eyeonFI
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2005
- Messages
- 105
I plan for about $55k. That's single with 2 young kids in a high cost area (but house, car, and kids' college tuition is already paid for).
Just seems like every month it's something new that hits from a one-off perspective. One month its a large dental bill, next month its a full AC replacement, next month we did a vacation, next month.......and so it goes.
I got to wondering how much income do you think you need to retire. Here are my criteria. "In order for me to retire comfortably, I think I need $xx,xxx, before tax, inflation adjusted income per year."
This is not just 'how much to cover expenses' but how much you think you need to live comfortably, pay bills, travel, etc.
Fine? I'll say.This thread is comforting. We have income of 77,000 with social security and pension without drawing anything from investments. I'm one of those who worries about running out of money, but it looks like we should be fine in our low cost area.
Is this the under a bridge option?Excluding rent $15k.
Is that for one or two?
Our needs are similar to yours $80-90K before taxes. We probably can do it on $65-70k but we really don't want to. We enjoy eating out, a nice bottle of wine every week, attending sporting events and plays every now and then and taking a few trips a year.I answered $100-125K, based on the OP's description. I was a bit surprised to see only 9% in that category. The reality for us is $80-100K, excluding income taxes. And that's fairly comprehensive, with decent allowances for travel, entertainment, hobbies, and periodic one-shots, like car replacements and home improvements/repairs. We'd like to go a little higher on travel, which is the only reason I rounded up. But we're in that early stage of retirement (53-54) where we want to travel extensively, but are also nervous about spending too much too soon, and potentially screwing up the whole plan.
I'm also surprised and impressed by the large number who answered $25-50K. I sometimes wonder if those numbers are truly comprehensive, especially in the area of periodic one-shots. But more importantly, it always makes me pause to think about our lifestyle and expenses. With the possible exception of our house (which will be downsized at some point), I don't consider our lifestyle to be out of the ordinary at all, and certainly not luxurious. We are seasoned scrimpers on recurring expenses, like cars, TV, phones, utilities, groceries. But, in addition to travel and hobbies, we do enjoy concerts, sporting events, a decent bottle of wine now and then, eating out with friends and family a couple times a week, and helping the kids in small ways. Subtract all that... and the result is not really what I had in mind for retirement.
It is hard to come up with a number for us because we don't really know what we will do once DW retires. If we decide to continue renting in or near San Francisco, I think that $125K-150K would be a good target. If we move elsewhere in the US (somewhere in the southeast probably) and purchase a cheap home, $75K-$100K might be sufficient. And if we move back to Europe, $50K-$75K might be plenty comfortable. Right now we are shooting for $120K-$150K in order to keep our options open.
Our houses and cars are paid for, but where we are property taxes and living costs are among the highest in the country. Plus health care expenses need to be budgeted in as neither of our current jobs offers retirement health insurance. Our current annual expenses are at mid 200k, with company provided health insurance. When we ER, although we can scale back parts of living expenses, we will have to buy insurance on our own. Plus we'd like to travel... So all in all, I would say we need $200k/yr of income to retire, and that gives us some room to cut back if necessary.
Is no one else curious about this $200+ annual expenses?
Can we see a rough breakdown of this?
What are these expenses of over $16,000 a month?
Country club dues?
To quote the White Quote Investor- “If you can’t live on $200,000 a year, you have a spending problem, not an earning problem."
Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum