Shaz's journal
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:54 pm
I’m starting a journal to keep track of progress, keep myself accountable as I set goals, and also think through various things such as a withdrawal strategy for when I retire. I have found others’ journals to be tremendously helpful and hope to provide the same to someone else.
November 2021 Update
Financial Overview
Mortgage - PITI 41% of total expenses
Groceries 14.5%
Personal Care 7.5%
Gas 7.3%
Gifts 5.9%
Horses 5.4%
Utilities 4.8%
Cats 3.4%
Communications 3.2%
Vehicles 3%
Eating Out 2.3%
Debts = $107k remaining on the mortgage
Savings rate = 39.9%*
*Note that this does not include pre-tax savings. DH and I both max out our 401(k)s. Neither one of us is in a high-paying field but we have been at it for enough years that we do have considerably more income than the average American household.
SWR = unknown. I don’t bother to try to track this as a single number because the impact of healthcare/health insurance is too much of an unknown right now. If DH and I were both to retire today, we have between 18 years (worst case estimate) to 35 years (best case estimate without reducing any of our current expenses) of expenses in liquid assets. I think that we would be fine either way because we are in our early 50’s and it isn’t all that many years before Medicare and then Social Security will kick in so I mostly view SWR as a non-issue. If we get roped into supporting family members this will change and I will start tracking it closely. This may sound selfish but I am not inclined to provide financial support to family members, even elderly ones, who either spend their money in what I think are ridiculous ways (cruises, multiple trips to stay in a hotel someplace warm during the winter, cable bill = 10% of monthly income, mortgage = 75% of monthly income, eating out for every single meal, getting a new credit card any time one maxes out, buying a new $40k thing because it is easier than reading the owner's manual for the old $40k thing, etc.) or just refuse to work while having no assets and mooch off of family for financial support for things like rent, groceries, and cigarettes.
Expenses Narrative
Mortgage—This is the same every month. I also am making additional payments on the principal (which I don’t include in this category) and intend to have the mortgage paid off by the end of 2023 (earliest contemplated retirement date). I will do some of it as a lump sum at the end so each month I put some extra on the mortgage payment and some in an investment account that I plan to use for the lump sum payment. I’m aware of the arguments in favor of keeping the mortgage and using the money to invest instead, but I think making a push to pay off the mortgage for retirement makes sense for 2 reasons. 1) This is a financial goal DH understands and supports. In the past, if there was “extra” money in accounts he could access, he felt free to spend the money. Since we set the goal to pay off the mortgage, all I have to do is remind him “that’s mortgage money” and he doesn’t spend it. Paying off the mortgage will drop our monthly expenses by approx. 30%. 2) We are getting close to our retirement date so I want to decrease our need for realized income as much as possible. There is a good chance that our best option for health insurance will be through the ACA marketplace in which case we will want maximum subsidies. DH is a state employee and will be collecting a pension once he retires so there is a limit to how low we can keep our income, and also we may end up getting our insurance through the pension program, but I want to keep our options open.
Groceries—There is a lot of room for improvement in this area. I prepare almost all of our food from scratch but I don’t use bulk foods or legumes as much as I should. I do use rice, oats, and quinoa pretty heavily. I have not had success at finding a local source for bulk staples. There are some ethnic markets I need to check out. One of them is on my way to and from the office so there really is no excuse for not having checked it out already.
Personal care—This was very high in November. I take advantage of holiday sales to stock up on a year’s worth of most of my personal care items (lotion, sunblock, shampoo, conditioner, soap). Sunblock accounts for more than half of my personal care spending through the year because I live at 7,000 feet above sea level and spend a lot of time outside. I do cover up with a broad-brimmed hat, wild rag, long sleeves, and long pants as much as possible but that is too uncomfortable for some sports.
Gas—November was a pretty typical month for gas, although the percentage of total spending was lower than usual due to personal care and gifts being unusually high. I work from home 3 days per week and DH works from home 1 day per week. We commute together on the 2 days I go to the office.
Gifts—I have been trying to get all the family on board with minimal obligatory holiday gifting but some gifting has to take place or cause lots of drama and hurt feelings.
Horses—This is typically one of my highest expense areas and also drives some other expenses such as the mortgage because the house comes with a barn and 5 acres of land for the horses. Even the basics such as hay and vet care add up. I will go into more details on the horse situation in later journal entries in hopes others have suggestions about how I can reduce the expenses and environmental impact of horsekeeping.
Utilities—This includes electric and trash service. We are on a well for water, have a septic system, and most of our heat comes from a woodstove + passive solar design.
