Poll: How much do you actually spend each year?

[NW-Bound]

Apparently people like to post here enough to desire multiple accounts. If I were the site owner, I would "monetize" this as follows. The first account is free. The 2nd account would cost something like $100/yr. The 3rd one, $1000/yr. The 4th one, $10K/yr.

Some people get to post, I get the money. Everybody is happy. Seems fair, no?

 

[ERD50]

I voted, but I entered an amount that is not at all what we actually spend. Does that help?

I was thinking about that as well. Especially since it applies to singles and couples. Some retirees are single, many are married, and some have kids in the house. I guess it's OK to be curious, but it makes me curious as to why anyone would be interested in such numbers.

Maybe I'll start a poll - flip a coin, was it heads or tails? And yes, we will need a category for 'landed on it's edge', 'rolled under the fridge', 'I don't have a coin, I use rewards credit cards for everything', 'I used my last penny to pay off the mortgage', etc...

-ERD50

 

[obgyn65]

I have answered although I am not retired yet.

 

[Independent]

This is a straw man argument... I do not expect to retire on someone else's budget, and that is not the purpose of this poll.

Perhaps this poll is meaningless to you, but it is meant to gather the same information as the Consumer Expenditure Survey that is conducted by the federal bureau of labor statistics each year to determine the total expenditures by households in the U.S. ....

Consumer Expenditure Survey

Perhaps the federal government engages in a useless exercise each year, and to that extent, this poll may be equally useless.

Not sure why you are trying to duplicate the BLS data.
Maybe you want to know if posters here are "typical" retirees?
Maybe you didn't drill down to see that the BLS has tables that give data for narrower slices of the population?

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/CrossTabs/y1011/sizbyage/atwo.TXT
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/CrossTabs/y1011/sizbyage/aone.TXT

 

[kumquat]

OK, I'll satify the OP's curiosity.

My numbers are meaningless. I've been RE for 5 years. In our biggest spending year it was > $500K. That included about $250K in income tax (sold a bunch of MS stock options) and gave a bundle to the kids. Our most frugal year was around $50K (no vacations, no home repairs, no CG tax liability, no new cars, no nothing).

MMV(aried) YM(ay)2

 

[Nords]

For those of you who are retired, how much do you spend each year? Whether you are single or married, what is your total household spending for the year? You don't have to give a breakdown of every dollar spent, just the total. I am trying to predict some of the questions... before they are asked... yes, please include all spending, in all categories, including income taxes, healthcare, everything.

Hopefully you've searched enough of the keywords in your question to find some other threads to help supply some answers.

For example, this one:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f47/faq-archive-how-much-is-enough-30818.html

... and these:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/how-much-did-you-spend-in-2010-a-53971.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f26/how-much-do-you-live-on-in-retirement-55749.html

Do you want a simple answer? Over the last decade, most of the responses have been in a narrow range around $25K/year and $50K/year. But it's a double-humped bell curve with fat tails.

And, of course, you long-time posters will enjoy this classic from the deep-freeze archives:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/50-a-day-no-way-14108.html

 

[bld999]

I say we change the poll to: "How much horsepower do you really need?" Then we can begin to argue about Torque vs. Horsepower.

 

[kumquat]

I say we change the poll to: "How much horsepower do you really need?" Then we can begin to argue about Torque vs. Horsepower.

I'm a torque kinda guy.

 

[Rambler]

Not retired yet...gimme 33 more days!

Budget is north of 100k for next year...way north. Taxes will be a big, very big part of that.

R

 

[eytonxav]

I wish it was possible to live within some of the lower thresholds on the survey, but when your property tax, out of pocket healthcare costs, homeowners/car insurance exceeds what some are living on annually, there is much room for improvement with respect to frugality

 

[Lakedog]

Being single and living in a low cost part of the country, I'm typically in the under $50k group but did go over $100k for 2012 (bought an RV).

 

[gerntz]

All of our expenses go thru the checking account (except stock gifts) since retiring as there are no payroll tax deductions, so I just added up the checking account monthly statements.

 

[JustCurious]

All of our expenses go thru the checking account (except stock gifts) since retiring as there are no payroll tax deductions, so I just added up the checking account monthly statements.

That should work fine, but if you use credit cards, remember that the January payments to your credit card probably includes spending that was done in December of the previous year.

 

[gerntz]

That should work fine, but if you use credit cards, remember that the January payments to your credit card probably includes spending that was done in December of the previous year.

True. So my year is Dec-Nov. Or I add up the Feb-Jan checking account payouts.

 

[JustCurious]

True. So my year is Dec-Nov. Or I add up the Feb-Jan checking account payouts.

No, that won't work either. No matter what 12 months you use, your checking account total debits will not equal your total spending if you use credit cards because the credit card payments in the first month will include spending from previous months, and some of the credit card spending in the last month will not be accounted for.

 

[ERD50]

No, that won't work either. No matter what 12 months you use, your checking account total debits will not equal your total spending if you use credit cards because the credit card payments in the first month will include spending from previous months, and some of the credit card spending in the last month will not be accounted for.

But it averages out if you use a consistent 12 months.

Download your cc statements and use the transactions dates if it is important to you, but I can't imagine why it would be.

-ERD50

 

[Bikerdude]

Seems like too many variables to obtain any useful data. Single vs married, old vs young, living in Keokuk, IA vs NYC, living in a Sear's cardboard box vs a 6 bedroom home.

 

[ls99]

More than I want to, less than what I can afford. Life is good.

 

[mickeyd]

We spend as much as we need to spend. Income streams from SS and DB plans more than cover our expenses so we actually save a bunch of cash each month.

Still don't know how we will spend our IRA/Roth stash in the future.

 

[NW-Bound]

More than I want to, less than what I can afford. Life is good.

I spend less than I want to, only as much as I dare, and hopefully not more than I can afford. Life is also good here.

 

[BTravlin]

But it averages out if you use a consistent 12 months.

Download your cc statements and use the transactions dates if it is important to you, but I can't imagine why it would be.

-ERD50

Yes, there comes a point where the extra work and stress required to get it exactly right outweigh the benefits of actually doing so.

I can see making adjustments for large purchases that occasionally occur at year end but otherwise, like you, I believe it will all average out over time.

 

[freebird5825]

I spend enough but not too much, so I have some left over for a big ticket item without touching my long term retirement portfolio.

 

[truenorth418]

I will spend $36k this year, my first full year of retirement. I wanted to see how little I could spend while still having some extra fun and traveling. Next year I will increase to about $50k, which is closer to 2.5% of my portfolio. I am 48 years old so this feels right for now.

 

[grasshopper]

about $40K less than I could.

 

[Huston55]

Do you want a simple answer? Over the last decade, most of the responses have been in a narrow range around $25K/year and $50K/year. But it's a double-humped bell curve with fat tails.[/url]

So, what sound does such a bell make??

Something like...

"Bweeeng-de-Booong-and-let's-skew".