How much do you actually spend each month in retirement?

I kept track of our after tax spending for the three years of so prior to retirement.

What we spend is hardly relevant to anyone else. Retirement spending is based on lifestyle, personal preferences, housing, COL where one happens to live, etc. A number to number comparison would be meaningless.

Not by category-just bottom line number per year.

All monies,incling credit card payments, autopays, go through our current account. It was a simple process to review the monthly bank statements, add up those amounts, plus the infrequent ATM withdrawals. I added 10 percent for errors and ommissions. Very fast, very easy. I still do this in retirement.

Then we adjusted for change of lifestyle. Travel, etc.

Yes, there were puts and takes however I was focused on the bigger picture vs individual daily spend components.

Even though we made some signifcant changes in lifestyle, living etc shortly after retirements our calculations have held fairly true for the past 13 or so years, adjusted for inflation with some E&O margin. Sometimes travel purchases were expensed in one year but realized in the next. But...the 'lumps' all evened out.
 
Last edited:
I have 2 children in college and 1 in HS. I doubt how much I spend would help anyone. I may also buy 2 new cars this year. I think this year will be on average $30-35k/month. It will probably be higher because I will also do some Roth conversions.
 
OP--what is your current spend/budget? That is where you start.
Have you run firecalc?

What others spend may not help you as we all have different savings, some have pensions and or SS income also.

I have tracked our spending for years, both before and during retirement. It is something I simply enjoy doing. It also lets me follow trends up or down or one offs.
 
I've been retired for about 6 months. I analyzed my spending for last few years to come up with a reasonable expense budget. I've also used calculators like firecalc to come up with a maximum spending. Of 6 months of retirement, only one month came in under the budget. The rest were quite a bit more, but we have been doing a ton of traveling and had lots of one-off things like car repairs. I fretted about it for the first couple months, but all months are coming in under the maximum spending target from firecalc, so I've learned to not worry about it. In these early years we really want to maximize enjoyment so we're willing to spend a little more.
 
We are in the low range for monthly expenses. Even with all the increases lately (medigap plans, utilities and groceries) a typical month costs us about $3200. This does not include withholding for taxes which is another $250. Also not included is Medicare Part B of $370 ($185 each) which comes out of our Social Security.

So that's $3820 when those are included.

No mortgage, no car payments, no other debt. Our area used to be a lower cost of living area but I know many things have increased around here.

DH's COLAed pension still covers our needs. The 3% fixed COLA has made all the difference in being able to keep up with inflation. The Cost Of Living Adjustment is doing exactly what it's supposed to do!

Both DH and I like being home, so there is no travel budget.
 
Single, no mortgage or debt. Averaged $5600 monthly last year all inclusive. Monthly spend ranged from $2927 to $11844 in March when I had property taxes, umbrella insurance, car insurance and some medical expenses. I spend much more in retirement than I did when I worked. More time to do stuff.
 
TheWizard said:
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...
Click to expand...
Our monthly expenses are usually covered by three retirement checks. If I tell OP an average monthly spend, what does that mean to anyone?
 
It depends. My monthly expenses can vary from $900 to $9,000 according to the spreadsheet. Larger spendings are mostly due to property tax which is $15K annually, health care expenses and travel.
 
I accrue/amortize large known expenses on a monthly basis. Just me with my math.
 
target2019 said:
Our monthly expenses are usually covered by three retirement checks. If I tell OP an average monthly spend, what does that mean to anyone?
Click to expand...
Very little.
There *might* be some utility in having a spreadsheet with several dozen detailed categories of expenses. I'm not sure...
 
About $4k/mth for the basics. Vacations and other misc. expenditures are on top of that.
 
This is one of the many things I have been tracking. We retired in mid-2015 but I didn't get the tracking spreadsheets working until 2017:

20174000
20184500
20195500
20206000
20215800
20225100
20237100
20247500
20256600

Increases are due to inflation, lifestyle creep, and each year passing is one less year for planning.

2021-2022 were the Covid era - not much to spend money on!

BrianB
 
This type of questions is not very helpful. It is like to ask people how much they make each month. Different people have different answers, which are usually not relevent to others. If you have a lot of money, you (could) spend a lot of money, if you don't have much money, you spend less and life goes on.
 
