Expense tracking is valuable. We have been using a pencil and paper ledger for over thirty years. However, we never budgeted; we knew where our money was going and what was being saved and invested. Thanks for your time creating this video.
a tax return is still very limited in the information it provides - i.e. how much you spend, but not what you spend it on, seasonality of spending and how that will change in retirement. Only a detailed multi-year analysis of bank statements and credit card statements will provide that.
Yeah, I think that would provide an even more accurate number. In practice, it seems a lot of people are either unwilling to put in the time to collect all that info or unable to (e.g. a closed account they no longer have access to).
@ sadly true. I’m 1-2 years from retirement and just invested the time this year to build a spreadsheet based on 3 years of bank statements and a year of credit card statements. I’m not willing to take the risk of retiring on “I think I spend roughly X”. With everything online now it’s not that hard to do - very different than 20 years ago having to go through paper copies of everything. The biggest benefit of doing this work was identifying all the “one off” expenses that are so easily forgotten a year or two years later.
Expense tracking is valuable. We have been using a pencil and paper ledger for over thirty years. However, we never budgeted; we knew where our money was going and what was being saved and invested. Thanks for your time creating this video.
The 70/20/10 works so well. 70% is needs and wants. 20% is savings and investments. 10% is charitable donation to church
a tax return is still very limited in the information it provides - i.e. how much you spend, but not what you spend it on, seasonality of spending and how that will change in retirement. Only a detailed multi-year analysis of bank statements and credit card statements will provide that.
Yeah, I think that would provide an even more accurate number. In practice, it seems a lot of people are either unwilling to put in the time to collect all that info or unable to (e.g. a closed account they no longer have access to).
@ sadly true. I’m 1-2 years from retirement and just invested the time this year to build a spreadsheet based on 3 years of bank statements and a year of credit card statements. I’m not willing to take the risk of retiring on “I think I spend roughly X”. With everything online now it’s not that hard to do - very different than 20 years ago having to go through paper copies of everything. The biggest benefit of doing this work was identifying all the “one off” expenses that are so easily forgotten a year or two years later.