daylatedollarshort
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2013
- Messages
- 9,358
Check the stats further down in your link - 65+ don't have much in the way of mortgages, paying only $1500 in mortgage interest per year. Same with taxes - $3200/yr. Subtract those from the $43600 annual median expenditure and at $39k you're still well above $24k/yr, and MMM is a household of 3 unlike the typically smaller household of 2 for age 65+.
I'd say he's still spending pretty sparsely even though I question whether there out to be some accounting for the new house costs he incurred (he says he'll end up selling it for much more than the cost of materials purchased, and he's doing the labor himself).
The CES also shows items like $1,933 in SS / pension contributions so there is another $2K in the average budget going closer to $24K. I am not going to go through both budgets line by line but from my point of view there is not a huge difference between $43.6K and $24K, especially when one subtracts out mortgage payments, SS contributions, state income taxes, federal income taxes, car interest payments, etc.
Plus there are many items in the CES people could cut out if they had to - like not go out to eat, stop driving their cars, not take educational classes, not buy books, and sell their pets. But most 65+ households likely don't want to do that nor do they have to as they appear have enough income to cover those kind of expenses.
I won't comment any more as I think the subject has been covered well by the math brains at Bogleheads and Reddit folks and I don't have more to add than the inconsistencies pointed out in those forums.