Financial Independence Budget – My Own Advisor

Financial Independence Budget

Hey Everyone!

For many, many years now via this site we’ve been charting our path to financial independence. 

It’s certainly been a journey…

There have been:

• Capital losses and capital gains.
• Tremendous dividend growth.
• Dividend cuts.
• Stocks to buy; stocks to sell.
• Mortgage debt that was killed. 
• And more to navigate…

And while the financial independence journey including what we do with our workplace careers, our current part-time work and then how we will spend our retirement time is from clear, the requirement to save more for retirement has come to an end. 

We are financially independent after 20 years of saving and investing.

Financial Independence Update

Instead, this post will share our updates to our financial independence budget – what our target spend is. 

Read on to learn more!

Financial Independence Budget

As numerous posts on my site reference, there is no one right way to invest. I really believe that.

I have seen success from being an income-only investor. You can be a total return investor. You can invest in real estate. You can be an entreprenueur – investing in yourself and your business. You can do some or all of these things. 

Passionate readers will know I take more of a hybrid approach to our investing portfolio as part of total return:

1. We own some common stocks that collectively deliver higher dividend income and capital appreciation over time, AND
2. We invest in low-cost Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that primarily deliver growth – for extra global diversification. 

That simple.

We have landed on this approach some 15+ years ago because it aligns with our long-term financial goals and lifestyle choices.

1. I want income from our portfolio to spend as we please re: live off dividends and distributions, and
2. I want long-term growth for longevity risks, to spend more money as we please. 

Our hybrid approach is designed to meet our retirement spending needs. 

Asset Accumulation Remains Relatively Easy

Our path to asset accumulation over the years has been rather easy to explain and follow since I’ve simply learned from others the keys to millionaire success:

1. Save early.
2. Invest often. 
3. Diversify.
4. Stay invested.
5. Get out of debt. 

Boring, I know, but the simple things have worked wonders for us over time. These concepts should work for you as well…

Thanks to saving and investing in my 20s; killing debt, I became a millionaire in my late-30s. Thanks to staying invested, keeping my investing costs low, and keeping my desired mix of stocks and low-cost ETFs as part of our diversified portfolio, we became multi-millionaires in our 40s a decade later. 

While the process of asset accumulation has served us very well now into our early 50s now time to think about asset decumulation. 

Asset decumulation is an important puzzle to unpack since it requires income planning needs + tax smoothing while fighting inflationary and longevity risks I’ve referenced above. 

It involves avoiding these top retirement mistakes among others.

Top 10 Retirement Mistakes

Asset Decumlation Remains Relatively Difficult

Asset decumulation work is a different beast than asset accumulation because without employment or a steady paycheck, you are relying on your portfolio for income to navigate an unknown future. 

I’ve hinted at what our financial independence budget might be on this site from time-to-time. 

I’ll come back to this point but here is some guidance for you if you continue to be on your financial asset accumulation journey.

How much do you need to save for any comfortable retirement?

According to Fidelity many years ago, to be on track for a healthy retirement:

• You should have x1 your annual salary saved up for retirement by age 30.
• You should have x3 your annual salary saved up for retirement by age 40.
• You should have x6 your annual salary saved up for retirement by age 50.
• You should have x8 your annual salary saved up for retirement by age 60.
• You should have x10 your annual salary saved up for retirement by age 67.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to Fidelity. We’re ahead of any milestones above. 🙂

Do you need $1 million or $1.5 million or more to retire with financial independence?

You know my answer for you: “It depends”.

Generally speaking, I believe there are four (4) ways to achieve financial independence in the first place:

1. Consistent Savings Rate

The most common approach is also the most realistic approach – establish and maintain a high savings rate for retirement saving. This is a get wealthy eventually strategy. 

This has been our path for the most part. 

2. Extreme Frugality

Although consistent savings and investing for retirement (over a long period of time) can allow you to reach your goals, extreme frugality is also an option. Extreme frugality involves cutting every expense possible, often making significant sacrifices or inconveniences in order to minimize expenses. This has absolutely not been our path!

We’ve been frugal at times, but not extremely frugal. 

3. Entrepreneurship

Business ownership is also a great path to FI given many business owners can eventually sell the business for a large sum of money. Some successful businesses could be worth millions. Many people who are pursuing financial independence are effectively entrepreneurs – they simply run their business(es) after retiring from any traditional work. Business ownership mind you if not for everyone.

