What are your numbers?

[wmc1000]

ESRwannabe - might caution you on your numbers after retiring - does that $18K include health insurance premiums? Or does state job provide that after retiring?

 

[2017ish]

...

That's what I think [a lot of effort to spend that much a month]! Except that we're foodies.

Hah! Depending upon where you live (and where you travel interstate for restaurants), that is one quick way to run the spending up!

Like spending on "fine" wine/liquor, though, it is very easy to cut when needed. (Easy, but not fun.)

 

[ESRwannabe]

ESRwannabe - might caution you on your numbers after retiring - does that $18K include health insurance premiums? Or does state job provide that after retiring?

Yup I include health insurance. I would get one with a very high deducible or I would go expat in another country if the US cannot get health care prices under control.

I am willing to abandon the US if I have to for reasonable health insurance. I hope other people will "go galt" and leave.

 

[NW-Bound]

Hah! Depending upon where you live (and where you travel interstate for restaurants), that is one quick way to run the spending up!

Like spending on "fine" wine/liquor, though, it is very easy to cut when needed. (Easy, but not fun.)

I recently found a box red wine that I like as a daily drinker. The more robust wine is often too much for my everyday food. This box wine even saves me the trouble of pulling the cork (I drink about 1/4 a bottle a day). Plus, there's less hassle of storing the bottles, and the trouble of going to the stores to get them. Of course, the cost is lower.

I also have been experimenting with less popular brands of Cognac from France. Some are just as good as the popular bottles of Remy Martin or Martell I have been drinking all my life. Maybe my palate has degraded, but if you cannot tell, why pay more? Some of these bottles have to be labeled brandy as they are produced outside of the prestigious Cognac region, but should I care?

"It’s just as easy to live well when you’re poor as when you’re rich - but when you’re poor, it’s much cheaper" -- Andrew Tobias

 

[doneat54]

Current budget spreadsheet is at $8500/mo. We live in a much bigger house than we need to in New England and don't deny ourselves much in terms of travel and dining today. Retiring in THREE WEEKS but DW will work 3-4 more years. Real Estate Taxes and Utilities/Homeowners insurance are big items.

We have been "practicing" the budget last couple months, esp. watching the discretionary things and getting a "not even trying to cut anything" baseline. But also eyeballing the budget closely and known that when the trimming starts, where it will start first.

Not planning on downsizing for 5-10 years or so. Don't need this big of a house, but really enjoy the town, large wooded lot and mancave/shop for my vintage car hobby.

 

[Alex The Great]

My expenses are running about $3K per month. I am single and living in San Francisco Bay Area. Property tax around $1K per month and occasional local or overseas travels (one-two per year) are included, health insurance is excluded (I have it at work).

 

[exnavynuke]

I hate to say it but just as we see growing income gap we see growing housing recovery gap. So in that respect owning house in Silicon Valley is great thing.

That ultra expensive Palo Alto CA or Greenwich CT are in much better position for future price appreciation then cheap Lincoln NE. Now I took extremes just to make a point.

For as long as the status quo is maintained. If California's taxes etc get even worse and convince a bunch of companies to move (and take their highly compensated employees with them), I'd expect the real estate market in many places to plummet.

 

[Alex The Great]

For as long as the status quo is maintained. If California's taxes etc get even worse and convince a bunch of companies to move (and take their highly compensated employees with them), I'd expect the real estate market in many places to plummet.

Yes real estate market eventually will go down, but not exactly because of tax or highly compensated workers moving to less expensive places. Chinese investors are contributing a lot to the housing boom we currently see in California, Seattle and recently Florida. The next downturn will most likely start when those investors will run out of money or there will be some other actions taken by American or Chinese government to limit it.

 

[Fishingmn]

We moved to semi-retired this year (both 54). Currently budgeting $10k/mo for our expenses with no debts. That's pretty high but we are paying full boat on healthcare and have a very high budget for travel, dining & entertainment (1/3 of the budget). Those could easily be suspended if needed as well as additional cutbacks.

If we cut out "all" of the extras we'd be at about the level of our rental property income (after expenses) each month so the numbers work as long as the rental market doesn't collapse. If it does we will adapt.

