Living The Semi-Retired Life: Doing The Math On Your Budget, aka Personal Financial Runway

Don’t budget based on how much money you earn.

Budget based on how much money you absolutely need, then go from there.

Because when you budget based on your actual income, you can set yourself up to fail.

Maybe you pull out the pie chart and divvy your monthly income up, allocating XX percent to housing, XX percent to transportation and so on. It’s an easy way to account for all of the money you make in a month before your money AND the month even has a chance to breath.

Maybe you look at how much you make and associate it with status. With what you deserve. Because you worked hard. I’m making $100,000 so I should be driving the car and living in the apartment somebody making six figures should be—deserves to be—driving and living in.

Take these two things together and you have just purchased—at a premium—a seat on the personal financial hamster wheel, otherwise known as the grind.

Today, we pull some numbers from my life to illustrate the concept of personal financial runway, a perspective that beats the heck out of traditional budgeting.

But—real quick—my partner and I are close to booking all of the lodging for February’s trip to Spain and France. In the next few days, I hope to relay the cost of flights and lodging for this month-long trip.

Preview: We’re crushing the game on keeping our costs relatively, if not super low.