An Unimaginable Loss

We'll start with a couple of different links on the same topic of having enough money or better put, figuring out how much you need to have for whatever your idea of a successful retirement is. One link is from Barron's and the other is from Ben Carlson.

A multiple of salary is not the right metric. A couple making $100,000 has an effective tax rate per Gemini of just under 8%, then less another $7500+/- for the employee share of Social Security puts them at about $85,000. Hopefully they're saving a little bit, call it 10% or $10,000 and their net is $75,000 (a little more than that for the tax not owed on their 401k contributions). 

If this couple planned it out well, maybe their $2000/mo mortgage gets paid off right as they are retiring. At this point they might be down to $51,000 in annual spending. Yes we are making several assumptions here but no one lives off their salary, they live off their net and some expenses will go down like a mortgage getting paid off and once someone has retired, they probably don't need to save for retirement anymore. And yes, some things will go up or otherwise cost more. 

Dialing in expected expenses, adding a buffer in case you underestimate and then doing the math on expected income sources makes far more sense. 

Barron's cited a Schwab survey that concludes we are wealthy at $2.3 million. That number as reported was light on details like whether that includes a home and a few other things. The actual number from some survey doesn't matter, at some point there is a number where you feel comfortable and beyond that maybe a number where you do feel wealthy. 

I'd add another viewpoint to this. I have long thought in terms of the cost of the life that I want to live. How much do we need to do what we want and then feel like we have a margin of comfort and/or safety. In past posts we've used the words resiliency and optionality in this context too. 

If you can afford to do what you enjoy and have some financial resiliency then that is a pretty good equation for freedom. At that point then, adjectives like wealthy become unimportant. 

You may have heard that the historic lodge at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, along with many other buildings, were lost in the Dragon Bravo Fire. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that my wife and I have gone to the North Rim countless times to hike. The South Rim is two hours from our house and is the far busier spot. The North Rim is about six hours away and the peaceful energy there is magical. We were going to go up for a couple of days in early August. We've been at least a dozen times. 

Here's the link to the announcement from the Grand Canyon National Park Facebook page. I'm not going to give an opinion but taking from the inciweb page for the incident, "The fire was initially managed with a confine and contain strategy" and then changed to "being managed with an aggressive full suppression strategy." 

We are beyond heartbroken. 

Cathedral Point a short ways down the North Kaibab Trail.

Early morning view of the canyon and the lodge.

Pretty much take this same picture every time we go.

The front of the lodge. People stay in little cabins though, not the actual lodge.

There's a heard of buffalo nearby. Haven't heard anything about them yet.

The Park Service station house is/was right on the main road driving in. I visited it several times.

I can't believe it.

Catastrophe is not a big enough word for this. 

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