A lot has been written on the subject of retirement, specifically, “when can I retire?” Popular rules of thumb are:
- Save 10 times your income by age 67 (Fidelity)
- Save 10% of your income (too many to quote, but here is a nice write up on why it is probably rubbish).
- Multiply annual expenses by 25. (Forbes)
The last one takes the most amount of work, because you actually have to know how much money you spend. It is also probably the most accurate. I made a quick mashup of our expenditures for the last full year (2017). I put essentials on the left and luxuries on the right. Shelter and food are fundamental in my viewpoint, so they get put all the way to the left. I could have split out Groceries and Eating Out to better characterize them as necessity vs luxury, but I was feeling lazy.
Two major expenses that will be dropping off in the next few years will be Childcare and Education/Tuition. The Misc. (pink) category is a catch-all and contains some fat that could be cut out.
Finally, you might notice that I put College Savings all the way to the right, indicating that it is the most cuttable budget item. Let’s be frank. Any parental financial assistance is a bonus. Our goal is to cover all costs after scholarships but if they need to take a loan that’s fine too.