# Baby Boomer Fast Approaching Retirment



## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

I’m a baby boomer fast approaching retirement and the balancing act of saving enough and being able to enjoy those peak earning years. It’s hard to believe how fast the years have gone by. It just seem like yesterday that the wife came home and asked if I’d be willing to move to Europe for a year. Well nearly 20 years we’re still here. I'm retired and she is T minus 8 to retirement!

So this diary, at least for the next year, is about the struggle to balance all this. Here’s an overview.
We just renovated and moved back into one of our rental properties. While we lost the income it was way cheaper than the rent we were paying. The renos and move left a pretty big debt overhang which needs to be paid off.
Pensions. We’re mostly covered but it would be ideal if we paid off our mortgage and ideally the two investment property mortgages. We can pay a max of 3600€ per unit per year. 10 grand a year is a stretch. 

Travel

We’ve been going home (Canada) pretty much every two years since we’ve arrived and we’d really like to travel more here. Big unkown is my wife’s parents health. Her dad isn’t done well. Waiting for the inevitable phone call. Everything is on hold that we see what happens. Seriously debating a 12 day cruise this fall but as mentioned a lot will depend on my father in laws health. Torn between making one more run home and wanted to be there for the funeral. Trips home are seriously expensive and I don’t think we can swing both. 

Budget Overview


We just moved back so I’m still getting a handle on our costs but basically it’s 1/3 fixed everyday spending 1/3 investments 1/3 free. 

Short term debt

The move left us with some short term debt as follows
10,000 Barclay credit
4000 Visa
4000 O/D
2600 Amex - 

I use Amex for cash advances buy something and return it. They give cash rather than charge back to the card. Hugely helped when we ran into an end of the year cash crunch (long story not really relevant. Basicly I’ve gone to cash and making huge payments on the cards, by summer Barclay will be gone and Visa will be half gone. Unless we have to go home I expect everything to be paid off by the end of the year.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

We were able to move back into our own place because my wife worked out a deal that she could work from home as long as she travelled to the office twice a month at her expense. It would be like travelling London to Toronto twice a month for 2 days. Bit too far for a day trip. We (I join her) drive up early Monday and leave late Tuesday but neither of like this so we leave Sunday evening. An extra night in a hotel is worth avoiding the traffic! Even with this extra costs we still save over what we were paying rent in Munich. Plus were back in our own place!!!!

One downside to being an expat is making friends means joining various English speaking meetups around the city. This are always in a restarant which means at least drinks sometime dinner. 

Year overview

6 weeks vacation means we have a lot weeks to fill so big goal is a 12 day cruise in October. The rest of the time will be staycations! Don’t really mind she’s been a road most of her working years so time at home is very nice. We also need to say vacation days for funerals as well.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

*Loyalty Programs*

Loyalty Programs

I belong to 3 different shopping and 1 hotel loyalty program programs

Payback
Deutschlandcard
Swagbucks DE


On the first 3 each “point” is worth 1 cent, my goal is to collect 5000 point and exchange it either for cash or for a good as cash gift certificate. The key here is to pay attention to coupons, if you just collecting 1 cent per € it takes forever. Swagbucks but is good only for online shopping. I happen to discover it just as switched to All You Need Is Fresh for my weekly shopping, I get between 200 and 700 points per weekly shopping and then exchange them for Amazon gift cards (500 points = 5€)

For a minor amount of work a few times a year I get 50€ gift certificates. 

Accor LeClub

We’ve both road warriors (I’m retired so I join her on most trips) so I make the point of collecting points, for every 2000 points = a 40€ certificate. We use this to pay for non business hotels. With a bit of planning we can often cover the full cost of a stay. I also do surveys to earn points but once I reach the next level I’ll call it quits, too much work

Lottery Club: the wife just signed up for a 60 day free lottery membership thingy, who knows we might win some money LOL, as long as we cancel before April 11 it's no cost.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

*End of Month Review*

*End of the Month Review February*

My focus is on YNAB everyday spending as this is the one that I have the most control over. Will touch base on other stuff

Total Everyday budgeted 925€ actual 1462€
•	Groceries - 320€ 
•	Gas budgeted 50€ spent 113€ 
•	Wine: 14€ 
•	Entertainment 150€ spent 206€ 
•	Meds 30€ spent 176€
•	Clothes 100€ spent 84€ (new spring jacket for me)
•	Hair 125€ wife once every 2 months
•	Dog 100€ spent 211€ 
•	Dental spent 181

Fixed costs 850€ per month of which 500€ is the mortgage - whoot 4 more years and this baby is gone
Investments: 1700€ 2 investment mortgages and a private pension. 

Over all the month was higher than planned and hoping this won’t be the norm. Some increases were expected. Gas we live outside of the city so we’re driving more, no question. Getting establish so I think we can cut our entertainment budget back some. The big jump was dental/meds and the dog. Getting old gets expensive, noticed my “med” category has steadily increased. 

Our total spend per month is approx 4800 (including 1800 towards investments), more than covered by our income. Once the car/mortgage/dental loan is paid off this will drop to under 4 grand.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

*Debt Cash Flow*

Main issue is still short term cash flow. Still struggling to get out of the hole the move put us in. To be honest I wasn’t sure exactly why we’re so tight. It’s way cheaper living here than in Munich, even taking into account some extra costs (like driving more). I suspect the reason we simply did too much too fast. In the last 2.5 years we did a trip home, major dental work (15,000€ worth) loads of travelling, another major holiday (3 weeks with family travelling around Italy) and the moment we got back we started packing for the move. 

