Full budget series
October or November will be the last FIRE budget month for a while. Soon we will be pausing FIRE while I go back to work.
You could argue even this October budget isn’t a true FIRE budget given JC’s substitute teaching money. It does provide different ways to look at the budget.
- Withdrawal rate needed without JC’s income: 4.16%
- Withdrawal rate needed with JC’s income: 3.59%
Income
Total: $5,154.57
- 4% withdrawal: $4,511.08
- JC’s earnings: $643.49
Expenses
Total: $4,693.38 Withdrawal Rate: 4.16%
| Grocery Store | $1,134.56 | This ran $207.56 higher than normal because of my camping groceries. |
| Uncategorized | $500.00 | Sinking fund |
| Discretionary | $500.00 | Sinking fund |
| House Escrow | $450.39 | Property taxes $3,428.62/yr Insurance $1,976/yr |
| Auto/Umbrella Escrow | $288.46 | $2,335/yr auto ins, $677/yr umbrella, $350/yr registration, $99.50/yr AAA. |
| Health/Dental Ins. Premium | $253.78 | $165.78 health, $79 dental, $9 vision |
| Water/HOA | $228.47 | |
| Clothes | $200.00 | Sinking fund |
| Taxes including Roth Conversion | $134.33 | Sinking fund $6,012 total taxes, minus $4,400 child tax credit |
| Gifts | $120.00 | Sinking fund |
| Car Replacement | $115.55 | Invested sinking fund Allows for a $20K inflation-adjusted purchase every 10 years. |
| Natural Gas | $29.09 | |
| Electric | $130.16 | |
| Life Insurance | $99.81 | |
| Phone (Google Fi) | $103.09 | |
| Internet | $60.00 | |
| Gym Fund | $54.16 | Sinking fund – Peloton + Rec Center |
| Giving | $114.23 | |
| Gas | $107.26 | |
| SimpliSafe | $32.99 | |
| Amazon Prime | $12.17 | Sinking fund |
| Monarch | $8.34 | Sinking fund |
| Cloud Storage | $2.99 | |
| Virtual mailbox | $13.55 |
Analysis
In our fourth month back at home, the budget is revealing a reassuring pattern. It’s plain to see that FIRE is working in practice month after month, especially when you consider that we could also cut our spending if necessary.
Even without JC’s income we were at a respectable 4.16% withdrawal rate. With her income we only needed 3.59%. We still withdrew our usual 4% and put the $461.19 difference into our uncategorized fund.
Our financial stability is important to me as I go back to work. Normally that stability and freedom is what allows people to avoid working. I’m hoping to use it in a different way, as mental peace in my return to work.
Every time I have started a job before this, I needed the money. Maybe I didn’t need it that month, or in the next year, but I did need the money long term. I will be starting this job without EVER needing the money.
It will take some retraining of my brain, but I believe I can leverage our financial situation to change my mindset about work. I owe it to twenty-year-old me, fighting his way into the tech world with no experience and no money, to go into this final phase of my career with a bold mindset.
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