Go Curry Cracker

After 8 full years of early retirement we have spent over $650k (roughly $82k/year.) Using our exact blog income and expenses these past 8 years and a solid approximation of our asset allocation, cFIREsim spit out the following chart that shows the portfolio value growing in most cases: Overall we had only a 1 in 10 chance for less money today and a 1 in 3 chance for a double or more. Our original “plan on a 4% withdrawal rate” was to live our desired lifestyle in Seattle (white picket fence and a BBQ, couple of rug rats, a minivan for those rainy days, anniversary dinners at Canlis, regular international travel, etc…) etc… where our desired lifestyle cost a fraction of Seattle prices, earned a nice income in our spare time via blogging, did a little tax optimization, and moved a bunch of bond money into stocks when COVID collapsed the stock market.

These checks will be distributed asap based on your 2019 or 2020 tax returns – because of the income requirements, we don’t qualify based on our 2019 tax return The following chart shows how we can model additional income as a tax, with a marginal tax rate of ~15% for income between 150% and 400% FPL. Maximizing the Child Tax Credit (even without earned income) With 2 kids, age 6 and <1 year we will get $6,600 in Child tax credit in 2021, up from the expected $4,000. Key provisions include direct checks to households, expansion of the Child Tax Credit, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, expansion and improvements to the Affordable Care Act, expansion of the Child and Dependent Care Credit, and more.

20 years or so ago when we first started planning early retirement, we had this idea that we would increase our cost of living over time if the stock market allowed. This is about 10% higher than last year, in part due to moving into a larger apartment at Christmas time 2019 and the remainder because of a ~5% decline in USD purchasing power (the core numbers in the table above are just bumped up 5%.) Jr starts public elementary school in the fall which reduces school costs to ~$0, and kid #2 probably won’t be born again until his mid-life crisis. 1-time” expenses, the up-front cost of joining a country club ($8k) and a large tax bill due to harvesting massive capital gains ($10k.)

The Award Travel Series – a whole bunch of great travel hacking help and inspiration If you can’t or won’t travel, travel hacking isn’t the most exciting topic. know how much new credit we got this year as I wasn’t really paying attention, but we did save some $ on purchases With things starting to return towards normal, we’ll also continue the Award Travel Series with fun things like how to get a free trip to Hawaii, etc… Hawaii is always a nice way to unwind.