In early March of this year, I wrote out a budget tracking article. I went through some known costs and evaluated my payroll deductions. The numbers came up more spendy than a good Mustachian budget, but kind of reasonable floating around the $60,000 a year mark. I think several other items have crept into this over the last several months, including just missing a few annual costs that I didn’t remember at the time.

I also want to advocate to everyone that you should probably review your budget at least once a year, which is great timing with your annual IPS rebalance. I’m going to break this down into several charts. Also for my payroll deductions my employer uses a 24-pay-per-year schedule.

Payroll Deductions

Item	Price	Annualized	Due Date
MEDICAL (Family)	$154.54	$3,708.96	1st and 15th
DENTAL EXPENSE	$88.67	$2,128.09	1st and 15th
SHORT TERM DIS	$20.70	$496.80	1st and 15th
LONG TERM DIS	$16.59	$398.16	1st and 15th
HOSPITALIZATION (Long term stay)	$14.69	$352.56	1st and 15th
CRIT ILLNESS	$12.45	$298.80	1st and 15th
ACCIDENT	$11.42	$274.08	1st and 15th
VISION EXP	$10.09	$242.16	1st and 15th
AD&D	$9.02	$216.48	1st and 15th
LIFE	$7.68	$184.32	1st and 15th
Total	$345.85	$8,300.40

I don’t want to throw too much narrative in between charts, but I’m going to assume that in an early retirement scenario the insurance related expenses would remain similar but the to this. That would mean a $8,300.40 cost would continue into retirement.

Essentials – Can be lowered in emergencies

Item	Price	Annualized	Due Date
Groceries	$350.00	$4,200	1st
Natural Gas	$114.05	$1,368.60	29th
Water/Sewer/Trash	$125.15	$1,501.80	10th
Electric	$259.36	$3,112.32	4th
Electric 2nd**	$192.62	$2,311.44	27th
Internet	$70.00	$840.00	20th
Phones (Cricket)	$163.00***	$1,956.00	9th
Home Insurance	$1,348.74	$1,348.74	April 22nd
Car Insurance	$690.00	$1,380	Feb 6th and Aug 6th
Property Taxes	$2,235.02	$2,235.02	March 6th
Car Registration	$240	$240	Aug 15th
Gasoline	$308.33	$3,700.00	All year
Total	$2,016.16*	$24,193.92

I was going to list the $1,000 a month we put aside as a cash budget, but that money goes toward things like pet grooming, eating out, and other items that will probably appear in the rest of the budget so it doesn’t make sense to double-count it. Continuing in a true FIRE state the second electric bill will go away, putting the monthly expense at: $1,823.54 per month, and with the family portions of the phone bill paid, the annual would drop to $21,202.48.

That puts a FIRE budget subtotal at $29,502.88, but the current functional budget without removing anything is at $32,494.32. Not bad so far.

Spendy-Pants Wants Not Needs Items

Item	Price	Annualized	Due Date
Gamestop Pro	$25.00	$25.00	July 16th
Map Genie	$9.99	$9.99	March 19th
USAA Personal Property Insurance	$39.00	$39.00	Jan 5th
World of Warcraft x2	$167.58	$335.16	Jan and July 31st
Pet Grooming	$150.00	$600.00	Quarterly
Pet Food/Litter/Supplies (Dog food 60 days, cat food 90 days)	$75.84	$910	Spread Out
Annual Vet Visits	$200.00	$200.00	Spring
Home IT server Costs	$100	$100	Jan
Good RX Gold	$19.99	$239.88	22nd
Google One (wife)	$2.12	$25.44	12th
Google One (100 GB)	$19.99	$19.99	Apr 24th
Google Play Pass (paid for self with Swagbucks game rewards)	$29.99	$29.99	Mar 11th
Qustodio Parental Controls App	$59.07	$59.07	May 30th
Pandora (Wife)	$6.50	$78.00	unknown
Tucson Features that should be included in the dang car (wife)	$16.67	$200	29th
Car Maintenance Estimate	$250	$3,000	Better to plan
Spotify (family)	$23.53	$282.36	5th
Hulu	$12.83	$153.96	26th
X Verified (for Mini-Thoughts)	$8.00	$96.00	10th
Bluehost Mini-Thoughts	$64.37	$64.37	Jan 19th
Sam’s Club Membership	$37.87	$37.87	Jan 27th
Amazon Prime	$139.00	$139.00	July 24th
COMPTIA Cert Management	$50.00	$50.00	May 1st
Robinhood Gold x2	$100	$100	April 8th
Total		$6,796.23

