What are your numbers?

[W2R]

We're between $6500-7000/month, all in. That's with two teenagers under roof and hitting max OOP for the second year.

That's a huge hit to the budget! You are doing wonderfully, especially considering the medical costs and the fact that this is for a whole family.

 

[FIREd]

$3,500 a month ... plus rent, which is quite hefty in San Francisco. Moving to a lower cost of living next year, targeting $4,500 a month, all in.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

We need $7K per month for the two of us. I guess it's a Southern California thing.

Yes, California is very expensive. To me its not worth it. I got out as soon as I could. People who live in California , a lot of them would live no place else.

 

[braumeister]

Basic expenses a little over $3K a month. That covers a comfortable lifestyle without any travel or luxuries in the southern Ohio/northern Kentucky area.

Any expenditures above that are purely discretionary and dependent on your desires.

 

[2017ish]

We plan to spend a good deal more than anyone else on this thread so far (and more than we presently spend after taxes/savings while working after kids gone). But, that is with HUGE discretionary expenses planned to make up for many years of deferred travel plans (more than 1/2 our planned spending). Like DrRoy, we certainly will be able to live well on considerably less--which is why we are comfortable with planning variable spending rate.

Everyone's expenses will differ; what W2R, Danmar (who prudently hasn't responded!), Braumeister, or I spend is irrelevant to anyone else. The key is having sufficient portfolio (or, if you are in that position, other cash flow) to cover your own spending with sufficient safety.

P.S.--OP, congrats on $3300. With our health insurance/cost cost projected/guestimated at 2000 per month, there ain't no way we'd hit that!

 

[CaliKid]

I am impressed with everybody's reasonable lifestyles. It staggers my mind to think how much we spend.

 

[laurence]

We're targeting 10k a month in 12 years when we retire, so these numbers make me happy that we can live on that. We will have housing costs minimized so that helps a lot in San Diego.

 

[BreathFree]

There's just one of me, living in a 1500 sf house in New Orleans.​

Here's my average monthly spending by category for the past five years. I prefer not to reveal my spending on income tax or on medical, so those are not included.

Miscellaneous	$318
Video games	$55
Groceries	$248
Restaurants	$266
Gasoline	$67
Car	$161
House	$554
Utilities	$335
Fitness	$98
Clothes	$29
Income Tax	not telling
Medical	not telling
TOTAL	$2131 plus income tax and medical

.​

Notice there is no "entertainment" category but if you prefer, you could call the restaurant category "entertainment". It's kind of like that. We eat lunch together every day at a cheap mom-n-pop type neighborhood restaurant with reasonably healthy food, and have delightful conversations and fun.​

It sure would be difficult to keep my resteraunt bill that low living in New Orleans. Y'all got some fine eating over there.

 

[BreathFree]

I'm not retired but I currently spend $3018.00 a month in Florida. That is everything but Fed income and pay roll tax

 

[Ronstar]

Don't know exactly what household numbers are since DW and I have separate finances and I only keep track of mine. But after guessing her number, I'd say we are normally $8000-$8500.

 

[rodi]

That's a huge hit to the budget! You are doing wonderfully, especially considering the medical costs and the fact that this is for a whole family.

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.

We're targeting 10k a month in 12 years when we retire, so these numbers make me happy that we can live on that. We will have housing costs minimized so that helps a lot in San Diego.

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.

 

[FireBug]

We need $7K per month for the two of us. I guess it's a Southern California thing.

$7K.....I guess it's a NORTHERN California thing as well

 

[NW-Bound]

I never tracked expenses until 6 years ago, when I realized that I needed to know what they were. Prior to that, as long as we had plenty of money left over after maxing out our retirement savings, we were happy. This cavalier attitude obviously would not work in retirement, when our income dropped.

Quicken makes it easy to see where our money goes. And in the few years since I tracked, I saw that our highest expense year was 1.5X the lowest year. It's very lumpy. And it did not even go back to the year we bought our 2nd home.

It surprised me to see how we spent so much money, despite patting ourselves on the back for being so frugal. When I told my wife, she was taken aback.