Cats—Cats are another very non-frugal area for me. I have 5 of them; expenses most months are food and litter but some months expenses are very high due to vet bills. The oldest is 16 and the youngest is 11 and expenses can be expected to rise dramatically as they age. The oldest already needs special kidney-care food that costs 2 – 3x as much as regular food.
Communications—This is the cost for a landline that is the only option for internet at our house.
Vehicles—We have a car for most usage and a pickup truck that we use almost exclusively for hauling hay or towing the horse trailer.
Eating out—We ate out 2x in November. This is typical.
Healthcare/health insurance—My financials don’t include health insurance or healthcare expenses. I have a high-deductible health insurance plan and a HSA through my employer. My employer contributes an amount equal to the entire deductible into my HSA. I don’t bother trying to break out these costs right now because it will all change so much once I have to make my own arrangements for health insurance. I was being treated for cancer over the past year which did cost me about $10,000 out-of-pocket over and above my employer’s contributions. The total that my insurance company paid out was roughly $250k. It would have been extremely stressful if I had to pay all of that out of my pocket so I have come away with a greater appreciation for health insurance. Previously I had very low medical expenses (annual checkup and screenings and no medical issues) and did not appreciate how complicated health insurance and healthcare expenses can be. One big reason for me to stay employed for now is that having health insurance through my employer makes things MUCH simpler. I include this note in case someone else reading this journal is thinking about healthcare/health insurance options or is curious about the impact of serious illness.
Other Areas for Improvement
Health and Fitness—This should be a big area of focus and improvement over the next year. I was being treated for cancer starting in November 2020. Chemo and radiation left me feeble. Resuming a more rigorous fitness program, improving my health in general, and also resolving or lessening various side effects of treatment are goals for the coming months. I’m not sure yet what I want to track on a monthly basis. In November I got back into the gym for the first time since July for a total of 7 sessions. I expect to make it to the gym 2x per week most weeks. Over the summer I SUP’d or rode my bicycle 3 days per week; that won’t be happening during the winter. I do ride horses 1 – 2 times per week year round, and walk most days that I don’t do more strenuous exercise. I also want to lose some weight. Much to my surprise, I actually gained weight while doing chemo because of all the steroids I was given to combat nausea, plus I wasn’t strength training (hello muscle loss!) and many days the only foods I could keep down were simple carbs.
ERE projects—
1. First attempt at insulating a water tank for the horses. Keeping water for the horses thawed during the winter is one of my biggest sources of electricity usage. 5-gallon insulated water buckets are readily available but they don’t serve my need well because each horse drinks approximately 15 gallons of water per day. I can’t always refill a 5-gallon bucket often enough to ensure the horses have a constant supply of water. Also during very cold weather the insulated 5-gallon buckets tend to lead to a lot of water waste because they freeze and the ice has to be dumped out multiple times a day. I attempted to make a large insulated tank by putting a 35-gallon barrel inside a larger barrel and using foam insulation between the two. We will see how well it works. One area of difficulty will be getting the inner barrel out to scrub and empty it.
2. Finished spreading the year’s worth of composted horse manure on the pasture. This is a process that takes place through the entire spring, summer, and fall and is always a bit of a rush to finish before it freezes or gets buried under snow.
3. Had the first go at trimming my short hair myself. It is growing in from bald and figuring out how to do that gracefully is a challenge. Also the hair has decided to grow in curly instead of straight so now I need to figure out what to do with curly hair. I used to cut it myself when it was long and straight but that was much easier than fighting with the short curly hair. I watched YouTube videos to learn the basics of how to shape it up while it grows out, and then did a bit of trimming using the horse clippers.
4. My SIL has agreed we won’t exchange gifts for the holidays this year. This is a significant win because traditionally she has insisted that everyone has to exchange large piles of gift-wrapped items that none of the recipients actually want or need. I’m not sure yet if she will adhere to this agreement. I presented the idea to her as a way for us all to have more money available to help out my MIL who is in a bad situation financially. As mentioned above, I am not thrilled about helping out because the troubles are of my MIL’s own making plus she hasn’t actually stopped many of the behaviors that led to the problem so “helping” just seems like “throwing money into a bottomless hole” to me. But I do think it is better than buying and wrapping a lot of worthless crap. If nothing else, it minimizes the gift wrap waste. So we will give a sizable gift card to MIL as the only gift exchanged on that side of the family.
5. Built social capital and also cleared some space in my pantry by giving 3 unopened bottles of vodka to a friend.
6. Rebuilt some bad steps at my back entrance using salvaged wood donated by a neighbor.
Goals for Next Month
* Put some cash into i bonds.
* Close a stray savings account and move the money remaining in it into DH's Roth IRA.
