Retirement Expenses - Steady or Declining?

[MarieIG]

Here here!

I'd love to be one of those women who can comfortably leave the house bare faced, but I'm not. I'd rather eat nails. Am I silly? I don't care.

I put beauty stuff in the "it makes me feel good and I'm not getting younger so why not" category. I have always loved finding a good gift-with-purchase, too. And a spa facial is a mini vacation, much like a massage. I recently had my dermatologist laser off some redness and discoloration that was making me self-conscious.

That said I'm no fool, and nothing is going to reverse time. But if I can afford it and enjoy it, it's no one's business, just like any other discretionary expense.

Exactly!

 

[corn18]

$280 for a haircut (there is some magic sauce that makes it a desirable color). Apparently if you are a hair stylist you can charge more than a barber.

$80 for a trip to the Mani/Pedi place.

The number of bottles of goo we have in the shower is staggering.

All seems silly to me as my wife is beautiful without all that stuff.

But it makes her happy, so the budget stays as is.

 

[Calico]

I track every transaction in my spreadsheet so I know where it is all going. Makes me wonder what we are thinking sometimes.

Your spreadsheet contains a category labeled "Misc" for $900/month.

Does your detailed tracking include this category?

 

[corn18]

Your spreadsheet contains a category labeled "Misc" for $900/month.

Does your detailed tracking include this category?

It does. Any trips to Target go in there. Wife gets cat litter and cleaning supplies there. I should break it up but I am lazy. Also includes anything that doesn't fit well somewhere else. I put a note in the cell with what the charge was for.

 

[Calico]

It does. Any trips to Target go in there. Wife gets cat litter and cleaning supplies there. I should break it up but I am lazy. Also includes anything that doesn't fit well somewhere else. I put a note in the cell with what the charge was for.

Ahh yes. The Target (aka misc) category. I'm familiar with this one, although on a much, much smaller scale!

 

[Moemg]

I am 72 . Beauty has stayed the same . Good eye cream is expensive and you need better cosmetics as you age forget pharmacy specials .Hair cuts have inched up along with hair tint . We don't but a lot of seniors eat out constantly . I can see a cleaning lady in the not too distant future .Clothes have also stayed the same . Seniors have active social lives . Grandchildren are expensive but great .The only thing that has lowered is travel .

 

[LastOfTheBoomers]

New car every 5 years - maybe bump that to 7 or 10 years.
Our budget has been the same - as one item went down another item went up - I would plan/aim for the same spending you have now rather than lowering it.

 

[corn18]

New car every 5 years - maybe bump that to 7 or 10 years.
Our budget has been the same - as one item went down another item went up - I would plan/aim for the same spending you have now rather than lowering it.

Since we plan to have 2 cars, the new car every 5 years means we buy a new car when one of them is 10 years old. We don't care about cars that much, so keeping them longer is certainly ok with us.

I do plan to keep spending level, but we are working through what we should start with. What I explain to my wife is that $1,000 a year in extra spending means an extra $30k required to retire. If we cut $10k / year from our fat budget now, that is $250k less we have to save. That could mean the difference between retiring at 55 (my goal) and 56 or 57 (we save a lot each year).

This is what I am proposing to my wife:

 

[corn18]

One thing I forgot to mention was travel. Right now we are planning $25k from 55-70, @12.5k from 70-80 and $6.3k from 80-dead. Does that sound reasonable?

 

[tmm99]

My expenses were flat the first couple of years but I have raised some by choice as my asset is still growing.

 

[ncbill]

Here here!

I'd love to be one of those women who can comfortably leave the house bare faced, but I'm not. I'd rather eat nails. Am I silly? I don't care.

I put beauty stuff in the "it makes me feel good and I'm not getting younger so why not" category. I have always loved finding a good gift-with-purchase, too. And a spa facial is a mini vacation, much like a massage. I recently had my dermatologist laser off some redness and discoloration that was making me self-conscious.

That said I'm no fool, and nothing is going to reverse time. But if I can afford it and enjoy it, it's no one's business, just like any other discretionary expense.

And remember, it's not just ladies...we guys get older, too:

 

[Dtail]

One thing I forgot to mention was travel. Right now we are planning $25k from 55-70, @12.5k from 70-80 and $6.3k from 80-dead. Does that sound reasonable?

Based on your overall numbers, these travel numbers appear reasonable.

 

[DogGone]

I’m a little younger than you and just FIREd a few months ago.

