I want to retire at 40. Im currently 32. I dont have a good idea of what my post-retirement expenses will be. Any idea on how to begin calculating?

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I downloaded all the transactions going out of my checking account for the past year and categorized them. I use this one account for everything. any expenses that I don't see having during retirement like mortgage payment and kid related activities I removed. I didn't have the ability to decipher kid related expenses for credit card payments but it probably gave me a good but overstated number. this did not include healthcare expenses but pretty much everything else. I think we landed at 130k for the year.

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I use Schwab for my checking and they have the ability to download your transactions it into an Excel

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How much you spend now plus post retirement changes?

likehelpful

Yep. Why would OP assume it would change a lot.
And if it does they should know what they expect to change.

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Would look at how much you spend now. If you expect to be traveling a lot, determine how many trips a year you’d take and use that to determine how much more you need in the travel category. Health care is going to be one of the bigger costs too. Then add in inflation and a little buffer for the unexpected

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Kids, marriage, house vs rent and travel are all big expense changes. Other than that, it’s probably pretty similar to what you spend now.

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What is your plan for health care insurance?

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That’s a big expense which has to be factored in the plan.

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Start by measuring what you spend now, including infrequent expenses, and then adjust for how things will change in retirement (healthcare, taxes, extra spending on leisure, less spending on work). A pretty good estimate still adds a lot of value relative to no estimate.

An extremely big factor in determining your likelihood of retiring at 40 is your saving rate. How much do you earn and spend now? How much portfolio do you have now? Do you have debt or other big financial goals that you have to plan for?

Why 40? Would it ruin things if it were 42 or 45 or 47?

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I spend 25k a month now with 3 mortgages, nanny and daycare. Plan to go down to 15k in retirement with most of that removed and healthcare accounted for in HSA that I’ve been maxing

funny

25x expenses is the basic Calc. Tailor to your needs.

For retiring at 40, particularly, 4% with inflation adjustment for life is not reliable.

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Sorry, need someplace to celebrate and you guys are awesome.

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