* Go to the gym at least 8 times.
* Get my squat up to 50% bw.
* Check out the ethnic market on the way to/from the office.
November 2021 Update
Financial Overview
Mortgage - PITI 41% of total expenses
Groceries 14.5%
Personal Care 7.5%
Gas 7.3%
Gifts 5.9%
Horses 5.4%
Utilities 4.8%
Cats 3.4%
Communications 3.2%
Vehicles 3%
Eating Out 2.3%
Debts = $107k remaining on the mortgage
Savings rate = 39.9%*
*Note that this does not include pre-tax savings. DH and I both max out our 401(k)s. Neither one of us is in a high-paying field but we have been at it for enough years that we do have considerably more income than the average American household.
SWR = unknown. I don’t bother to try to track this as a single number because the impact of healthcare/health insurance is too much of an unknown right now. If DH and I were both to retire today, we have between 18 years (worst case estimate) to 35 years (best case estimate without reducing any of our current expenses) of expenses in liquid assets. I think that we would be fine either way because we are in our early 50’s and it isn’t all that many years before Medicare and then Social Security will kick in so I mostly view SWR as a non-issue. If we get roped into supporting family members this will change and I will start tracking it closely. This may sound selfish but I am not inclined to provide financial support to family members, even elderly ones, who either spend their money in what I think are ridiculous ways (cruises, multiple trips to stay in a hotel someplace warm during the winter, cable bill = 10% of monthly income, mortgage = 75% of monthly income, eating out for every single meal, getting a new credit card any time one maxes out, buying a new $40k thing because it is easier than reading the owner's manual for the old $40k thing, etc.) or just refuse to work while having no assets and mooch off of family for financial support for things like rent, groceries, and cigarettes.
Expenses Narrative
Mortgage—This is the same every month. I also am making additional payments on the principal (which I don’t include in this category) and intend to have the mortgage paid off by the end of 2023 (earliest contemplated retirement date). I will do some of it as a lump sum at the end so each month I put some extra on the mortgage payment and some in an investment account that I plan to use for the lump sum payment. I’m aware of the arguments in favor of keeping the mortgage and using the money to invest instead, but I think making a push to pay off the mortgage for retirement makes sense for 2 reasons. 1) This is a financial goal DH understands and supports. In the past, if there was “extra” money in accounts he could access, he felt free to spend the money. Since we set the goal to pay off the mortgage, all I have to do is remind him “that’s mortgage money” and he doesn’t spend it. Paying off the mortgage will drop our monthly expenses by approx. 30%. 2) We are getting close to our retirement date so I want to decrease our need for realized income as much as possible. There is a good chance that our best option for health insurance will be through the ACA marketplace in which case we will want maximum subsidies. DH is a state employee and will be collecting a pension once he retires so there is a limit to how low we can keep our income, and also we may end up getting our insurance through the pension program, but I want to keep our options open.
Groceries—There is a lot of room for improvement in this area. I prepare almost all of our food from scratch but I don’t use bulk foods or legumes as much as I should. I do use rice, oats, and quinoa pretty heavily. I have not had success at finding a local source for bulk staples. There are some ethnic markets I need to check out. One of them is on my way to and from the office so there really is no excuse for not having checked it out already.
Personal care—This was very high in November. I take advantage of holiday sales to stock up on a year’s worth of most of my personal care items (lotion, sunblock, shampoo, conditioner, soap). Sunblock accounts for more than half of my personal care spending through the year because I live at 7,000 feet above sea level and spend a lot of time outside. I do cover up with a broad-brimmed hat, wild rag, long sleeves, and long pants as much as possible but that is too uncomfortable for some sports.
Gas—November was a pretty typical month for gas, although the percentage of total spending was lower than usual due to personal care and gifts being unusually high. I work from home 3 days per week and DH works from home 1 day per week. We commute together on the 2 days I go to the office.
Gifts—I have been trying to get all the family on board with minimal obligatory holiday gifting but some gifting has to take place or cause lots of drama and hurt feelings.
Horses—This is typically one of my highest expense areas and also drives some other expenses such as the mortgage because the house comes with a barn and 5 acres of land for the horses. Even the basics such as hay and vet care add up. I will go into more details on the horse situation in later journal entries in hopes others have suggestions about how I can reduce the expenses and environmental impact of horsekeeping.
Utilities—This includes electric and trash service. We are on a well for water, have a septic system, and most of our heat comes from a woodstove + passive solar design.
Cats—Cats are another very non-frugal area for me. I have 5 of them; expenses most months are food and litter but some months expenses are very high due to vet bills. The oldest is 16 and the youngest is 11 and expenses can be expected to rise dramatically as they age. The oldest already needs special kidney-care food that costs 2 – 3x as much as regular food.
