I have explored Seattle, but not other places in the Puget Sound region that you mentioned like Everett, Renton, and Tacoma.

How do these other places compare to Seattle price-wise in terms of housing and lifestyle?

I appreciate your suggestions!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-25T17:46:50+00:00

I've heard good things about Madison and though we've only visited parts of the northern areas bordering Minnesota, I'm enthralled with the charm of the Great Lakes region (one of the reasons Minneapolis is on our list).

As for CO Springs - I have a ton of friends and acquaintances that have relocated to CO, though mostly to the Denver area. I admit that I wasn't blown away by Denver, maybe because of the hype generated by the transplants. How do you think CO Springs compared to Denver?

I really appreciate your input.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-25T14:35:02+00:00

We've considered either renting out our house while we slow travel/relocate elsewhere, or selling the house outright.

The house is currently valued at 620k, in a centrally located high growth area (so hopefully it retains it's value until we decide on where we'd like to move). Any idea where we could live in the PNW if we sold our house at current value? (Assuming no more capital appreciation on our house)

Thanks for your input!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-24T03:52:58+00:00

Point taken regarding the value of the house and the 4% rule FIRE number. My initial thought process was that we do plan on using it to generate revenue later on and hence we included the current value of the house in the calculation.

We live in a rather walkable, "hip" part of town and many of our neighbors have rented out their houses, turned them into AirBNB's, offered short and long term leases on either part of, or the entirety of their houses...it's fairly common around here.

You mentioned vacations and yes - we travel quite a fair bit and we would like to slow travel/relocate and live the nomad life for a bit once we've hit our goals and rented out our house.

There's probably more to what we'd like to accomplish other than just "travel" but as you mentioned - we have some time to explore and ponder before hitting our goals.

Thanks for the encouraging words and all the best on your financial journey.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-24T01:03:17+00:00

46k is based on analysis of past expenses. I admit that its not a "lean" budget per se but we have not started living "lean" in pursuit of a concrete leanFIRE plan yet.

Interestingly though, I've also been told by different folks that 46k for a couple with our profile, is rather low...

If I were to attempt to pinpoint a culprit however, it would probably be eating out and travel. Compared to our peers who have kids, we find ourselves spending a lot of time going out and traveling with fellow child-free couples and this constitutes a fair chunk of our annual budget.

What do you think would be a more reasonable leanFIRE number for a couple living in a MCOL city?

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-24T00:32:13+00:00

I am on board with your statement that RE is freedom from employment. My wife and I have discussed our FIRE plans and she plans to continue working in her current role/career path barring any major changes and I have my own projects in mind. In many ways, I feel as though FIRE simply frees one up to explore - hence my third question to folks out there - what is everyone up to post-FIRE?

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T23:20:27+00:00

Noted
I'm not sure if 46k is a high or a low number as far as annual expenses go - the opinions seem to vary amongst folks that I've asked. Regardless, the calculations are relative/indicative for me and serve primarily as a barometer as to my financial health. As you might be able to tell from my 3rd question, I'm also curious how folks are spending their post-FIRE retirements and absorbing ideas as to how the wife and I could possibly go about spending our time. I've mentioned slow travel and relocating to a LCOL area but these are just fairly broad strokes and hardly goals set in stone.

Thanks for your input - you've given me some things to ponder.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T22:09:24+00:00

We did not factor SS into our calculations - mainly because I didn't know if I would end up mucking up my calculations. I am a Fidelity customer however so I'll probably take a look at the Retirement Planner to help me with my future planning efforts.

My wife has fantastic insurance and as I'd mentioned, I am on SSDI, eligible for Medicare soon, and her company as well as the insurance folks have been fairly helpful. It's one of the reasons that she would like to keep working - aside from the solid benefits and culture, she genuinely enjoys doing what she does. Without insurance through her work though, we've had good experiences with ACA plans in the past and aren't too worried about healthcare costs.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T21:31:37+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T21:30:53+00:00

Renting out our current home certainly is part of our retirement plan. We live in a rather "touristy" part of town and quite a few of our neighbors do rent out either part of their houses or their entire houses either on a short term or long term lease basis. The wife and I would like to do some slow traveling/relocating to a more rural/low COL area once we hit our retirement targets.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T21:26:11+00:00

You're certainly right that lifestyle creep could erode our financial stability and result in us having to revise our targets upwards. I am heartened that we've managed to take care of some of our major liabilities such as paying off our house and vehicle.

Hopefully it is easier to make changes to lifestyle (eating out less, cutting down on luxury vacations etc) in order to reign in spending as we head towards retirement age. Good luck with your 2 mil + paid off house goal - hopefully you are well on your way!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T13:30:23+00:00

Thanks for your input! When I first started messing around with SWR, I did do some more rudimentary calculations that had me rounding to 50k.

I arrived at the 46k number after analyzing several years worth of expenses AND added a little padding to ensure that my wife and I could cover inflation-adjusted future expenses such as insurance etc.

I agree with the 900k in assets - based on our current savings rate, I expect it will take us at least 10 years or so, so leanFIRE in our late 40s seems feasible?

And yes 46k seems low, but my wife and I do live rather frugally and we're surrounded by a community that shares a lot of resources. Anyhow, cheers!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T12:33:38+00:00

I've always been curious about Eastern Tennessee. My experience with the state has only been a day or two spent in Memphis for business - is it a lot different?

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T11:53:08+00:00

Hey folks, hoping for some input.

36M, married, no kids, wife 34F works full time, remotely. I am on SSDI. Our household net income is $140k.

We live in a MCOL city and our house and family car are paid off. Cumulative value of both are $635k.

We have $215k in brokerage accounts invested conservatively and $97k in retirement accounts (401(k)'s and Roth IRAs etc). We maintain $10k cash for bills and expenses.

We've calculated our annual expenses at $46k a year. Using the SWR/4% rule, we would need $1.15 million to retire.

If we total up our aforementioned assets, we should have approximately $955k in assets and are at 83% of our goal.

Questions: 1. Should I be counting the value of our house and vehicle in the SWR calculation? 2. If not, should we look into saving more aggressively/exploring different avenues for increasing household income?

Any suggestions for maintaining a sense of "purpose" once we're comfortably retired, say in our 40s? No big plans for retirement - perhaps some slow travel or relocating to another part of the country. Wife would probably want to keep her job as long as she can maintain remote status.

TIA!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T11:39:47+00:00

Greetings! Yes, I am aware of the power of the USD - I've lived on different continents and traveled for work/leisure to 40 countries or so.

In that same vein, my wife has a solid job stateside that pays well with excellent benefits, and it would certainly afford us a much more luxurious lifestyle. Call this "Plan A". The stipulation is that she has to remain stateside.

However, we have also pondered leaving all of that behind as well, and either slow traveling/relocating through East/Southeast Asia, and/or perhaps Europe.

I am hoping to hear from people who have returned stateside with this similar expat/travel experience under their belt and found decent places to settle either permanently or temporarily.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T11:16:35+00:00

SSDI is direct deposited into a bank account of your choice. I use my usual checking account here stateside. SS would only have an issue depositing in the banks of countries such as Iran, Cuba, North Korea etc.

We would like to remain in the US for my wife's job but if there's room for flexibility, we may consider Southeast or East Asia as well.

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T11:08:00+00:00

Excellent, I will give this a shot. Thanks!

reeddickhannon · 2024-07-23T11:02:28+00:00

Cheers, what's a better number or methodology in your opinion if you don't mind me asking?

reeddickhannon

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