Practice Makes Perfect – Living on Retirement-level Income

In April of this year, we started an experiment.   We are attempting to live, day to day, on Paul’s income.  My income is being used to pay off debt on the rentals, which will improve our cash flow position in our actual retirement.  And so far, I’ve really made no sacrifices.  The expense budget has always included some fun money, so we’re still doing the things we enjoy doing. 

The idea is that if we need to dip into my income for any reason, we will track that and add it to our financial data.  I expect this to happen as we begin to identify big ticket – and not so big ticket – items that we’ll want to buy before we retire. 
To be fair, we still need to account for the health insurance expenses that are now coming out of my paychecks before taxes – so they’re easy to forget.  We will need to pay for those with our retirement income once I really retire.  Next week – back to the budget.