Last weekend, I drafted my HELOC application. I had a few questions, so I brought it with me to a bank branch to ask those yesterday, and ended up submitting the application.
I'm on target to have all current non-housing debt paid off in January. That's when I typically take my Required Minimum Distribution from my inherited IRAs for the year and use them to pay down debt. My RMD for next year will be about the amount of the remaining non-mortgage debt as of January--and by January, the mortgage will be down to 20k!
I even managed to do the stair project without taking on any new debt. It cost about $4k total for my half of the stairs plus the new railing. I wish I could figure out how to post pictures to show the before and after. and
. The photos are in my google drive but they don't show up here when I try to link them.
Looking at my goals set earlier, I see that I'm again ahead of things on the debt paydown--January 2026 should be 20k total since I don't anticipate taking on any other debt before then. (The HELOC is just making a line of credit available, not yet drawing on it.). That will cross one of my four pre-retirement goals off.
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I went on another bed and breakfast trip a few weeks ago for my birthday. I went to the same place, and, while it was good, it wasn't as good as the last trip. The weather was hotter and that meant that outdoor activities were more uncomfortable so I did fewer. And I didn't get as much time to sit/think/read as I wanted. Oh well. My take on birthdays has become, "I survived (without getting seriously depressed)." I at least met that goal for the year.
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The past two years, I've been really focused on paying down debt. Since I expect to have that issue under control, my goal for next year is to focus more next year on tracking my spending, which is something I used to do (back in my early days on this blog), but is something I haven't done at all in the past decade, once I had successfully made my career change and landed in a position that paid me more than previously.
I don't spend frivolously, but there are some categories where I don't make a serious decision any more--if I want to buy a book, I usually buy it, or if I want to go out to eat, I do (although I generally go to diners or small ethnic restaurants where my meal cost is under $20 or at the high end $30). And education--I still spend lots on professional education. I get reimbursed for some, but I typically take more than I need to satisfy my continuing professional education requirements, and I won't get reimbursed for taking more than needed, so I spend out of pocket for that. Then this year, I traveled a bit too. And most years (but not the past two) I have pet care expenses.
Anyways, I realize that, as I now have eventual retirement in my sights as a "North Star" goal, I need to become more conscious of my spending habits once again, as well as planning more for what I will do once retired. Current book on the reading list is "You Only Die Once." I have some general ideas about what I want to do, but no specific plans yet. I do hope to see if I can manage to trim my hours at work in another year or two, so that I have time to start making connections and getting involved with activities as a segue into the next chapter.
September 14th, 2025 at 12:29 am 1757806158
The left most column was categories where l expected expenses.
The remaining columns were two columns per month - projected followed by actual expenditure.
Soma categories had a fixed amount every month.
Some had an amount, but it varied by month
Some had quarterly, semi annual, annual amounts.
I projected out the whole year to start.
Then each month I filled in the actual amount, and decided if I needed to increase - or decrease - future months.
I grouped the categories in a way that was logical to me, and using spreadsheet software made it easy to add categories I’d forgotten.
This was different than a budget because I didn’t track against income, or track savings.
I just wanted a picture of where my money was going.
From this, I could figure out what I would cut out in retirement - I stopped having my nails done weekly (which was an absolute luxury)
I continued this for a few years after I retired. This let me see what was different than I planned. I found I ate out more when I wasn’t working, and I chose to cut that back.
The initial set up took some time, but the monthly tracking was pretty easy.
September 14th, 2025 at 01:05 am 1757808324
September 14th, 2025 at 11:05 pm 1757887542
I know before I retired, I determined what I thought my pension should be (there were a couple of alternatives, all based on what the state was going to do with teachers' pensions) so I chose the lower one and my then husband and I worked on how it would be on the lower amount and his pension and Social Security. Since we were already cutting out a lot of luxuries, it wasn't horrible and fortunately when I retired, I got the larger amount for my pension so we were already used to living on the smaller amount.
September 15th, 2025 at 03:08 am 1757902081
Training myself to pay attention again to expenses I've been taking for granted will be what will take effort the next couple of years!
September 15th, 2025 at 04:04 pm 1757948680
September 16th, 2025 at 12:17 am 1757978271
September 20th, 2025 at 12:39 am 1758325184
September 29th, 2025 at 01:25 pm 1759148701
I think your photos have to be saved first in your computer files (or a thumb drive) before you can attach to your post. To save a photo in Google Drive to your computer files, open up the photo (not the thumb nail images) and then right-click, then choose Save As and save the image to your own files.