In some ways, this site has been a small entrepreneurial endeavour but hardly a get-wealthy pursuit – more of a labour of love. 

4. Geo-arbitrage

The last option IMO is geographic arbitrage. Geoarbitrage involves moving to a place with a lower cost of living while keeping the same level of income or near income. You could move and travel abroad, for less, instead of living in North America for example. You could work on your own terms. This could be in the form of self-employment. That said, geoarbitrage is not for everyone as it may require some significant changes.

I cannot see us doing this at all…

Determining your financial independence (FI) number

Ratehub had a good post on any FI number for retirement and was quoted using this rule of thumb:

“According to many estimates, you’ll want to have 70-80% of your pre-retirement income for each year of your retirement.”

Here are some other retirement rules of thumb.

Retirement Numbers and Rules

Do you need $1 million or $1.5 million or more to retire with financial independence?

I can’t tell you unless you tell me 1. what you want to spend and 2. when you want to spend it.

Welcome to your free retirement income planning playbook.

Your Free Playbook to Retirement Income Planning

In that post, I suggest you take a good look at your spending needs and wants and consider a variable withdrawal method for these reasons.

1. Being variable with your spending over time adapts your withdrawals to market/portfolio returns so effectively you don’t drawdown your portfolio too quickly or too slowly – it uses a variable, and an increasing percentage to determine withdrawals so effectively you don’t hoard your money “until the end”.
2. This is one of the best approaches to increase spending in “good years” and decrease spending in “bad years” therefore giving investors psychological ease.

Here is how you can use the VPW method including a link to a FREE calculator to use below:

Our Financial Independence Budget

Ultimately, I believe you need to understand where you are to determine where you want to be. This means getting a great handle on your current expenses as well as any planned expenses (in retirement), along with hedging the “what ifs” in life by keeping some cash as buffer for any plans that go awry.

Readers have asked me, what’s your financial independence budget?

Well, we have one. 

Including “the basics” for spending on things like food, shelter and clothing and some other spending I believe our total annual retirement spending needs will be in the range of $70,000 to $75,000 per year after-tax increasing year-over-year with inflation. In that spending assumption, we’ve included a 10% higher spending buffer just in case. A margin for error if you will. 

We might test this assumption as early as 2026 if we are fully retired. 

As part of our retirement income planning assumptions we use the following that might be helpful to you as well:

• 5% annualized rate of return i.e., average over the coming decades from RRSPs/RRIFs, TFSAs and Non-Registered Accounts. We use this more conservative value just in case long-term returns are not as good as what we have been getting. You can see below what you might get from various markets with thanks to FP Canada. If we earn more, we spend more. That simple. 
• 3% sustained inflation. I believe in higher inflationary costs over time given demographic shifts. 
• MAX 50% CPP at age 65 (given we might retire earlier than most).
• MAX OAS at age 65 given OAS is a residency formula. 
• I plan on taking my small defined benefit pension plan at age 65. 
• “Go-go” spending years until age 80. 

Returns – Source FP Canada Standards.

We review our projections every 3-6 months these days and industry best practice would be to do this at least annually.

From my projections work at Cashflows & Portfolios below. 

(I can help you out too here at a 10% discount – just contact me via this link!)

Image: from low-cost Cashflows & Portfolios projections work. 

Given what we have invested to date we have confirmed that saving for retirement is now over…

via GIPHY

….but we will probably save money here and there for near-term spending throughout the year. 

While our projections showed us we could have retired at the end of 2024, we continue to work as we transition to retirement in the coming year or so. That transition might last one year, less or more – we simply don’t know. I continue to enjoy my part-time role at work so I will continue to do just that if they will have me. My wife continues to enjoy her role at work too.

Our retirement income planning projections work has demonstrated that our portfolio is now projected to deliver the desired $75,000 per year income needs starting in 2026, with 10% higher spending buffer, until age 95.

In the coming years, I will refresh this post to share some spending actuals vs. initial estimates and see how far off we might be. Real life could be very a different reality than living in some spreadsheet! 🙂

I look forward to keeping you updated on our financial budget now posted – in more detail. I look forward to learning from you what you planned to spend or what your current spending needs are in retirement too.

Thanks for reading and engaging.  

Mark

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How We Invest