Communications—This is the cost for a landline that is the only option for internet at our house.
Vehicles—We have a car for most usage and a pickup truck that we use almost exclusively for hauling hay or towing the horse trailer.
Eating out—We ate out 2x in November. This is typical.
Healthcare/health insurance—My financials don’t include health insurance or healthcare expenses. I have a high-deductible health insurance plan and a HSA through my employer. My employer contributes an amount equal to the entire deductible into my HSA. I don’t bother trying to break out these costs right now because it will all change so much once I have to make my own arrangements for health insurance. I was being treated for cancer over the past year which did cost me about $10,000 out-of-pocket over and above my employer’s contributions. The total that my insurance company paid out was roughly $250k. It would have been extremely stressful if I had to pay all of that out of my pocket so I have come away with a greater appreciation for health insurance. Previously I had very low medical expenses (annual checkup and screenings and no medical issues) and did not appreciate how complicated health insurance and healthcare expenses can be. One big reason for me to stay employed for now is that having health insurance through my employer makes things MUCH simpler. I include this note in case someone else reading this journal is thinking about healthcare/health insurance options or is curious about the impact of serious illness.
Other Areas for Improvement
Health and Fitness—This should be a big area of focus and improvement over the next year. I was being treated for cancer starting in November 2020. Chemo and radiation left me feeble. Resuming a more rigorous fitness program, improving my health in general, and also resolving or lessening various side effects of treatment are goals for the coming months. I’m not sure yet what I want to track on a monthly basis. In November I got back into the gym for the first time since July for a total of 7 sessions. I expect to make it to the gym 2x per week most weeks. Over the summer I SUP’d or rode my bicycle 3 days per week; that won’t be happening during the winter. I do ride horses 1 – 2 times per week year round, and walk most days that I don’t do more strenuous exercise. I also want to lose some weight. Much to my surprise, I actually gained weight while doing chemo because of all the steroids I was given to combat nausea, plus I wasn’t strength training (hello muscle loss!) and many days the only foods I could keep down were simple carbs.
ERE projects—
1. First attempt at insulating a water tank for the horses. Keeping water for the horses thawed during the winter is one of my biggest sources of electricity usage. 5-gallon insulated water buckets are readily available but they don’t serve my need well because each horse drinks approximately 15 gallons of water per day. I can’t always refill a 5-gallon bucket often enough to ensure the horses have a constant supply of water. Also during very cold weather the insulated 5-gallon buckets tend to lead to a lot of water waste because they freeze and the ice has to be dumped out multiple times a day. I attempted to make a large insulated tank by putting a 35-gallon barrel inside a larger barrel and using foam insulation between the two. We will see how well it works. One area of difficulty will be getting the inner barrel out to scrub and empty it.
2. Finished spreading the year’s worth of composted horse manure on the pasture. This is a process that takes place through the entire spring, summer, and fall and is always a bit of a rush to finish before it freezes or gets buried under snow.
3. Had the first go at trimming my short hair myself. It is growing in from bald and figuring out how to do that gracefully is a challenge. Also the hair has decided to grow in curly instead of straight so now I need to figure out what to do with curly hair. I used to cut it myself when it was long and straight but that was much easier than fighting with the short curly hair. I watched YouTube videos to learn the basics of how to shape it up while it grows out, and then did a bit of trimming using the horse clippers.
4. My SIL has agreed we won’t exchange gifts for the holidays this year. This is a significant win because traditionally she has insisted that everyone has to exchange large piles of gift-wrapped items that none of the recipients actually want or need. I’m not sure yet if she will adhere to this agreement. I presented the idea to her as a way for us all to have more money available to help out my MIL who is in a bad situation financially. As mentioned above, I am not thrilled about helping out because the troubles are of my MIL’s own making plus she hasn’t actually stopped many of the behaviors that led to the problem so “helping” just seems like “throwing money into a bottomless hole” to me. But I do think it is better than buying and wrapping a lot of worthless crap. If nothing else, it minimizes the gift wrap waste. So we will give a sizable gift card to MIL as the only gift exchanged on that side of the family.
5. Built social capital and also cleared some space in my pantry by giving 3 unopened bottles of vodka to a friend.
6. Rebuilt some bad steps at my back entrance using salvaged wood donated by a neighbor.
Goals for Next Month
* Put some cash into i bonds.
* Close a stray savings account and move the money remaining in it into DH's Roth IRA.
* Go to the gym at least 8 times.
* Get my squat up to 50% bw.
* Check out the ethnic market on the way to/from the office.