What percentage of your working income do you spend in retirement?

[SteveR]

As you can see there is a lot of variance in the answers here on" how much will I spend in retirement?" Like Nords and some others said, it all depends on your expenses...especially after you retire.

I have annual expenses broken every way to Sunday for the past 10+ years.

I did projections using many different life-style wants/needs to see where we might spend $$$ over the next 30-35 years. Lots of spreadsheets with moving budget numbers based on multiple factors.

So far 3 years into retirement things have fallen into various grey areas that were not fully accounted for in the planning:
* The stock market and economy tail spin so early in retirement.
* Starting a business and self funding it
* Drop in real estate market
* Support for some family members in unusual circumstances

Our post retirement spending has not been the same in any of the three years; but it looks like it is finally stabilizing at a level we planned on. Income has been close to our projections.

Long term expenses should be close to our plan. Income will still depend on stock market performance over the long haul.

We still have a mortgage but that is our only debt. We have a lot of equity (even in the current market) and our mortgage helps offset some taxes for a while. We plan on downsizing in 5-10 years and having no mortgage and our plan reflects this change in expenses.

Unless you are really well off a plan of some sort is essential to determining what you will spend for the rest of your life. But my plan will be different from your plan. The key is to do your own calculations and projections in several ways to see how you want to live in ER and then see which option you can afford. Repeat often.

 

[Ronnieboy]

It makes sense that if you spend your time spending instead of making money, you're going to need more money to spend.

Too true, I notice now when I have a day off we might go out to lunch then hit a movie, do some shopping, by the end of the day we have spent $$$. I figure I should have worked and made some money instead. I can only imagine what type of hole we will put ourselves in if I had everyday off

 

[kumquat]

In my working days I used to average about $X/yr (salary and bonus). Today we probably spend $X/yr. That means our current spending, excluding income taxes, is about equal to my gross income before ER. A lot of this is discretionary (like gifts to kids) but like danmar, we find we have much more than we needed. We'll worry about it if our spending ever hits 4% of portfolio.

 

[albundyz]

I've been retired exactly 4 years.

married, children gone, house paid off now, age = 59, southern california

we're living on about 65% of our pre-retirement income.

part of that reduction is due to downsizing our house.

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biggest missed estimate? I never realized how much we'd be driving. Our mileage actually increased after we retired. We can sit at home and watch TV or we can get out and enjoy our hobbies. We chose the hobbies, but wow on mileage.

 

[FIREd]

We are spending about 17% of the combined gross income we used to earn when we were both working. Since I retired, we have been spending the equivalent of 25% of my wife's current gross income.

Our expenses have decreased (slightly) since I retired. I drive less, so we save on gas. I have more time to plan our meals, so we spend less on food. And, I found out, work stress used to induce quite a bit of frivolous spending on my part. My hobbies are fairly cheap, so I haven't seen much increase in that department.