2 minutes ago, Prubangboy said:

We’ve done this one before. Yeah, I have too much to spend as a result of early caution. Like the other guy, my amount rises every month no matter what I do.

Stuff that turned out not to be great to spend money on

Expensive watches, I could never pull the trigger. There’s just too many of them pretending that I’m Indiana Jones. I need a chronometer.

I just retired this year, and i'm working out my spending percentage. Switching from spending to saving is different feeling. Like you, I'm trying to spend without being dumb about it.

One great thing I did was go to eat at Gaggan.

Gaggan is the greatest chef in the world, or at least in the top five according to every survey. He cooks things with an Indian inclination.

If you eat at his restaurant which costs $660 a person, he sits at your table and ask you your early food memories about strawberries. Before bringing out some rare strawberries from a meadow in Italy.Later on, he leads the entire restaurant in a sing-along of hey Jude.

21 perfect little bites with accompanying wine.Tip included.

Warning: Gaggan it’s only there half the time at best. Otherwise, you just get the food. It was the greatest meal of my life. With someone I loved.

But very few high-end experiences are unique at that level. Going to Yuni Sushi on Soi 11 get you about 85% there for a fifth of the money.

Particularly if Yuni is behind the sushi bar. A lot of of the good sushi places in Thonglor buy from Yuni.

Same with travel. Antarctica was good, not great. It’s diminishing returns on the uptick of an upscale hotel room in Hanoi.

You have to let go of the concept of things being worth an X amount and just accept what you get. You might get only warm, not hot tempura at a Ritz Carlton. It’s just a very Buddhist lesson about life and the limits of pleasure.

Steamed salmon with some seaweed with my girlfriend, watching the second installment in the Fifty Shades of Grey saga would be an experience that I would pay $10000for. But I can’t buy it, I can only live it and create it in my life.

Use your money to be forgiving of others, and also use it to forgive yourself. Providing pleasure and reducing insecurity for people you love is the maximum healthy happiness that you can have.

at 03:14 in it talks about the "Floor & Flex" plan which seems to becoming a popular alternative to the 4% rule...

03:14 – Step 3: The Floor + Flex + Finish Line Retirement Framework

20 hours ago, Caldera said:

Whole books have been written

20 hours ago, Caldera said:

you're trying to do something novel

I got it.

This is probably a separate topic.

So it's established that many of us reached a "certain age" with net worth that surprisingly keeps getting bigger and it's hard to switch hard enough into SPENDING mode to turn things around.

Which means that many of us were TOO FRUGAL earlier in our retirement years than we had to be. I know I was.

The earlier part of retirement is generally the HEALTHIER part of it where you do have much of your younger appetites so more good reasons to spend.

To wait until a later phase of retirement, in general the LESS healthy phase, to spend adequately will turn out to be a major mistake of life.

Unfortunately you won't know that happened until you get past the healthier retirement phase.

It goes without saying that health care costs will go up though.

Yes these are generalities, but my general point remains the same, and yes to the people just here to be snipers, of course this is NOT a new concept. DUH.

Some people have already started to do this here but I think there is cause (sooner or later) for a totally separate topic just for fun to list and suggest creative (but not totally crazy) specific ways to spend for those who are trying to get more into the SPENDING phase.

As said before4 and totally NOT ORIGINAL, it can be very hard for many people to totally switch their money priorities that they've practiced for decades.

Money is not only about numbers. Arguably it's even more about psychology.

On 2/13/2026 at 7:40 AM, Jingthing said:

That's where planning gets complicated or maybe impossible.

The tired old four percent withdrawal rate plus later inflation adjustment for a "safe" 30 year retirement is total garbage for such people.

I will leave my daughter a good nest egg and a (small) house. This would be a much, much better start than I had, so she has the choice to work with it responsibly (or not).

What is left beyond that I will spend, for myself: I saved it up from my work, so it is mine to spend. If it is all spent, I will have to live... cheaper. Likely if there is anything leftover from this upon my death, my Thai extended family will get it.

I am not sure where the complication you speak of should come from. If you already have to worry about the fact, if 4% might be enough or not, then the smallest mishap or accident will torpedo your plan anyway. I have worried so much in my life about details, this will not be one of them (and I will come to Thailand with the vision of a quite frugal lifestyle -- one I had in-country for 15 years previously -- so the reason I will not worry is not that I will be loaded).