While working on this article, I had to split out every single credit card charge for the year, dump it into a spread sheet, and organize by transaction type. Based on that, it appears that we also have a decent chunk of travel expenses, home improvement costs, hobbies, eating out, and generic other expenses. A large chunk of these things come out of our $1,000 cash budget, but I think it’s worth noting a generalized expectation of probably $3,000 in “home maintenance” costs, $4,000 a year in eating out, and at least $2,000 in random spending. I’m taking guesses based on what is listed from the last 6 months and then doubling them. I’ll break that out below.

These are expenses we should be able to rein in and control as they are slowing our journey to down, but if I’m going to lay out an entire complete budget plan they seem very relevant to track. Current subtotal: $39,290.55.

Surprising But Likely to Stay Expenses

Item	Price	Annualized	Due Date
$1,000 Cash Budget	$1,000	$12,000	1st
Home Maintenance	$250	$3,000	Unknown
Eating Out	$333.33	$4,000	Should be part of $1,000 budget.
Miscellaneous	$166.66	$2,000	Unknown
Camp Fitch	$1,095*	$4,500	May 1st
Total		$25,500

These jump out budget up to $64,790.55. If we remove the FIRE items like we did after the second table we get: $61,799.11, but if we also remove summer camp, because it won’t last forever, we get $57,299.11. Now, that is pretty close to the $60,000 budget I’ve been working with.

Retirement Contributions and Loans

Item	Monthly	Annualized	Due Date
401k Contribution	$2,041.67	$24,500	1st and 15th
401k Loan Repayment	$1,200	$14,400	1st and 15th
Wife IRA	$625	$7,500	April 14th following year.
My IRA	$625	$7,500	April 14th following year.
Car Loan	$500	$6,000	4th
SoFi Loan	$1,173.78	$14,085.36	8th
Total	$6,165.45	$73,985.36

Since, it is slightly relevant, this level of contribution to retirement accounts does come along with $296.23 per paycheck in 401k match. That will total $7,109.52 in in a year. The IRAs will each receive the 3% Robinhood gold match for $450 total in matches. That means this budget can produce $61,460 in retirement contributions in a year.

Also keep in mind that the SoFi Loan, once the initial $13,500 is paid down, will be lump-sum paid off with the remaining $25,000 that is sitting in the HYSA; so this bill is only included because it is a current, actual expense. This would bring the annual down to $27,883.48.

These numbers give an on-paper budget of $138,775.92. I think I might have a heart attack looking at that. Here’s the real deal though: my kids aren’t going to camp in a job-loss scenario. My kids aren’t going to camp every summer for the rest of my life, because they will eventually grow up and that expense won’t exist. A very large portion of the “wants vs needs” category can cease to exist at any point in time, and $53,900 of this “budget” is actually paying into retirement accounts, or paying myself first. Even if the loans were still a problem, removing the retirement contributions would bring us to: $84,875.91. Removing the loans budget to $64,790.55. That leaves a FIRE budget of $57,299.11 without cutting any of our current “lifestyle”. I guess my $60,000 budget was kinda close, just a few years away instead of accurate to right now.

Since we want to wrap this up with our Intro to Finance lessons, lets use the 4% rule. A $60,000 budget would need $1,500,000 in investments before pension or Social Security. A $85,000 budget would need $2,125,000, and a $140,000 budget would need $3,500,000.

Yeah, that total is much higher than is reasonable for our income. So we’re going to need to cut back on some random spending, or make more money.

~~Miniwing~~
Spendy-pants