What are your numbers?

[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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodi 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.

[jkern]

My monthly living expenses are:

Essentials (housing, food, utilities, transportation, medical): $2,350
Routine spending (entertainment, travel, gifts, etc.): $1,200
Budget for non-routine spending (new purchases and auto replacement): $1,000

Total for me: $4,550 per month

Recently married, additional expenses:

Essentials: $1,100
Routine spending: $1,200
Non-routine spending: $1,000

Total for spouse: $3,300

Total for both: $7,850

[FiveDriver]

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.

Note that our current Home is fully paid for and our Daughter's College Costs have been completely covered. I'm on Medicare and my younger and better-looking Wife is ACA eligible, for what that's worth. Our Real Estate Taxes are due in full in January, and we divide the total by 12 for this Budget. The Utility Bill is higher in summer, but is averaged over 12 months. The Entertainment portion of our Budget is a big Slush Fund that includes a generous amount for Dining Out. We nominally budget $100 per month for annual vacation, but here in Charleston.....every day is a vacation.

All in, our number is around $3500 per month.
In my Opinion, being Mortgage-free is a big positive in Retirement.

[Koogie]

Married, no kids and paid off house.

I semi-REd in 2015. Still working just over half time.

Our baseline spend to keep the lights on, food in the fridge, etc.. is 3.5K/mo.

Currently spending 6.0k/mo.

Looking at increasing that to 6.5-7.5k/mo. when we fully RE.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom52 ...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.

With SS close at hand, you can spend a lot more than 2%, and still have plenty of safety margin. So, I assume that you see no need to spend more. If that is the case, then your spending will likely not change when you have SS. There are posters who said they lived entirely off SS and or pension, and not touched their savings at all.

A lot of people will die rich that way. Nothing wrong with that, as one can make a will to direct the use of that money after their demise.

[wmc1000]

Current spend is $4400 monthly- that includes $1100 mortgage pmt which will go away in 3 years.

[Teacher Terry]

Health insurance is one of our biggest expense (10k). The past few years we spent 10-15k on vacations. So all together we are spending 73k/year. We want to travel while we can.

[street]

It is interesting to see where each of us compare to spending. I'm in that 3300 a month so far but I haven't had a whole year of retirement to see where I will be at for sure. I did figure in all expenses monthly and yearly and padded that to come up with an average.

Thanks for sharing your living expenses.

[redshift]

We live in a very high COL area, and have a place in Hawaii - even higher COL. In first year of retirement we've managed to spend around $12K/mo. We do have a mortgage of ~$2K on one property. Property taxes are our largest budget item - I hate to even think how much...

[karen1972]

Well by the Numbers:

Base Expenses: $3500 (spent that exactly last month)
12 month average: $6400
Budgeted: $5000

What makes up the difference:
A) Unusually high medical
B) Unusually high vehicle

Which A&B were part of the Budget and could have been covered.. I guess I just assume if bad things happen you take less expensive vacations.

C) Moving and related expenses to settling into new home.

I hadn't expected to buy when we set up our yearly budget, had to pull money out of the market to make the downpayment at not an ideal time; HOWEVER, the pricepoint on the new place just couldn't be passed up and we should re-coup all costs by end of 2017 and expect $5000ish budget to hold for 2017

[Sue J]

Our monthly living expenses for two of us in a low cost of living area is about $2350/mo and that includes health insurance. November was particularly low at just $1984 but we are rarely under $2000.

No mortgage, no debt. Our splurge is DirecTV and a really generous budget for groceries and miscellaneous.