Moving here is also so ridiculously expensive. Not only the double rent, our tenants moved out early but we had to paint the place before leaving (1500€) The movers cost 4500€ (long story why) plus all the trips to Frankfurt. Bit of bad luck but we planned the move right around Oktoberfest so hotels were insanely expensive. 

Than the renovations, after 10 years of tenants we renovated the whole place. That along with an upgraded kitchen and new appliances and of course had to get a new couch chair set. Yeah I guess considering how much we did it makes sense it would be a stretch. If I get upset by this I like to remind that I screwed up on paying for the teeth (a post for another day) and that the bulk of this *was funded from our savings! It was only in the last little while that I started to rely on credit. *(highlighted as a reminder to me)


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

Loyalty cards. Saved 10€ by booking my hotel direct rather than via a swagbucks link. 

Won 50 cents in a lottery pool I joined, if I want the jackpot 250,000€ than I’ll continue the subscription (currently free) hey one can dream

Amazing how fast spending can add up. Went out for breakfast at Micky Ds, had an ice cream cone and ordered in a salad. 25€ poof. Do that a few times a week and you can blow through 200€ no problem. Will always have to watch our “everyday spending”

Finally got back our rent deposit, nearly 4000€ that along with a Zero Percent Balance Transfer cleaned up our bank accounts. Man it feels good to have that over draft gone!

Attending a Financial Awareness Seminar for exapts. It’s really a marketing event dressed up as a educational evening but hey free coffee and you never know!

Updating my ACBs and noticed that Emmera has double it’s dividend since 2007! On the other hand my high yield dividend ETF cut the dividend a bit. 

Depending on how the housing market goes will probably move back into banks sometime in the next year or so.

Best news of all I just put a nice lump sum payment on our principal residence mortgage. It was a rental property before so never bothered but know that we’re living there highly motivated to get that baby gone. 3 more lump sumpayments plus 4 months and that baby is gone!


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

This won't make sense to anyone but me, random thoughts I'm struggling with. But then that's why one has a diary LOL


How did we survive Munich? 
Over saving/planning for retirement vs under saving/planning
The budget always works out better than planned. 
I'll never but a Mustache 
Lessons learned, gotten way better at life in the last few years.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

Ouch what a spendy month I had. Came in double what I had forecast.

Few things

Dog 400€, budgeted 100, 
House stuff 260€ budgeted 0 - a ton of catch up repairs since moving in
Clothes 235€, budgeted 100. For a change this was me not the wife

Next month expenses are looking more on track but are doing a lot of travelling.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

Mid Month Review

Earned 75€ from rewards points. 

About 300€ in extra spending

Birthday gift 150€
Ihone repair 50€
New shaver 41€

I budgeted 950€ but 1500€ is more realistic


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

Everyday Spending April: 2042.91€
Everyday Spending May: 1452 plus 648 for tires and brakes

Renovations are finally finished and none too soon!!!

Back to using YNAB as it was meant to be, spending categories rather than tracking spending.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

Reached an important milestone today. We finally finished the last of our renos and upgrades. It was an expensive year and half but well worth it as moving dropped our costs by nearly ½ and in 3 years we’ll be mortgage free. No rent no mortgage nice!
So going forward I’ll be tracking 3 things



Total credit card Debt


Money put into Investments


Everyday spending


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

Three weeks into the month and we are at 1458€ spent with a week and half to go.

Few thoughts

300€ of that was spent at hardware store - had some stuff I wanted done had planned on hiring someone but budget concerns meant I had to DIY it. 

Bought 2 iPhone 6 Plus - been waiting forever to upgrade my 5 but it's insane who well they hold their value. Mine has been having problems and then I dropped it and cracked the glass and it wasn't worth fixing. Went online and found one for 364€ which is about 200€ cheaper than I've seen anywhere else. 

Finally got our 2015 tax refund back and it went straight into the bank, overdraft is now paid off and that feels really good. Being careful not to dip back in to overdraft. Been using credit cards instead. 

Looking forward 

Pay July 1st no bills due
Pay August 1st flights to Canada and one iphone and some misc costs. should be able to cover it without dipping into debt.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

Trying to manage rental properties when you want to travel more will be a challenge. Long-term you should probably be looking at liquidating your real estate. OTOH it sounds like your wife is set for another 8 yrs before retiring, while you have time on your hands. So there may be no hurry.

Can't comment meaningfully on your budget, as I have no idea what living expenses are in UK.


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## Lost in Space 2 (Jun 28, 2016)

OhGreatGuru said:


> Trying to manage rental properties when you want to travel more will be a challenge. Long-term you should probably be looking at liquidating your real estate. OTOH it sounds like your wife is set for another 8 yrs before retiring, while you have time on your hands. So there may be no hurry.
> 
> Can't comment meaningfully on your budget, as I have no idea what living expenses are in UK.


It looks like she may be done a bit sooner. The company has announced that they are planning on out sourcing all of IT. The good news is they tend to take care of their employees. Boss told everyone that is over 55 to start looking at options and packages. Thankfully the company is old school and stuff like this takes forever. For her she's looking at a 5 year package - work for 2,5 at a reduced wage and get paid for five. She'd start at 58 and end at 60.5 and the pension would kick in at 63
*
Moving on I have to admit I'm a tad frustrated.* We downsized quite a bit and our costs dropped substantially but it feels like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. While we have finally finished all the upgrades (few minor things left to do) we're visiting Canada in September. The wife's father isn't doing well and she wants to see him once more.

Oh well the law of numbers will eventually kick in. Stick to you YNAB categories and the overdraft will take care of it's self

Edit: just updating YNAB and it feels good to be focusing on the categories rather than the bank account


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