Depressing Thoughts about Retirement

[Koolau]

Agreed.

For the first four years, after retirement. I tracked my spending carefully using Quicken and then in 2008 and 2009 during the great recession, but haven't bothered since.

I'm super suspicious of folk who ask if can we retire, When the stories start this way. "We're 55, we make $205,000 combined income.
We have 450K in taxable and 1.1 million in 401K/IRA and we spend $60,000"

The person who tells me they spend $62,400 is a far better candidate for early retirement

Never tracked it and it's w*rked out fine for us. Applied the 4% rule and knew if I stayed under that (and I did by a margin) we'd be fine - and we have we have been. YMMV

 

[Winemaker]

Our goal was replace our salary and rental income with pension, rental, portfolio, and SS income before we retired. I was shocked when I actually seen what we were able to do; DW was skeptical of my figures. We succeeded 9 years ago without SS, and <2% WD. When we take SS in 5 years, we will essentially double our pension income. Frankly, we can say we over saved, but Mr. Market created that issue, and can destroy that as well. Life is very good, and are very grateful what the Lord put before us. Trying to convert up to NII limit now.

 

[Koolau]

Our goal was replace our salary and rental income with pension, rental, portfolio, and SS income before we retired. I was shocked when I actually seen what we were able to do; DW was skeptical of my figures. We succeeded 9 years ago without SS, and <2% WD. When we take SS in 5 years, we will essentially double our pension income. Frankly, we can say we over saved, but Mr. Market created that issue, and can destroy that as well. Life is very good, and are very grateful what the Lord put before us. Trying to convert up to NII limit now.

Heh, heh, join the club. Many of us woke up the first day of FIRE and realized we had more than we needed.

Of course, there is virtually no limit to what one might need for, say, in-home care 24/7 for some long-term debilitating illness. SO, who knows? I guess I look at all this as a First World problem.

 

[Librarian]

I wish I could say we lived below our means...

Was talking to a friend this weekend, and we were chatting about retirement income, and he made a pretty simple comment to me. At first, we just moved on in the conversation. But throughout the weekend, I've been thinking more and more about it, and its sort of depressing.

He said "isnt it strange that we save our entire lives so that we can retire, and we choose the goal-line as the point in time where we don't have to work to support our current way of life."

One of the fundamentals of retiring early is clearly to avoid living beyond your means, but what if what you want out of retirement involves spending more, traveling more, seeing more, doing more?

Im curious how you all approach this. Did you spend more in retirement than you did while working? Did you adjust your retirement draws to accomplish this task before you actually retired? I see many comments by retirees in these threads at how difficult of a concept it is to spend more, especially when you trained yourself for a lifetime to not life beyond your means.

Maybe the depressing part of it is knowing you'll never have enough money to ________, which I would suspect is common in most americans as we age...

And yes, part of these are shallow thoughts. But curious what others think.

But we didn't. 2 teachers, 3 active kids--not a lot left over after that.
Luckily we have terrific pensions.
And we were able to safe a bit.
Because we DO want to do more now.
BUT WE CAN AFFORD IT NOW.
Why?
Debt free (no car or house payments) & no kid expenses!

 

[Dean56]

If your current life is happy and includes activities and travel, whatever you really want to do, in a home you like, then I don't see why anything your friend says is depressing.

I totally agree.

 

[John123]

My retirement budget is significantly more than my expenses. The transition from saver to spender was easier and way more enjoyable than I thought. It’s nice to set a budget that’s higher than anything you’ve ever spent in your life and the goal is to spend all of it. Completely different mindset and it’s glorious. Lol

 

[meleana]

Spending a ton of money doesn’t go with my preference for a simple lifestyle. I don’t like shopping and don’t need much.

We pretty much spend the same as when we were working, except on more fun things like eating out or maybe more movies or plays.

We did go for a $8000 trip to South Dakota this year- that hurt/ but we figured it was out one vacation splurge in 3 years.

I’d love to do more traveling but I hate flying and I hate very long drives. Plus it’s like we’re on vacation everyday here anyway and doesn’t cost thousands.

Thankfully where we live we can do lots of free things- especially in summer. We’ve got beautiful mountains and gorgeous lakes to swim and fish in. And we e got a nice neighbor with a boat. ?

We’ve got some social events at our clubhouse where it’s just potluck.

Neighbors here have motorcycles, boats, constant new cars, golf carts.

