Retirement. Check. What now?

[Mr Nice Guy]

Originally Posted by Bella Blues

100K is nothing by the time you retire, you will need millions.

Thank you for your valuable input

[BuckyBadger]

Originally Posted by jteezie

I'm still contributing at 25% to my roth 401k, so it's not like I am really not saving, but it is sad to see no activity in my other accounts . I feel like I am living paycheck to paycheck. Is this how most people live? No surplus savings after their 401k contributions? It feels so strange; I feel like I am going broke.

I know how you feel. I've posted about it before.

My husband and I are in a very fortunate position. We max out our 401k's and a non-deductible IRA. We are putting aside into savings an additional $1,000 every two weeks. With company matches, we are putting away over $50k a year into tax advantaged accounts and with our additional investments we put away a total of nearly $80k a year for the "future." Our only debt is a mortgage and a HELOC that is getting paid off in June.

The way we think of is is like this: we pay our bills and we pay ourselves first. And we make sure to pay ourselves generously. Everything else is there to be spent. I mean, I suppose you could sacrifice everything in your life and put every penny into trying to retire as soon as humanly possible, but we work hard and if you don't enjoy your life while you're living it, then what's the point? We could sacrifice everything the the world for some hypothetical future and then get hit by a bus or have health problems that prevent us from enjoying our retirement. We enjoy our jobs as much as anyone can, but we need to enjoy the rest of our life, too.

It's a balance. As long as you are putting away enough so that you can retire at a pleasant age and have enough money to do the things you want to do, spend the rest to live your life.

So my point, I suppose, is that once you pay your bills and pay into your accounts for the future, you SHOULD spend the rest of your money. There have been a lot of threads about what "living paycheck to paycheck" means. It feels weird to see the balance of my active checking account get low before payday, but you have to remember to look at those other accounts that are growing. Joining Mint has helped me a lot because it shows your assets and net worth, so even when my "cash" balance seems low I can see all that money working away in my other accounts.

Of course, things change and some day we may have kids to support, but that's just a readjustment of funds, and we'll never get back the benefit of the time that we're utilizing right now.

[jteezie]

Badger:
Thanks for the perspective. I realized there are other "living paycheck to paycheck" threads. After reading some, I decided that I need to continue to change my mindset. Not only will it prevent me for saving for the sake of saving (which is pointless), but I may feel more (or a different kind of) freedom. I'll eventually get over the repulsive feeling from spending "too much".

I've been joking that I'm just trying to find ways to burn money, just short of giving it to people, but I think just trying to change the mindset to one where I want to minimize growth on my checking account is a positive start.

Just checked my 401k and it just keeps going up at a surprising rate. I was actually at 25% contribution (and for some reason I allocated 5% to a pretax account). The continuing growth made me sad. So, I reduced it down to 15% total Roth. Now that the markets are likely to slow down, I feel OK with investing less in the future and I will invest more in enjoying the present. I am proud to report that I am spending money on professional services like life coaches, professional photographs, eating out daily and tipping extremely well, large bar tabs, etc. No plans for big ticket items because that would suck into too much of my assets, but I don't need them.