
Category: Mini-reitrement
Mini-Retirement Week #1 – You can always get more money, but you cannot get more time
It has been so freeing to be out of my air conditioned office cube where I was supposed to sit for 8+ hours a day and wait for fire drills to arise.
I have constantly been questioning if I made the right decision in giving up stability and security from a steady paycheck for a future that is still unknown. However, as I sit here to type this, with my dog curled up next to me and fresh air coming through my windows, I reassure myself this mini-retirement is what I needed mentally and emotionally to be my best next self.
Lessons and thoughts from week #1:
- I am learning to trust the process and that the unknown about where my next “job” will be is okay
- You can always get more money, but you cannot get more time
- Feeling gratitude for the simplest things – a cup of coffee, sleeping in, walking my dog in the morning, a long lunch in Stillwater, MN (pictured below) with an old friend
I also spent a long week in Northern Minnesota and leave for Ireland tomorrow. I am taking care of my travel bug while I have some time and flexibility.
Follow along as I continue my mini-retirement. In future posts I will write about how I budgeted for this mini retirement (including my travel) and how I managed my expenses through it.
Financing a 3-6 month mini retirement – Step 1
This is great for a quick glance, but I wanted to do the categorization myself. One – to re-review of all my historical transactions and also to make sure they were properly categorized as I would view them. For example, I wanted to separate my “Grocery” expenses (need) from my Restaurant purchase which are more of a want (not necessary). I want to understand my true monthly “survival” expense vs. what is a luxury and could be cut out on a limited budget. The Amex website allowed me to easily do this by downloading the individual transactions for my selected time period into an Excel file.
Results:
My 4 month avg. trend data showed that I am spending approximately $1,500/month excluding my rent. My spend by category is displayed below. The biggest component of my monthly spend is Groceries (~$300/month). This is fine, this is a need. What was alarming to me is how much I am spending per month on Clothes, Entertainment and Restaurants! Approximately $500 when you add them together. To me, this was shocking. I didn’t believe it as first, but this is why I downloaded the individual transaction data. That way I can go back and see which purchases I assigned to the individual categories. This allows me to answer questions like, Is the $200/month in clothes due to multiple individual purchases/items? Or did I make one big purchase (i.e. perhaps a winter coat) that may be skewing the true monthly average?
Also, I can get a high level idea of what an average monthly spend would be should I cut out a lot of my wants. If I cut out Clothes, Entertainment and Restaurants completely, I would be closer to $900K in monthly spend.
Action:
By analyzing my historical spend, I am able to benchmark where my monthly trend has been. This exercise has also allowed me to be more conscious of each and every transaction I make. Ultimately, the goal of this exercise is to understand where I am at, so that I can reduce my monthly expenses go forward. My goal in my monthly reduction will be the subject of a future post as it will correlate to my new monthly savings goal that will allow me to take this 3-6 month retirement.
Follow along to see what my goal is!