Not us. Many collecting SS. Not us. Many have pensions. Not us.

And we have to keep our income low for a few more years for Roth conversions, so there’s that also.

 

[Koolau]

But we didn't. 2 teachers, 3 active kids--not a lot left over after that.
Luckily we have terrific pensions.
And we were able to safe a bit.
Because we DO want to do more now.
BUT WE CAN AFFORD IT NOW.
Why?
Debt free (no car or house payments) & no kid expenses!

If you have a spending plan for after retirement AND you fund it through pensions and/or savings/ and/or SS, etc., no reason you can't spend what you planned if your plan was sound. (Start with 4% rule as a crude gauge and build from there - how much do you need? How much will you save? How will you invest?)


No big mystery. Just hard w*rk and planning. YMMV

 

[Navigator]

When I retired several years ago I saw a survey from the University of Michigan that said 16% of people spend more in retirement than when working. This was mostly due to increased travel. Another 16% of people spent about the same as when working and the rest spent less.

 

[Sweetlip]

I have seen data that suggests that people tend to spend a lot in the first five years of retirement and then as their "bucket list" becomes more fulfilled, they tend to spend fairly modestly until their much older ages when big health costs start to kick in.

In my case, after retiring at age 55, I had a few years when I spent big on what I would call the things that a boy would want to be doing. I spent big on boating and fishing stuff, cycling stuff, machine tools for woodworking, metalwork, welding etc, gardening machinery etc. I spent almost nothing on travel as I had spent my life travelling for work (I was a Platinum Qantas Frequent Flyer - yes, I am an Aussie) and the novelty goes out of that after the first 1000 plane trips and hotel stays. . Fortunately, my wife is scared of flying so she was not inclined to leave home on big trips either.

Now, 17 years later. I am pretty satisfied with all the stuff I have and hardly spend anything on discretionary wants.

Now, I am most likely to spend the big $ on repairs to my house after being here for 40 years, albeit a third car in the household is probably on my list for later this year when they become more plentiful. (In truth, I prefer to drive my truck but it gets a bit bumpy for my wife and her car is too small for me so a full sized car is on the agenda for sometime. I got rid of my last full sized car at the start of the pandemic and new cars have been a bit scarce since then and I don't have the patience to sit on waiting lists.)

Even though I retired just before the 2007 global financial crisis when my retirement investments halved in value for a couple of years, despite drawing an income from those investments every year since then, my overall financial position, ignoring sunk costs like my house and furnishings, boat, cars, and various other grown-up toys is double what it was before the GFC hit. This is because I have followed the investment asset allocation formula suggested by then Retire Early website. ie mostly equities and some cash to allow me to sleep at night when the markets go backwards.

I hasten to add, though, that my wife and I are modest spenders, even if we do have multiple vehicles, five TVs and all the consumer goods that anyone would ever want. We just don't spend big on entertainment, dining out and that sort of stuff. Been there, done that.

I think that those formulae that say that you need a certain percentage of your pre-retirement income to live comfortably in retirement are nonsense. You just need to know what you are spending now and add a bit for your "bucket list" of desires maybe, but also recognise that going to work also has its own expenses that you will no longer incur and can save on. eg a lunch at home with your wife will be a lot cheaper than something that you buy at a cafe when working. Likewise, you will no longer need special working clothing - whether it be suits, safety boots or special cold weather clothes. Nor will you incur bus/train fares or parking fees to go to the "office". Fortunately, I live in a warm climate and spend most of my days in shorts and tee shirts.

I will add that I had read extensively on retirement subjects before retiring. eg books like "Your Money or Your Life," "The Millionaire Next Door," "The Joy of Not Working" etc etc etc.

I do spend a goodly sum on private health insurance even though Australia has an excellent good government funded universal health system. I do this because I don't want to be in any sort of a queue for public health services for anything. If needed though, I could live without that health insurance.

 

[sengsational]

For those who are trying to figure out spending patterns in retirement, there's a resource I sometimes mention that has a bunch of descriptions and links to associated detailed papers. I've kinda let my foot off the gas with respect to modeling, but for those who want to dive into it, the section of this web page that opens from the link below has a few ways to model retirement spending. http://i-orp.com/Plans/help/ORPHelp.html#rrplan

 

[nobody]

retired at 47, 4 years later, I just can't spend money.