FIRECalc says we can keep on spending even higher than our most profligate year. And there's no way I am going to live another 30 years. But what more do I spend money on? I already have enough, and need no more toys or expensive cars. The market can just crash, or health care cost might rocket up even more than it already has, taking out all of the safety margin I think I have.

 

[racy]

For 2 (3 counting my medicated dog), living on the Great Plains, the average over the last 4 years was $6530 per month which includes everything: vacations, taxes, medical...

However, no year was average: our highest year was $7088, our lowest year was $6036.

If just starting to plan retirement expenses, recognize some years could be significantly higher.

 

[dm]

We are coming up on year 10 of ER. I quit keeping track of expenses this year. I just keep an eye on our net worth. All in we go thru about 10k per month. At least that's what we were spending the previous 5 years or so.

Health insurance, country club, and a airplane run the cost up.
And grandkids.

Our net worth is higher now than ever, so I guess we are doing OK.

 

[traineeinvestor]

income > expenses

... without my part time employment income (which finishes EOY 2017) or DW's new full time employment. What else do I need to know?

 

[pjigar]

Current expense $10,000 a month including $3500 mortgage. Projected retirement spending after adjusting category spending on mortgage, healthcare, education, travel, dependent expenses: $6500 a month.

 

[RetireAge50]

We make 200k but it goes away in big chunks: 60k to retirement accounts, 40k taxes, $40k education. So I guess 5k per month for everything else.

 

[Totoro]

About $1.300 a month without rent, including rent $2.200. One person household.

Travel is a wildcard, and comes on top of that.

 

[SomedaySoon]

We're spending about $4k a month. A little higher that I thought I would pre-retirement, but within our SWR. Playing more golf, eating out more often, and doing a lot more day trips with new friends. Probably go even higher if/when grandkids start rolling in. Life is good......

 

[Taxman59]

Retired in July 2015 having lived on about $7800/mo. First 6 months was expensive!! Travel, COBRA and set-up costs, so we were in the $9500/mo range. This year, it looks like we will be in the $7500/mo range plus a lump sum paydown on the mortgage (amount includes about $4k of medical that wasn't covered in 2015 and maxing out 2016 OOP). Next year it looks like about $7500, and the mortgage will go away sometime in 2018 for another potential drop in 2019.

 

[Taxman59]

I just noticed there are 2 threads on this topic. Mods may want to consolidate them.

 

[scrabbler1]

Single person, high COL area (Long Island, New York). My expenses are about $2,000 per month and have varied little since 2009, my first full year of ER after ERing in November 2008.


I have had a few spikes in those expenses due to health insurance and health care costs (2015 - I was in the hospital for 12 days and maxed out my deductible and copays; I had some large premium increases in 2010 and 2011). My income tax bill spiked in 2010 when my bond fund paid out an unexpectedly large, short-term cap gain - then again, the income spiked, too.


My health care costs dropped in 2016 as I expected they would although I had two lesser (than in 2015) health issues, each of which cost about $700.

 

[NW-Bound]

We're between $6500-7000/month, all in. That's with two teenagers under roof and hitting max OOP for the second year.

I maxed out the $10K deductible of my policy (pre-ACA) for 3 years in a row too. One year was for my son's freak liver infection, and two years for my terrible illness. I covered them out of an HSA account that was off Quicken, so that was not even included in the expenses that I see now.

I have put this HSA account on Quicken now, but it no longer has the same nice balance. And I can no longer fund it. No HSA policy is available post ACA. Would have been a nice way to reduce MAGI.

 

[Tom52]

For 2015 we averaged about $3,300 per month total spending. For 11 months so far in 2016 we are averaging about $4,400 per month total spending. The big jump this year is the result of a very expensive JD lawn tractor. This is for two people living in the low cost of living mid-western state. We have no mortgage and these numbers do not include any major home repairs or car replacement. We were fortunate in that our medical costs have so far, been low thanks to good health and the ACA. If we have any serious medical conditions this number would jump significantly with a $13,000 deductible.

Since retiring over 2.5 years ago we are living totally off of investment income. No SS for another couple of years. No big worries as we are spending much less than 2% of invested assets. Once SS kicks in we should be in a very nice situation, that is assuming no major changes to SS or Medicare.