1 minute ago, jts-khorat said:

I will leave my daughter a good nest egg and a (small) house. This would be a much, much better start than I had, so she has the choice to work with it responsibly (or not).

What is left beyond that I will spend, for myself: I saved it up from my work, so it is mine to spend. If it is all spent, I will have to live... cheaper. Likely if there is anything leftover from this upon my death, my Thai extended family will get it.

I am not sure where the complication you speak of should come from. If you already have to worry about the fact, if 4% might be enough or not, then the smallest mishap or accident will torpedo your plan anyway. I have worried so much in my life about details, this will not be one of them (and I will come to Thailand with the vision of a quite frugal lifestyle -- one I had in-country for 15 years previously -- so the reason I will not worry is not that I will be loaded).

Well you're planning to leave a legacy which is different than the focus of the topic.

The complication which I see as perhaps unknowable is when you mix the goals of spending down quite low WITH the risk of needing to repatriate.

The reason for that I will repeat again, is that the lower levels that you might plan to spend down to based on expected life span will logically need to be BIGGER if you end up repatriating.

Many expats say they will never repatriate but I reckon that all over the world there are expats repatriating every day to higher cost countries who said NEVER.

I just don't know how to factor in that risk. If you think never (zero percent risk) and you end up doing it anyway (100 percent risk), you could end up back up in f-ranglandia in a most unfortunate situation.

All I can think of as a compromise is to figure what the bottom (zeroish) level would be if not repatriating and at least doubling it to account for repatriation risk. Just a guess really. Hardly a science.

Example if you start with a million USD.

Zeroish end game goal if not repatriating -- 100K

Compromise end game goal to account for repatriation risk -- 200K

If someone has a better way to calculate this, pipe in.

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

The reason for that I will repeat again, is that the lower levels that you might plan to spend down to based on expected life span will logically need to be BIGGER if you end up repatriating.

I'm putting together a spreadsheet that follows the Floor, Flex, Final methodology which I plan on updating each year to factor in a return to the UK in a moving 5 year time frame (I chose 7 years in the example below as that's when I'll recieve UK State Pension so easier to give an example of what the numbers might look like)...

E.g. This year it might look like (NB numbers aren't real they're just to make the maths easier)...

• Age 60 till my 67th Birthday (7 Years) Base Needs £2,000 pm (Covered by my Private Pension), Discretionary spends £2,000 pm (1/2 covered from rental income) = £1,000 x 7 years = £84,000 needed in "Pot A".

• Forced to return to the UK at 67 & need an extra £1,000 pm on top of my "Base Needs" up to my 75 birthday (9 years) BUT get the state pension which covers this so again I need an extra £1,000 pm x 9 years = £108,000 pm in "Pot B"...

• 75-85 I find myself needing less discretionary spends, say it halves to £1,000 pm so that's all covered by Pensions & rental income = 0 in "Pot C"

• 85-90 I find myself needing to go fulltime into Care so let's say thats £8,000 pm all-in = £4,000 pm needed x 5 years = £240,000

Total pot needed = £84,000 + £108,000 + £240,000 = need a pot size of £432,000, this ignores Inflation as income from the "Pots" should more than cover this.

I don't need/spend the numbers I've quoted so having done a rough draft of this using more realistic figures, it does looks like if I did nothing, I would end up with more money when I died than I have today + the house.

Re: the point about the difficulty in moving from an "Accumulating" mindset to a "Decumulating" one, I found this video quite interesting...

I am definitely front loading traveling. I can def feel the urge slipping away. My new GF can only get away for a few days at a time. We are on our way to Chiang Doi.

These days, four days even feels like a day too long. And that’s with new relationship energy.

The odds of me hopping on a plane solo for four days in Hanoi just to explore are about zero. I loved the solo travel years. I don’t want to continue them .

But in general, I can sense that I am slowing down. So I will be taking four big trips a year for the next two or three years.

With much less travel and luxury in the budget, the money pile problem will worsen. But if I did everything I wanted to, and when everywhere I wanted to see, and bought everything I wanted to have, I will just have to live with it.

Savings withdrawal calculators are interesting but I’ve always come against the problem of guessing inflation rates 20 - 40 years or more out especially on things such as healthcare, assisted living etc etc. and even more so…how much longer do I have?

So I always find myself asking the question….If I live longer than expected…perhaps much longer, what are the numbers (age and remaining capital) that will potentially necessitate my return to the US to work as a Walmart greeter at say 102 years old?