Are You Saving Too Much for Retirement?

[chris2008]

"It's not coming from nowhere; it means you're making big reductions in your standard of living before retirement to make your standard of living higher after retirement," she explains."

She does not know us and other LBYMers at all.
We just have never been into spending all of our income.
There is no "reduction" before retirement as we have never spent more.

Also, we are not planning to increase our standard of living after retirement.
We will just continue as before.

[rescueme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB ...and the >75 age group spends all their income. From that table it appears pretty clear that decline in income is an important factor in lower spending as people age.

This has been my thinking (as for DW/me) of what will happen to us as we age. That's why we don't plan for any reduction in spending as we age, but rather the method/area of spending will change.

What we can't do, due to age or infirmity will be replaced by somebody who will do it for us (at a price, of course).

We travel a lot, and have met many folks in their mid/late-80's (and one early 90 woman, who had more "spark" to her than many decades younger) who continued to travel. However the expense of travel was a bit more since they had their "personal assistants" attend to their needs.

Kind of reminded me of the old English household (think "Upstairs/Downstairs") where those that could not, or desired not to do a task employed others to do so.

If you chose to cut back on whatever "life experiences" you want to due to age, than fine. That is your option, and you will probably spend less (unless you pay for home care/assistance, such as Senior Home Care, Elder Care, Senior Care, In HomeCare & Assisted Living by Visiting Angels | Visiting Angels Living Assistance Services ).

Also, since we are self-funding our future possible nursing home needs, we have funds set aside for that possibility. Is it enough? Who knows? However, we have no expectations in spending less as we age, but simply continuing our current lifestyle.

Plan for the worst - hope for the best.

[militaryman]

No -- I think the standard for me is knowing that I am living well now and therefore any savings that would be deemed as "too much" will allow me to be more generous later in life without having to look back and say "I wish I had spent more of it when I was younger cause we made life so hard by living below our means so we could save"