Poll: Target monthly retirement income

[Amethyst]

And then there's the Myers-Briggs excuse "I'm an EN,
so of course I skip over half of what I read 'cause I want to get to the good part (where I get to give the answer)."

Just as the Devil can quote Scripture to suit his purposes, one can use MBTI to explain everything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Even the poll title says “see text of post”, but it is only human nature to not read instructions. My wife assures me that I am the world’s worst at not reading a manual or instructions.

[Amethyst]

I would love to see lifestyle details of the $20K/month club. How many homes? How big are they? Which travel/tour companies do you use? What are your indulgences?

None of my business, I know, but it would be fun to know

[Danmar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst I would love to see lifestyle details of the $20K/month club. How many homes? How big are they? Which travel/tour companies do you use? What are your indulgences? None of my business, I know, but it would be fun to know

Would very likely cause a fair bit of negative feedback for such a poster.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWras Unless you have healthcare provided without direct cost. Hence my question about imputed income.

+1

Some other factors drive how much a person/couple may need to live a comfortable life

• mortgage free home vs large mortgage.
• paid for vehicles vs financed.
• living in a State with 0% State income tax vs a State like CA
• desire to travel vs wanting to stay put.
• Type of travel, hotels & tours vs camping and explore on your own.
• Size of home, a 5,000 sq ft home costs a lot more than a 1,000 sq ft home.

[athena53]

Mine will come out to a little over $8K/month this year. That seems huge for one person in a LCOL area, and I guess it is; my 3 biggest items are travel, charity and health insurance, in that order, so plenty of discretionary to cut if I had to. Heath insurance will decrease on 1/1 when Medicare kicks in, and I'm pretty much done with the expensive improvements to the house I bought in mid-2015, so next year should be less.

My focus is on keeping the W/D rate under 4% (it was 3% this year, average is 3.8% since retirement in mid-2014) and then deciding where the money goes. I'm also hoping to postpone collecting SS on my own record to age 70; I'm getting Survivor benefits now. Much of the increase in SS, unfortunately, will be needed to pay taxes on RMDs from my IRA, but the withdrawal rate may decrease a little anyway.

[GrayHare]

As I read it, this is an income not spending poll. Some members might have $20k income but not spend it all. Heck, based on the S&P most people with $1 million in stocks have generated close to $20k a month in cap gains since last November.

[Car-Guy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danmar Would very likely cause a fair bit of negative feedback for such a poster.

On this site, absolutely.

[Spanky]

Quote:

So why wouldn't I desire > $20,000 per month? IMO, any other response lacks imagination!

My initial interpretation of "desired income" means infinity.

[Ed B]

Statistically it is interesting because there is no standard distribution but the same is true with all US household incomes. What might be interesting is to see how close our distribution of targeted household incomes are to all US household incomes.

Here are graphs that show the results of this poll as of this morning (11-15-2017) and all US household incomes from 2014:




The lines certainly aren't as smooth but there is a correlation.

And when you consider that people who are able to RE or are working towards that goal are likely at or above median household income during the savings stage, that would explain why our < $36000/yr isn't as high as all US households. With a few exception those lower income working households have little hope of RE.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big_Hitter depends - mortgage and real estate taxes can be close to $5K a month easy

Agreed - if one lives, for example, in high cost of housing area such as the SF Bay area.

[Teacher Terry]

I missed the word "desired." Of course then 20k/month sounds great! As others have mentioned there are a lot of variables that make a huge difference on the amount someone can live on.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanky My initial interpretation of "desired income" means infinity.

And Beyond! ™

-ERD50

[CaliKid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst I would love to see lifestyle details of the $20K/month club. How many homes? How big are they? Which travel/tour companies do you use? What are your indulgences? None of my business, I know, but it would be fun to know

I am not saying me personally but I know many people who spend over $20k a month with just one home ($500k-1m), fairly extensive travel, some have kids in home which can cost a lot, some spend money helping parents/inlaws, etc.... It's not that hard to spend $20k a month if you are not being careful with your expenses.

[daylatedollarshort]

My goal these days is to live a champagne life on a beer budget. We are going to a party in the city this weekend with free champagne on seat filler discount tickets and free train fare from a county commuter promotion. I get a kick out of finding deals like that. We used to spend much more but the free time in retirement for optimizing expenses made it much easier to keep the same lifestyle but now with much lower expenses.

[Scuba]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danmar Would very likely cause a fair bit of negative feedback for such a poster.

[emoji23] I can imagine the comments!

[youbet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 my 3 biggest items are travel, charity and health insurance, in that order,.

By far my biggest expense category is taxes. Fed income tax. State income tax. Property tax. Sales tax. Gotta stop..... getting nauseous thinking about it.

Like many geezers, the onset of RMD's made this all the worse. Moving money from one account to another and paying a hefty fee to Uncle Sam to do so isn't as much fun as I anticipated!

[Surewhitey]

Our past year of expenses came in just under $3,500 / mo...I'd like to get this + 10-20% (+ inflation of course on the balance) to cover the unknowns / one time expenses.

This included 5-6 trips to MX, Cali & family, so everything is included.

Ok, I'll bite...
mortgage free home
paid for vehicles
living in a State with 0% State income tax TX
desire to travel
Type of travel, hotels, camping and explore on your own.
Size of home, a 1,700 sq ft home

[dunkelblau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst I would love to see lifestyle details of the $20K/month club. How many homes? How big are they? Which travel/tour companies do you use? What are your indulgences? None of my business, I know, but it would be fun to know

Poll title says the bins are income not spending. My annual cap gains/interest/dividends fluctuate quite a bit, so instead of trying to guess those, I'll use SWR + SS + pension minus income taxes. That puts me in the upper bin (assuming those are today's USD), so here are my answers:
(1) one
(2) 1000 sq ft apartment
(3) I don't travel; my last airplane ride was an international business trip 10 years ago
(4) I enjoy high-risk stock market punts aka gambling in the wall street casino
I don't mind negative feedback; fire away!

[Pilot2013]

My target (based on estimates of what I will need at that time) is $5k-$6k/month.

[Amethyst]

I s'pose so. It's OK when posters talk about the fancy food or toys/doodads they buy, as long as they don't do it in the context of income. I never will entirely understand social convention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danmar Would very likely cause a fair bit of negative feedback for such a poster.