Poll: monthly retirement income

[CardsFan]

I interpreted income as "spend", since my income can be anything I want it to be, at least until SS and RMD's.

$7k is actually more than we currently spend, but is the target number to stay under.

 

[GrayHare]

If someone is accustomed to spending = income, FIRE is not in their future.

 

[RobbieB]

I did it on last years income from the tax return I just filed divided by 12.

 

[hesperus]

Actual investment income, over $10K monthly. Also too young for SS.

 

[scrabbler1]

My monthly income in ER has been between $3k and $4k but that is all investment income from only my taxable accounts because I am too young to collect SS, take unfettered withdrawals from my tIRA, and collect my frozen company pension. And just under half of my current investment income is from the more erratic cap gain distributions, not the more regular and reliable quarterly and monthly stock and bond fund dividends.

 

[steadystate]

So, if one's income is greater than one's spending throughout your retirement, you heirs are going to be very happy and rich? Lots of folks want to tailor their spending to what their means can reasonably provide over retirement. I think that's the MoneyMoustache idea, right?

If someone is accustomed to spending = income, FIRE is not in their future.

 

[foxfirev5]

Not in that top group no matter how you count it. However currently in a pre SS situation I'm maxing out the 15% bracket with some substantial deductions and HSA contributions. That puts me at about 9k / month this year and next. This was funded by peeling off some equities in tax sheltered accounts over the last 6 months. Basically I'm building up the taxable savings portion.

Once I tap SS this will drop to basically living expenses to minimize taxes. This would be about 5k / month for the two of us.

SS / Mini pension / Int and Div - Age 62-70. Add a decent stash of cash for the emergencies and extravagances. Plus if worst comes to worst (cover your ears DM!) dip into the principal. Once RMD's kick in who knows?

As far as a monthly income goes, it will probably be all over the place.

 

[Running_Man]

Top of the poll is to the 80th percentile of household income in the US,
The bottom of the poll is at the 47th percentile of household income in the US.

In case anyone wonders where the income of members skews on this website, average in the US is dirt poor here….

 

[Luck_Club]

It's not what you get but what you keep.
My net positive cash flow will fluctuate from early retirement age 52 to 62 in big swings. But they will all be more positive then before retiring.

Thanks to the planned elimination of monthly debt payments on investment and personal real estate.

 

[TrvlBug]

I interpreted monthly income as cash income. >10K for us which includes DH and my SS, his small TIAA/CREF annuity and his RMD. It does not include investment income which is reinvested.

 

[Ronstar]

No pension, too young for SS. Don't really have a retirement income. Just living off the cash in my portfolio. DW has a pension around $4k per month.

 

[Fedup]

I interpreted as spending money. Not income that you earn from investment but not spending it. I think it would be much higher category if that is the case. But what happens when you have 2008 scenario. Should you have negative income category too. So we should be consistent.

 

[Ticker]

It's not what you get but what you keep.

I'd be on the poorer side of this poll, but I live in an inexpensive part of the country, have everything we need, debt free, travel all we want, and spend lots of money on good wine, and yet we are able to put aside a modest amount of money each month. from that perspective, I feel like I should rank higher in the field.

 

[RobbieB]

Ok, if I don't count the dough I make on investments, it's $1300/mo SS.

 

[CardsFan]

If someone is accustomed to spending = income, FIRE is not in their future.

I'm not quite sure what you are driving at with this. We are comfortably FIREd. My 1040 income can be pretty much what I want it to be. So it is really meaningless. What I decide to draw as "income" is what we spend.

If someone is pre-FIRE, then maybe you have a point.

 

[nun]

In the 3 years I've been retired my monthly spending has averaged around $2k. Right now I could take $7k per month from pension, rent and investments and when SS starts (in 11 years time) that will go up to $11k....but I imagine I'll still be spending a lot less than that.

 

[GrayHare]

I'm not quite sure what you are driving at with this. We are comfortably FIREd. My 1040 income can be pretty much what I want it to be. So it is really meaningless. What I decide to draw as "income" is what we spend.

If someone is pre-FIRE, then maybe you have a point.