At first glance without my spreadsheets, it looks near to ours. I’ll check later.

Except Medical... with two teenagers, I still expect to pay about $1800 a month in premiums and about $3600 a year in deductibles and misc... or $2100 a month until the kids leave.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Since we plan to have 2 cars, the new car every 5 years means we buy a new car when one of them is 10 years old. We don't care about cars that much, so keeping them longer is certainly ok with us.

I do plan to keep spending level, but we are working through what we should start with. What I explain to my wife is that $1,000 a year in extra spending means an extra $30k required to retire. If we cut $10k / year from our fat budget now, that is $250k less we have to save. That could mean the difference between retiring at 55 (my goal) and 56 or 57 (we save a lot each year).

This is what I am proposing to my wife:

Just my 2 cents.... but an extra year of being retired (365 free days!) to me is pretty invaluable. Plus we find being retired it just costs much less to live the same lifestyle as before with time for more home cooking, price shopping, bargains and freebies, etc. When we look back at our credit card bills before we were working and just laugh about what morons we were and how much stupid spending we used to do. Being retired earlier would have brought so much more happiness and we wouldn't have so much stuff to have to declutter now.

This week we're seeing a regional play at a play house that is kind of a hidden gem - nice tax payer built theater and high quality productions for $15 tickets on Goldstar, going out with friends for a half price special at a local restaurant, and seeing a concert with free tickets from the library. I just find it kind of fun to look for bargains and see how much we can do without spending a fortune, and I have the time to do it now. Last night we had shrimp pad thai for dinner. It tasted better than what we usually get in restaurants, and I bought the base ingredients for $1 on a closeout special and the shrimp on a $5 a pound Friday special.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Corn, you could cut many of your expenses and retire much earlier. I can’t imagine spending 900/month on miscellaneous. Plus doing so won’t reduce your quality of life. Once retired we had time to shop around for the best deals and without working expenses should go down.

 

[corn18]

Corn, you could cut many of your expenses and retire much earlier. I can’t imagine spending 900/month on miscellaneous. Plus doing so won’t reduce your quality of life. Once retired we had time to shop around for the best deals and without working expenses should go down.

I know, right? That $900 a month translates to $270k of extra savings required to retire.

The issue we are having now is downsizing our house. We are moving to be near our kids. Probably won't live there forever but might be a while. The two of us are currently living in a 4600 sq ft McMansion. We don't even go upstairs where the media room, game room and 3 bedrooms are. I budgeted $500k for our next house. Well, seems momma can't find anything she would be willing to live in that costs less than $700k. And she wants to have a budget for renovation and more furniture. Oh my. I found a few that were $450k that I thought were ridiculously huge for 2 people (4k sq ft). We'll see how this goes. We are house hunting while we are with the kids for Thanksgiving this week.

 

[Dtail]

I know, right? That $900 a month translates to $270k of extra savings required to retire.

The issue we are having now is downsizing our house. We are moving to be near our kids. Probably won't live there forever but might be a while. The two of us are currently living in a 4600 sq ft McMansion. We don't even go upstairs where the media room, game room and 3 bedrooms are. I budgeted $500k for our next house. Well, seems momma can't find anything she would be willing to live in that costs less than $700k. And she wants to have a budget for renovation and more furniture. Oh my. I found a few that were $450k that I thought were ridiculously huge for 2 people (4k sq ft). We'll see how this goes. We are house hunting while we are with the kids for Thanksgiving this week.

Good thing you earn a very good living. haha
We have 4 of us living in a 2,886 sq ft house and I think that is plenty large.

 

[Katsmeow]

The issue we are having now is downsizing our house. We are moving to be near our kids. Probably won't live there forever but might be a while. The two of us are currently living in a 4600 sq ft McMansion. We don't even go upstairs where the media room, game room and 3 bedrooms are. I budgeted $500k for our next house. Well, seems momma can't find anything she would be willing to live in that costs less than $700k. And she wants to have a budget for renovation and more furniture. Oh my. I found a few that were $450k that I thought were ridiculously huge for 2 people (4k sq ft). We'll see how this goes. We are house hunting while we are with the kids for Thanksgiving this week.

If you are moving to be near kids there is sometimes a possibility they move away. You need to consider what you will do if that happens.

We used to have the big house similar to yours and had the same experience. Our current house we bought a year ago and was about 2200 SF although we are just completing some remodeling that will add a couple of hundred SF.

