How much do you actually spend each month in retirement?

[William38]

Hey folks,
I’m in the early stages of retirement and trying to get a real-world sense of what monthly spending actually looks like. Most of the online calculators give me wild estimates, but I’d rather hear it straight from people who are living it.

If you're comfortable sharing — how much do you typically spend in a month during retirement? Has it been more or less than you expected? What surprised you the most about your retirement budget?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Montecfo]

Between $8k and $12k, average around $10k.

We are spending about as planned, but we keep changing the plans to spend more, as we were very conservative with a low withdrawal rate.

This was by design as we are travelling a lot.

What surprised me the most was how hard it is to increase spending very much in the aggregate. We spend more when we travel but probably less than expected when home.

But honestly our spending plans were not super detailed. We just knew the expected total.

 

[Onda]

That number will be dictated by your finances — unless you’ve got $50M+ stashed away, in which case you’ll probably underspend and just worry about which beach house needs new patio furniture. For the rest of us, it's all about balancing comfort with sustainability.

18k-29k a month before taxes at current market value./dividend yield

 

[Dtail]

123k yearly budget, so around 10k monthly all in. However for the first 7 years of retirement we were averaging 80k to 95k.

 

[mrfeh]

Hey folks,
I’m in the early stages of retirement and trying to get a real-world sense of what monthly spending actually looks like. Most of the online calculators give me wild estimates, but I’d rather hear it straight from people who are living it.

If you're comfortable sharing — how much do you typically spend in a month during retirement? Has it been more or less than you expected? What surprised you the most about your retirement budget?

Thanks in advance!

Not sure how responses are going to help you. Your expenses are your expenses, and whatever somebody else spends isn't relevant.

Online calculators aren't going to be much help either. What you need to spend each month should be a number you already know.

 

[Al18]

My retirement expenses are about 70% of my working expenses. The 30% difference is from not contributing to my retirement savings, much lower gas and car maintenance/replacement expense and taxes dropped about 50%. In retirement, I spend slightly more on vacations and restaurants.

 

[hesperus]

That covers groceries, utilities, a bit of dining out, and some fun stuff like local trips or hobbies. It’s actually a bit less than I expected, I thought travel would eat up more, but I’ve found plenty of free or cheap ways to stay busy.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Spend appx. 2.77% of our NAV. The account is growing at a 14-year average of 7.02% since retirement. The spend ratio has decreased every year since retirement although the budget allocation has increased each year. We are not big spenders but we get what we want when we want it. No conspicuous consumption has been our life style.

 

[ransil]

I started a spreadsheet to track expenses cause we had no idea we are at but looks like $5200 for the last 2 years with this year tracking $200 lower , we don't do % or anything just spend what is necessary.

 

[Car-Guy]

It can vary a lot from year to year. Depends on if I buy a new car (usually do) and how my trips to the casinos go. This year has been great, "so far". If I don't count either of those, our base spend is probably only ~10 to 12k month. That's a guess since I don't really track any of our spending.

 

[Jerry1]

Hey folks,
I’m in the early stages of retirement and trying to get a real-world sense of what monthly spending actually looks like. Most of the online calculators give me wild estimates, but I’d rather hear it straight from people who are living it.

If you're comfortable sharing — how much do you typically spend in a month during retirement? Has it been more or less than you expected? What surprised you the most about your retirement budget?

Thanks in advance!

Early stages? Of planning, or actual retirement. If you’re planning, you have time. If you’re in retirement, you need to get on this and even see if you can look back into your history. You need to track your expenses and have a very good understanding on what you’re spending. In pre retirement planning, you make some subtractions for work related expenses you’ll no longer have and some additions for life changes like more travel, different house . . . The more detail and effort you put into this exercise, the more confident you’ll be in your numbers.

As for me, it has been very much what I expected and, thankfully, I haven’t had any big surprises. Though, I also built in a pretty good cushion into my planning. Retirement isn’t a good time to be living on the edge.

 

[COcheesehead]

We spend what we want without a 4% rule or other spending strategy in place. I back our spending into a percentage of retirement assets just for giggles. Last month it was 2.2%

 

[Tadpole]

This is 2024 spending per month. (So far, I am spending a little more this year.) The RMD makes my monthly tax burden larger than my spending. The tax used includes federal income tax, state sales tax estimate and property tax.

-$5,605.32​	avg monthly spending including taxes
-$2,550.93​	avg monthly spending without taxes

 

[Ronstar]

About $10k per month for both of us.

 

[Surewhitey]

We're spending ~$75k annually after Covid and inflation of recent years (in DFW). We do a good amount of travel although still w*rking 4 days / wk. I suspect that will increase to $100-120k when we pull the plug, for the first 15-20 years, then taper off a bit.

 

[sparky08]

Our nondiscretionary spending is about $5K. (Heating/cooling,electric,taxes.food,etc.).

The rest is a bucket for home repairs, travel, eating out. That's around $5K per month also.

 

[target2019]

My monthly spending will not help you determine your monthly spending.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

We draw $5,000 per month from our investments to personal checking to pay bills. This covers everything except income tax. That's another $4,000 per month, paid quarterly to Fed & State.

I should point out we have no mortgage or personal debt.

If we have a major purchase we'll pull a lump sum. We don't have a budget. This comes to about 1.5% of our assets annually. SS to start in 2 years, we plan on giving/donating that when the time comes.

 

[FiveDriver]

Will --
Did you develop a monthly budget before you retired ? That should be your starting point, and then highlighting everything work-related should get you a baseline retirement number going forward.
Adjust from there.

Fixed Expenses on one side of the budget (PITI, HVAC, Water & Sewer,etc). Flexible Expenses on the other side (Food, Clothing, Cars, Fun).

 

[imjustawarrior]

Hey folks,
I’m in the early stages of retirement and trying to get a real-world sense of what monthly spending actually looks like. Most of the online calculators give me wild estimates, but I’d rather hear it straight from people who are living it.

If you're comfortable sharing — how much do you typically spend in a month during retirement? Has it been more or less than you expected? What surprised you the most about your retirement budget?

Thanks in advance!

What is your monthly spend?

 

[DrRoy]

In our first year of RE, 2017, it was a little under $9k/mo, up from 7k
the year before as we increased travel and bought a car. Now, with nicely higher NW, it is over $13/mo, with much fairly lavish travel and other BTD. After a small pension, WR < 2%.

 

[TheWizard]

My monthly spending will not help you determine your monthly spending.

Same here.
I spend about $3500 per month on income taxes but have no mortgage or other debt.
Beyond that, it varies considerably based on travel expenses mostly, from $2000 to maybe $10,000 per month.
It would work better computing annual spending...

 

[TickTock]

We're maintaining pre-retirement lifestyle. Monthly spend is roughly the same as pre-retirement, minus lower taxes, plus increased health insurance costs. No big surprises.

As others have said, you need to understand your spending and how it might change in retirement. Other folks' spend is likely not relevant to yours.

 

[aja8888]

Single widower here.

Since readjusting my life after DW passed (downsizing, etc), I am spending about $3 K per month without gifting to DD or buying big ticket items. We are all different.

All in, I guess with taxes (went up), gifting, vacations, etc about $75 K.

 

[mountainsoft]

In our first couple years of retirement, we have spent about $4500-5000 per month. This is right about where I estimated before we retired.

I downloaded all of our transaction data and tracked our spending in detail the 7 years or so before we retired. So I had a pretty good idea of what our typical expenses were. We're actually spending a bit more now than when working due to various car/home repairs and some travel. But I expected that and made it part of our plan.