I was commenting on the OP's surprising (to me) approach of treating income and spending as the same thing. Almost by definition, people who FIRE do not spend all their income before retiring. Since those who FIRE are not accustomed to thinking of income and spending as the same amount before retirement, they are unlikely to do so after retiring. Old habits die hard.

 

[gerntz]

Most of our income is quarterly or annual, not monthly.

 

[Hermit]

My Ipad doesnt show a poll with app. Or Im too dumb to know how to find it. I have about $6700 a month income coming in each month in retirement for a single guy. I dont even count my investment income as it just gets reinvested and never touched. I dont even come close to spending my pension income so there is no reason to even bother figuring what the investments would give to me each month. A simple life in a low COL area.

I took the opposite approach. The pole asked for planned or actual income which sounded like total income available. That number will be more than double what I spend when I don't count construction costs for my house or DS education. (I'm hoping both of those costs will go away in the next year or two. )

 

[Sunset]

I was commenting on the OP's surprising (to me) approach of treating income and spending as the same thing. Almost by definition, people who FIRE do not spend all their income before retiring. Since those who FIRE are not accustomed to thinking of income and spending as the same amount before retirement, they are unlikely to do so after retiring. Old habits die hard.

+1
For us, income is higher than spending as we are converting IRA to ROTH, so while it's income that gets taxed, I didn't consider it part of the spending.

 

[Rambler]

So, what I'm interpreting here is that the folks with SS, pension and IRA/401k savings, income pretty much = spending. For me, that doesn't work. I'm 75% in taxable plus 25% in deferred income, which starts paying from end of 2019, for 10 years. So, my "income" is my interest and dividends on my taxable acct. My spending could be higher or lower than that amount (so far, it has been lower). Last year, I took money out of the market and bought a home...which is more investing than spending, but does add to spending (more prop tax, ins, maintenance, etc). But, when I sell it, I should be able, in most cases, to sell it for more than the price I paid. The cap gain is income, the return of capital is not income. When i have large chunks of cap gains, they are more likely to be reinvested than spent.

 

[NW-Bound]

I can interpret this "income" many different ways.

1) Interest, dividends, cap gains from taxable account: this number is the lowest. I was spending more than this income, meaning I dipped into principal because we were not yet 59-1/2.

2) What our actual expenses are: now that we can draw from IRA to meet expenses, I can draw as needed to supplement 1) above.

3) Projected SS + Projected RMD: This will be the legal income as it will be reported on tax form 1040, even if we do not spend all of it.

I chose to respond using 3) because it is the highest, and it makes me feel rich.

 

[NW-Bound]

Dude it's pretty much all high rollers on this board.
https://www.aei.org/publication/u-s...ncome-third-in-happiness-ill-call-that-a-win/
The U.S., with a median retiree income of $26,250, is third in the world and on par with Switzerland, Canada, and Austria.

Thanks for sharing.

From the above link:

Luxembourg: $40,433
Norway: $31,059
USA: $26,250
Switzerland: $26,210
Canada: $25,881
Austria: $25,866
France: $23,206
Netherlands: $22,133

I found the above list surprising. Take Switzerland for example. The cost of living is very high there, so $26K would not go very far. On the other hand, we do not know what Europeans have to pay for healthcare compared to USA's Medicare supplements.

PS. Just saw a note that I missed on the chart. It says "Adjusted for purchasing power parity". So, that answers my question about the difference in the cost of living. Also, it says "disposable income", and that may take care of the healthcare expenses.

PPS. The text of the article shows that USA retirees are far happier than many European counterparts, and trail only Swedish and Danish retirees but not by much.

 

[audreyh1]

$10K a month would be $120K a year, and that would include income taxes, so monthly spending on living expenses would be a bit lower.

 

[audreyh1]

I based my answer on my annual draw which includes I come axes I pay, but we don't always spend all of what we withdraw from our retirement portfolio.

If I based it in what we report to the IRS as income and pay taxes on, it is usually even higher. We don't have much control over taxable income as most of our investments are in taxable accounts and the taxable income they throw off is highly variable year to year.