AS for $500k and $700k some of that just depends on the area. When we moved within the same state but a couple of hundred miles away, I had in mind paying about $350k for a house that would be smaller than the almost 3k SF house we had sold for more than that. Well. In the new area, we were going to be much closer in and things were more expensive. I couldn't possibly find anything for $350k in this area. We finally bought at $425k and we have since spent/are spending over $150k on remodeling and bringing the house to current levels (that is, we did things like replace the HVAC and the retaining wall that weren't exactly remodeling but were necessary to replace things that were very old). But -- in this area that was what we had to spend to get something remotely comparable to the quality of what we had before we moved. Of course, the older house was a beautiful house but 20 minutes away from the closest grocery store. Now, I have at least 5 grocery stores less than 10 minutes away.

So whether $500k is reasonable or not will depend on the market in that area not necessarily the market where you live now.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We actually downsized to 1400 sq ft and love it. The biggest house I ever lived in with 5 people was 2000. Good luck!

 

[Sunset]

Since we plan to have 2 cars, the new car every 5 years means we buy a new car when one of them is 10 years old. We don't care about cars that much, so keeping them longer is certainly ok with us.

.

At 70+ you really need to have 2 cars ??

Currently we have 2 cars, as we always had 2 cars. But I'm basically the driver, so I alternate cars so one does not rust in place.

I think we could go to 1 car, and just taxi if we ever needed to be in 2 different places at the same time.

Our mileage, is approx;
3K on 1 car,
8K on the other one that we use to drive for traveling which is about 5K of the 8K per year.

 

[ckelly78z]

At 54 years old we have 5 vehicles that are regularly driven, but all of them are 150,000+ well used cars;
-2006 Jeep Liberty wife's DD
-2004 Mustang GT convertible my DD
-1996 F150 wood hauler/farm truck
-2004 diesel Excursion family hauler/camper puller
-2002 BMW 325 convertible wife's former DD, currently blown head gasket.

All of these vehicles added together aren't worth what most folks eagerly pay for a new F150, that never gets used as a truck should be.

For retirement, I can't see us having less than 3 cars., but we haven't had car payments for 20 years, so....

 

[Mdlerth]

To everything there is a season, and a car for every purpose under heaven

At 70+ you really need to have 2 cars ??

Perhaps each car is specialized for a different application?

Not 70+ yet but we do now, and will continue to, own two "cars". One of them is a pickup truck we need for hauling trailers. (We have watercraft at the lake house.)

The other is a small crossover: DW's car. It's a bit small for launching boats, but it's much easier to park, gets twice the mpg, and it's loaded with the comfort features she enjoys.

I can't see this changing as long as we live at the lake.

 

[Bir48die]

Since we plan to have 2 cars, the new car every 5 years means we buy a new car when one of them is 10 years old. We don't care about cars that much, so keeping them longer is certainly ok with us.

I do plan to keep spending level, but we are working through what we should start with. What I explain to my wife is that $1,000 a year in extra spending means an extra $30k required to retire. If we cut $10k / year from our fat budget now, that is $250k less we have to save. That could mean the difference between retiring at 55 (my goal) and 56 or 57 (we save a lot each year).

This is what I am proposing to my wife:

Two things on this. First is me saving the $450/mth you spend on dogs. Probably goes right to my "vices" category. Second is when I did these budgets I had a decent clothes budget monthly. I revised that down 75% once I retired.

 

[mountainsoft]

We actually downsized to 1400 sq ft and love it. The biggest house I ever lived in with 5 people was 2000. Good luck!

Our current "forever home" is 1456 sq/ft. It's actually the largest home we have ever lived in. We had less than 800 sq/ft in the last two places we called home. My wife was one of eight kids in a 700 sq/ft house. I lived with my mom and step dad in a 240 sq/ft travel trailer for several years.

So we both feel like our 1456 sq/ft home is a mansion.

 

[mountainsoft]

At 70+ you really need to have 2 cars? Currently we have 2 cars, as we always had 2 cars.

We have always had two cars and I suspect we always will. For one it gives us independence to do our own thing when we want to. More importantly, we live in a rural area about 20 minutes from town. When one car has trouble (dead battery, etc.) we can still use the other car to go get parts, grocery shop, take care of emergencies, etc.

I'm sure we will use both cars less once we retire, but I still think we are going to want our own cars, despite the costs to fuel, maintain, and insure them.