 

[Koolau]

When I retired several years ago I saw a survey from the University of Michigan that said 16% of people spend more in retirement than when working. This was mostly due to increased travel. Another 16% of people spent about the same as when working and the rest spent less.

That's interesting that it suggested travel as the key reason for avg. 16% more in retirement than before. I would have guessed it was due to moving to a higher cost of living area. Our travel budget is about the same, but our move is a big reason that we spend more. I think our COL comparison comes out near 2X in the comparison guides. Of course, we have w*rked hard to limit that. For instance our outrageously priced electricity has been reduced to 5KWh/day. So our bill has remained at around $80/month. High for what we use, but low compared to neighbors - especially those with AC.

 

[NW-Bound]

...

One of the fundamentals of retiring early is clearly to avoid living beyond your means, but what if what you want out of retirement involves spending more, traveling more, seeing more, doing more?

Im curious how you all approach this. Did you spend more in retirement than you did while working? Did you adjust your retirement draws to accomplish this task before you actually retired? I see many comments by retirees in these threads at how difficult of a concept it is to spend more, especially when you trained yourself for a lifetime to not life beyond your means.

Maybe the depressing part of it is knowing you'll never have enough money to ________, which I would suspect is common in most americans as we age...

And yes, part of these are shallow thoughts. But curious what others think.

We already did more traveling than most while still working. The additional travel in retirement did not cost much, compared to the expenses of children in college and the home mortgage that we no longer have.

Yes, my expenses are way less than 10-15 years ago. Can't travel more, can't eat more, can't drink more. Still have suits I have not worn in a while, more than 1/2 dozen dress shoes, etc...

Whatever I spend money on will bring more work. So, I only spend money on hobbies, which are the work that I voluntarily do. Like expanding my solar power system, gardening, etc... What keeps me from doing more is my capacity of work, not lack of money.

I could spend money on a world cruise, but oh boy, after taking our first transatlantic cruise, we both agreed that no more, let alone cruises that go on for months, or even a half year. That's torture! Maybe I will change my mind when my mobility deteriorates, when we no longer can carry our own carry-ons during our travel, hop on buses and metros, and walk for miles each day sightseeing.

 

[Chuckanut]

I could spend money on a world cruise, but oh boy, after taking our first transatlantic cruise, we both agreed that no more, let alone cruises that go on for months, or even a half year. That's torture! Maybe I will change my mind when my mobility deteriorates, when we no longer can carry our own carry-ons during our travel, hop on buses and metros, and walk for miles each day sightseeing.

+1

I’ll start cruising when I simply must have the elevator on the cruise ship to get from one floor to another so I can avoid all steps. Until then, I will travel I take land cruises using my own feet, vehicle, a bus, or a train.

 

[Koolau]

We already did more traveling than most while still working. The additional travel in retirement did not cost much, compared to the expenses of children in college and the home mortgage that we no longer have.

Yes, my expenses are way less than 10-15 years ago. Can't travel more, can't eat more, can't drink more. Still have suits I have not worn in a while, more than 1/2 dozen dress shoes, etc...

Whatever I spend money on will bring more work. So, I only spend money on hobbies, which are the work that I voluntarily do. Like expanding my solar power system, gardening, etc... What keeps me from doing more is my capacity of work, not lack of money.

I could spend money on a world cruise, but oh boy, after taking our first transatlantic cruise, we both agreed that no more, let alone cruises that go on for months, or even a half year. That's torture! Maybe I will change my mind when my mobility deteriorates, when we no longer can carry our own carry-ons during our travel, hop on buses and metros, and walk for miles each day sightseeing.

+1

I’ll start cruising when I simply must have the elevator on the cruise ship to get from one floor to another so I can avoid all steps. Until then, I will travel I take land cruises using my own feet, vehicle, a bus, or a train.

I think we're already there. We're finding it difficult to walk significant distances and dragging significant luggage. BUT, we've been on a cruise and that was enough for us. Maybe a nice bus tour.

 

[The Onceler]

There is a lot of insight into retirement in this thread. Perhaps I missed it but a persistent but perhaps not expressly voiced theme is that one can wake up in the morning and choose to be happy. I’m not making light of suffering, grief, or (relative) deprivation. But short of those unavoidable human conditions one can exercise a strong influence on whether life is good or not. I choose to be happy.

 

[NW-Bound]

I think we're already there. We're finding it difficult to walk significant distances and dragging significant luggage. BUT, we've been on a cruise and that was enough for us. Maybe a nice bus tour.

NO! No bus tour! I would take a cruise over a bus tour anytime.

Never been on a bus tour in my life, but I know what it entails from talking to people. Up early at 6AM, luggage set outside the room for pickup. Breakfast, then sit in a bus for a few hours to some place for a quick sightseeing by following a guide holding up a flag, then back on the bus to someplace else for lunch. Then back on the bus for another brief stop somewhere before being dropped off at a hotel to freshen up before dinner. Rinse and repeat the next day, and the next day... Noooo...

At least on a cruise ship, we can stay in bed as late as we like, go to bed whenever we like, eat and drink whenever we want. When in port, we can venture out on our own.

Never on a river cruise either, but I read that it is just a glorified bus tour, and it also costs more. Same thing about sightseeing by following a guide holding up a flag.
Nooo....

 

[Koolau]

NO! No bus tour! I would take a cruise over a bus tour anytime.

Never been on a bus tour in my life, but I know what it entails from talking to people. Up early at 6AM, luggage set outside the room for pickup. Breakfast, then sit in a bus for a few hours to some place for a quick sightseeing by following a guide holding up a flag, then back on the bus to someplace else for lunch. Then back on the bus for another brief stop somewhere before being dropped off at a hotel to freshen up before dinner. Rinse and repeat the next day, and the next day... Noooo...

At least on a cruise ship, we can stay in bed as late as we like, go to bed whenever we like, eat and drink whenever we want. When in port, we can venture out on our own.

Never on a river cruise either, but I read that it is just a glorified bus tour, and it also costs more. Same thing about sightseeing by following a guide holding up a flag.
Nooo....

The way you describe the bus tours - it sounds like fun!


Anyone want to sign up for a tour?

 

[5Miler]

I've been on over 40 cruises with the next one scheduled for 10 days in the UK this September and another in March next year in the Caribbean. I've also been on several bus tours and basically enjoyed them so much we wanted to do another one this year but our other trips got in the way. We will do it next year with a group of friends. We also do land vacations for weeks at a time with the longest being 5 weeks, usually to a dive destination.

We are not particular about how we vacation as long as we enjoy ourselves. Not a fan of lengthy car vacations but have been known to partake on occasion. I don't ever recall following anyone leading us with a big flag though. On the bus tours we were typically able to venture out on our own and always spent two or more nights at one hotel/resort several times during the tour. Many meals were on our own as were evening libations.

 

[Sweetlip]

I've been on over 40 cruises with the next one scheduled for 10 days in the UK this September and another in March next year in the Caribbean.

All of the TV advertisements that I ever see for ocean cruises only ever show one or two couples on board. I wonder if that is really the case.

 

[TheWizard]

retired at 47, 4 years later, I just can't spend money.

Have you tried flying to the UK for ten days of sightseeing and whatnot?

 

[Badger]

NO! No bus tour! I would take a cruise over a bus tour anytime.

Never been on a bus tour in my life, but I know what it entails from talking to people. Up early at 6AM, luggage set outside the room for pickup. Breakfast, then sit in a bus for a few hours to some place for a quick sightseeing by following a guide holding up a flag, then back on the bus to someplace else for lunch. Then back on the bus for another brief stop somewhere before being dropped off at a hotel to freshen up before dinner. Rinse and repeat the next day, and the next day... Noooo...

At least on a cruise ship, we can stay in bed as late as we like, go to bed whenever we like, eat and drink whenever we want. When in port, we can venture out on our own.

Never on a river cruise either, but I read that it is just a glorified bus tour, and it also costs more. Same thing about sightseeing by following a guide holding up a flag.
Nooo....

+1
The closest we have come to a bus tour are a few I scheduled independent from the cruise we were taking. The "bus" was a Mercedes van that only held 8. I have no interest in sitting in a bus made for 35-50 passengers. Waiting for the tour rep to gather all the passengers to board for the next quick stop was like watching them herd cats.

Cheers!

 

[JoeWras]

Bus tours have plus and minus. Done a few. Last one may have been our last. The regimented schedule gets old.

Oh, and on our last tour, we became the COVID bus. Now that was a lot of fun...

 

[Koolau]

Last year, we did a one-day free bus tour to our State Fair. It was put on by (wait for it) a funeral home. SO a bunch of old geezers like me go for a day at the State Fair. Lots of fun, no one got lost. Left and returned on time. Great time. YMMV