At age 59.5, all access restrictions to 401ks and IRAs are removed.
Sometimes people want to retire before then. (Hard to believe, I know.)
But what if most/all of your savings and investments happen to be in a retirement account? Or you prefer to hang on to the investments in your taxable account?
Fortunately there are a few options to tap retirement accounts early and penalty-free.
I have been a staunch defender of YOUR rights to pay the least amount of taxes possible.
The bureaucrats and swamp creatures in DC don’t like it and have taken steps to shut down my free speech.
The IRS has been running a totally ILLEGAL WITCH HUNT and trying to stop this blog, threatening me with HUGE fines and jail time.
But I won’t STOP fighting for YOU!
As highlighted in our recent spending report, we spent a great deal of moola in 2023.
In fact, we spent at a level significantly higher than our income.
Which led many people to ask… how does that work? Where exactly does the money come from?
We have been living off our portfolio since late 2012 (~12 years.)
In that time the market has gone up and down (mostly up.) Our spending has also gone up and down (mostly up.)
Throughout it all the portfolio has remained much the same… heavy on equities, heavy on US based assets, and heavy on simplicity.
Here are some charts that explain it all.
Since I was dissatisfied with our 2023 profligate spending I am going to spend a few minutes each week reviewing our total outlay.
Many people asked what process or tools I used to track expenses.
For many years I used Mint.com, but if you aren’t aware… Mint.com will cease operation on March 23, 2024. Intuit, who bought the website in 2009 and ran it into the ground, recommends moving your data to Credit Karma with reduced functionality – which seems to be all the stuff I hated about mint with none of the stuff I liked. (Screen shots and shade included in post.)
So I am going a different route – This is How I Track Expenses.