 

[ABQ2015]

Currently my expenses, not including income tax or payroll tax, are about $4500 a month. A good chuck of this goes to maintaining an older home that is larger than I need and not energy efficient. I'm retiring next year and will be relocating to a more expensive state, renting at first and then buying a smaller home. I'll have $6000 a month available and plan to spend more on travel and entertainment if the rent doesn't take too much of it. My net income basically goes up in retirement since so much of my current salary goes towards savings and taxes.

 

[Ticker]

I was doing fine until I took a vacation to Napa Valley, went to all of those wine tastings, and signed up for the wine clubs. Didn't know that this hobby would topple my budgets! But, I've got some GREAT wines in my new wine fridge, and more on the way.......

 

[medved]

We are not yet retired but my goal is a budget of $20k per month. We probably won't spend nearly that much in most months but when I know that I can spend that every month, with essentially zero risk of failure, then even a risk averse guy like me will feel comfortable. (I do realize that we could live quite comfortably on much less).

 

[laurence]

Thanks. It helps that we cook most meals at home and my main fun activities are free (walking the dog on the beach and doing my free senior water fitness classes). And it helps we have older, paid for, cars.



Housing is a huge expense in SoCal... We get by with the lower spending numbers because the house is paid for and we've got prop-13 locked in low property taxes and none of the dreadful mello roos taxes/bonds. I couldn't afford to stay retired if we still had a mortgage payment.

We plan on having our rental property cover the expenses of both houses by then - we are paying off it's mortgage but not the primary house.

 

[pb4uski]

~$8,500/month... includes two homes.

 

[MuirWannabe]

Planning on $11,000/month.

 

[skywalker]

Single dude living in Seattle. Annual baseline budget looks like this, does not include occasional big ticket items.

• Home (taxes and maintenance) = $9700
• Utilities (heat, internet, phone water) = $5200
• Auto (gas, insurance, maintenance) = $3150
• Health (Doctor, pharma, etc) = $2000 (on an high deductible plan through work)
• Food & Dining = $6500
• Shopping = $4000
• Entertainment & Travel = $7400
• Fed Taxes = Varies

I've been tracking expenses for three years now and this budget represents the average.

 

[Tomtom]

We are just retiring but in our "test" year the household budget was 68K.
Travel should increase next year but we also paid off our mortgages which is an offset. So we're estimating 6k a month..

 

[Sunset]

Determining a Budget is one of the most important steps in Retirement. We've tracked expenses for several years, and have a real good feel for our number.....

We didn't do that but because of this site I figured I should and can now report that I'm on track for spending $2,100 per month.
Unfortunately DW is not as keen as I am about tracking so I don't really know what she spends, but it's probably around $2K /month.

This is a number we need to raise, with more vacations..

 

[RobLJ]

6-7k/month and that's not skimping.
Retirement numbers are 10k/month, just for the hell of it. (DW still works and I work almost 1/2 time online, so we're still adding to the retirement nut.)

 

[pihwoah]

$1800-$2000 for two people living in the southwest.

 

[NW-Bound]

We didn't do that but because of this site I figured I should and can now report that I'm on track for spending $2,100 per month.
Unfortunately DW is not as keen as I am about tracking so I don't really know what she spends, but it's probably around $2K /month.

This is a number we need to raise, with more vacations..

Raising is easy. Reducing is hard.
Buying is easy. Selling is hard.
Goofing off is easy. Working is hard.
Buy high/sell low is easy. Buy low/sell high is hard.

There's always that asymmetry in life. Basically, whatever one does to make his stash smaller is easy. The reverse is hard.

 

[Winemaker]

$36,000 covers all fixed costs including $18,000 for a mortgage. 7 years left on mortgage, but it also has one of the rentals wrapped into it. Additional $18,600 for health care insurance.

 

[tdv2]

Currently spending ~$6,600/mo....still working..... been tracking our expenses for over 3 years. Pulling the plug next year....will be 53. I'm budgeting an additional $2k/mo for health insurance when retired, this will be the biggest line item on the budget....that will put us at about $8,600/mo.
Fido RIP is giving me the green light to spend up to about $15k/mo with current assets, DW's pension and SS at some point. I hair cut the SS numbers by 25% figuring that something has to give there. A few years down the road will likely move out of NJ...potential to save significantly on property tax.

So having said all this, if we spend $10k/mo we will be able to do some more travel and cover all expenses. With DW's pension starting at retirement this puts us at a 2.5% WR.