How Much is Enough?

 I bought this fabric collection way back when...on clearance of course! I had no idea what I would do with the fabric, I just wanted it and the price was right.

 I've been itching to play with something girly lately, this fabric certainly fits the bill. After a good long search of quilt patterns on hand I decided to give "Roads" by Kari Nichols a try.

 She is coming along nicely so far. The pattern calls for 12 coordinating fabrics, I only had 5 from this line but it's looking just fine to  me.

I need to take quilts and projects outside to get good photo's. Just too lazy most of the time. The colors look off!

Before I get into our retirement plans, hopes, or whatever you want to call it I wanted to share this link from the Social Security office that might better explain the tax liability for some folks receiving SS. We fall in the 85% tax rate since we will be taking more than the $44,000.00 limit. Sorry yesterdays post was sooo confusing!!

What this means for us is we will pay tax on 85% of our SS at our Federal tax rate which is for now 28%, down the road once we are at retirement level the rate should drop to 23%. Of course we can't count on those rates staying the same as DC has a way of finding more confusing snecky ways to tax us all.

There are so many EXPERT opinions on how much is enough to retire on that it makes my head spin. There are dozens if not more free on line retirement calculators that do the same. Books in every size shape and color. What's a gal to do?

Save, save, then save some more. We have always put in the 6% of hubby's income that his company matches dollar for dollar even in the LEAN times in our 401K. That's a start. There were years when the kiddo's were younger that we could stash a little more cash in the account, other times we could hardly come up with the 6%. High school and college years were a real stretch with three girls needing/wanting activities, sports, dances, proms, cars, auto insurance, clothes.....you know the deal. n addition we wanted our girls to start out their adult life with no debt. Putting three through higher education debt free was not feasible in a one income family so Nanny went to work in the big corporate world. It was well worth the sacrifice in that we were able to continue to save for retirement and our girls had what we believe was a good start to their adult lives DEBT FREE.

Fast forward to youngest DD graduation. Hubby wanted one thing and one thing only. That was a Harley Davidson after all those years of sacrifice. I wanted one thing and one thing only. To kick our retirement savings into high gear. We did both. Seems there is always a saver and spender in a marriage, I don't need to tell you who the saver is!! Ha

For the past 9 years we have saved the maximum in our 401K account, once we hit the catch up age of 50 we took advantage of that as well.

I tell you all of this because I know this blog has a whole lot of young Mom's who are also stay at home Mommy's. We stay at home Moms tend to worry more about our families financial future I think. Maybe it's because the WORLD tells us we are not of value since we don't bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan but I am here to tell you YOU can have it all. It just takes more time, planning, and of course coupons don't hurt!

Where we are now as far as retirement

  70%     of currant salary at 62

    5%      withdrawals each year from retirement account

7.29%     growth of retirement on average each year (we are in very conservative investments)

HSA        Fully funded each year

     3         more years of contributions to retirement account

Still have a mortgage on our home

Where we would like to be

80%    of currant salary

4%      withdrawals each year from retirement

6%     or more in retirement growth

HSA   Funded enough to cover cost of Medicare gap

Paid in FULL home!

 For us this will be enough. It has to be as I don't feel we can do much more. I have to stop getting bogged down with numbers. I have to remind myself while reading and studying what the experts say, we are each our own experts where our families and lifestyles are concerned. I have to remember to "Let GO and Let God"