We are at $5800 a month Plus or Minus. However I withdraw up to the top of the 12% tax bracket and put what isn't spent into a Roth Conversion, which is $50k to $60k. There were 4 years where we gifted $60k to my daughter and son in law to pay for my daughters Dental education and one year where we bought my son a house. This year we came very close to buying a $30k to $40k used car and then changed our mind. I think at this point spending on the kids is all done and we will need a newer vehicle in the next few years. So, about $70k a year with some bumpy years. With our SS and 4%, we could spend twice as much, or more since I don't expect to live to 100!
 
flyingaway said:
This type of questions is not very helpful. It is like to ask people how much they make each month. Different people have different answers, which are usually not relevant to others. If you have a lot of money, you (could) spend a lot of money, if you don't have much money, you spend less and life goes on.
Click to expand...
And some people live on only $21,000 of SS.
 
Read this:

Some Important Questions to Answer Before Asking - Can I Retire?

1. What are your expenses? No, your real expenses that you have tracked carefully over a period of at least two years, not some rough estimate that you just pulled out of thin air. If you don't know where your spending flow goes now, you've got no business turning off the income flow. 2. Are...
www.early-retirement.org www.early-retirement.org

Note that nowhere in that very helpful post does it say to ask other people what they are spending. But hey, if you think getting answers from strangers ranging from around $5K $2K to $40K is helpful information, have at it. I've seen much lower numbers on this board too but they haven't chimed in (edit: one just did), and neither will I. I find it almost as funny that many here dutifully answer the question even though it can't possibly help the OP.
 
Last edited:
William38 said:
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!
Click to expand...
I spend about 2k a month. That doesn’t include big “one offs” like the 18k HVAC replacement a few years back. Single, no kids, 20 years retired in the Bay Area. My expenses will go up when I hit Medicare age.
 
William38 said:
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!
Click to expand...

target2019 said:
My monthly spending will not help you determine your monthly spending.
Click to expand...
target2019's advice is very true. For example, since retirement, we average about $10K a month. Less taxes - somewhat "inflated" due to Roth conversions, and impacted by state and property taxes specific to our location - it is about $8K a month. That less charity and gifts - which people can choose to do at various levels, or not do at all - falls to 6K a month. That less vacations, recreation, entertainment - which people also choose to do in different forms and different levels - lowers it to 4.6K a month. That average still smooths out variable major items like HVAC replacement and car purchases. Then there's medical, as people can have different medical experiences, which will impact spending further. And, we paid off our mortgage about 2 years into retirement, which not everyone does.

But, none of what we spend will tell you what you should or could spend. As others as mentioned, figure out what your retirement income is going to be (or what you want it to be), and figure out what you want to spend your money on. If you are in the "early stages", and are not tracking your current spending, start tracking it now. Factor in what you want to spend in retirement that you may not be spending now (like purchasing replacement or additional appliances/cars or more travel), and remove what you likely will now be spending on (like one time major renovations done while working) to get a better estimate. I did this (looking back on 5 and ten years spending), and our average monthly spending is actually a little lower far than we expected so far (biggest reasons for that was medical expenses being less than we thought and the pandemic).
 
I spend an average of around $1000/mo. I saw one post of spending of $32K/mo. So somewhere between those two numbers. Hope that's helpful.

Others people's spending has nothing to do with your spending.
 
Not a useful question. It depends on your lifestyle, what is important to you, and what you can afford. If you live your life like ours, then you are looking at $20K a month. If we cannot afford our lifestyle, we are looking at spending $10K and get rid of travel and golf, where the other $10K is going to.
 
target2019 said:
My monthly spending will not help you determine your monthly spending.
Click to expand...


It will for us.


Our monthly budget is $3350. That includes food, gas, utilities insurance, property tax and money we give to family ($750). We're both very frugal coming from somewhat poor childhoods and neither of us is inclined to ever go back. We rarely travel besides getting in the car and trying to get lost and we almost never eat out. We have no idea how to spend money except looking for a vacation home (which we have yet to buy). We have around $2.4 in investments at 54 and possibly another $900 - $1.5 if wife can ever sell her company stock which is only sellable thru an event such as going public, sale of company or special one time offering. No debt. Seeing what others spend helps gives us a rough guide to what we should probably be spending.


Maybe if we ever get a vacation place we can buy a nice fishing boat. I hear that will take care of any excess money you have and then some.
 
And by the way are we the only 2 people who have no desire to travel? It seems that is what you should do when you retire but it's just not appealing to us. If we do go anywhere it's to visit family or them to visit us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Vacation Home, Lake Place, How Much$
2
Stormy Kromer
S
M
Switching from saving to spending, how did you do it?
5 6 7
COcheesehead
COcheesehead
P
It seems like I'm dealing with "Funny Money," but it is my life savings!
planuntilthefisthits
P
corn18
How much money have you made life to date?
2 3 4
FedRetired50
F
M
Trying to figure out when I can tap a retirement account???
2 3 4
MrBojangles
M

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom