How much annual budget do you need to feel comfortable in retirement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need at least $400k to cover costs which include membership at two clubs with hefty annual dues and minimum spend, property taxes, house upkeep, and elder care assistance for once set of parents, so that works out to roughly $10m in investible assets. It's nuts. If I were single, I could live on significantly less.

Mine is similar to this PP. If with DH, probably $350k-400k a year. Without him, $150k a year

I just went through figuring out the budget and our spend will be $300 a year plus taxes. We just had a cash flow analysis done and I am feeling better about it, but one interesting part of the analysis was showing maximum spend, which would be $500K a year in today's dollars. That means if I start spending that amount now and continue that every year (with added inflation), we will run out of money by the end of life. If we stay on course at our planned spending, we will die with almost double what we have in assets now.

yes, for most people if you are spending 500k/year, they will run out of money before they die. I mean that's no rocket science, right?

[Anonymous]

This isn’t a crowd sourcing question. If you plan to retire within the next year, what are you spending currently? Will your home be mortgage free? Will your children be educated?

My DS retired 7 years ago. Prior to this event, we did a 2 year deep dive on our current spending which expenses would be changing.

[Anonymous]

The problem isn’t retirement per se, I could live on $4k per month and be comfortable, the problem is elder care if/when you need it.
You are lucky if you are officially poor in a blue state and have kids who can navigate resources for you and oversee your care (you get free medical care and in home support paid for by the state). Otherwise you need a ton of money to pay for care! Assisted living is so expensive and memory care is just unconscionable.
People now live longer due to statins and BP meds and diabetic drugs but they don’t stay alert and relevant longer; their mind is gone in their 70s for many unfortunately (not talking about highly educated dcum elites). Even those who seem with it, slow down and need help to navigate this world and it costs a ton of money unless you have free care from either kids or the government.

[Anonymous]

Realistically I am looking at $1000 in SS honestly. I’ll have to move back to my home country most likely. I also hope to not live past 75.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Realistically I am looking at $1000 in SS honestly. I’ll have to move back to my home country most likely. I also hope to not live past 75.

I will have $900 from SS. It's actually enough to live in the old country. I have a paid off condo there, everyone has a garden, social worker in every town. I will try to help out others until I can't anymore. I know my parent volunteer to take people to hospital and so on.
I think it will be lovely to go back as aging here is expensive.
I want to live til 97 though. I want to see how the world changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need at least $400k to cover costs which include membership at two clubs with hefty annual dues and minimum spend, property taxes, house upkeep, and elder care assistance for once set of parents, so that works out to roughly $10m in investible assets. It's nuts. If I were single, I could live on significantly less.

Mine is similar to this PP. If with DH, probably $350k-400k a year. Without him, $150k a year

I just went through figuring out the budget and our spend will be $300 a year plus taxes. We just had a cash flow analysis done and I am feeling better about it, but one interesting part of the analysis was showing maximum spend, which would be $500K a year in today's dollars. That means if I start spending that amount now and continue that every year (with added inflation), we will run out of money by the end of life. If we stay on course at our planned spending, we will die with almost double what we have in assets now.

yes, for most people if you are spending 500k/year, they will run out of money before they die. I mean that's no rocket science, right?

PP here. The $500K spend would mean I wouldn't run out of money UNTIL end of life, not before end of life. It's just reassurance that my budget of $300K is sound and we can feel confident about it.

[Anonymous]

About $85,000 as a single person with a house in DC. Been retired for a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:our estimate is around 120k after tax money (or 150/160k before tax). we are in moco and thinking about moving out of county

If you are wanting to move out of MoCo due to MoCo taxes, you'd have to move out of MD. Every county in MD has county taxes. They don't vary that much.

We live in MoCo, and our retirement budget is exactly like yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need at least $400k to cover costs which include membership at two clubs with hefty annual dues and minimum spend, property taxes, house upkeep, and elder care assistance for once set of parents, so that works out to roughly $10m in investible assets. It's nuts. If I were single, I could live on significantly less.

Mine is similar to this PP. If with DH, probably $350k-400k a year. Without him, $150k a year

I just went through figuring out the budget and our spend will be $300 a year plus taxes. We just had a cash flow analysis done and I am feeling better about it, but one interesting part of the analysis was showing maximum spend, which would be $500K a year in today's dollars. That means if I start spending that amount now and continue that every year (with added inflation), we will run out of money by the end of life. If we stay on course at our planned spending, we will die with almost double what we have in assets now.

yes, for most people if you are spending 500k/year, they will run out of money before they die. I mean that's no rocket science, right?

PP here. The $500K spend would mean I wouldn't run out of money UNTIL end of life, not before end of life. It's just reassurance that my budget of $300K is sound and we can feel confident about it.

How much money do you have now?

[Anonymous]

I read a lot of different financial forums and this is the only one where people plan to spend this much in retirement. I don’t think these numbers are the norm. At all.

[Anonymous]

$40,000 would give me a happy life. No debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a lot of different financial forums and this is the only one where people plan to spend this much in retirement. I don’t think these numbers are the norm. At all.

This forum is packed with high earners, so numbers are higher here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$40,000 would give me a happy life. No debt.

Also no debt, but $40k covers my property taxes and insurance on my paid-off residence. I need a lot more to fund all my retirement plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are aiming for $20k/month or $240k/year. So, $8M at the 3% rule. We could definitely be happy with less but that's the goal.

We are planning to own one home (roughly $1.5m value in today's money) travel extensively and spend a lot of time with kids and grandchildren. No country clubs or second homes, aren't into designer products. Nice cars replaced every 7-8 years but not range rovers or anything.

We’ve been retired for ten years (wife was always a SAHM) and this is exactly what we live on. Our net worth is closer to $9M (before today’s crash ha ha) and has doubled since we retired (early, when I was 53).

Remember that you’ll be getting social security so you’re not going to need $8M necessarily to hit your number. We elected to take SS early and collect a combined 45k a year. We also have a basement rental in our DC home that brings in another 30k. So we’ve been able to live on $240k a year while our net worth continues to grow.

We have found it very easy and comfortable on this amount. We have a nice home in the city and a large second home maybe 90 minutes away. We have house cleaners and yard help, we travel abroad frequently, spoil the kids and grandkids, eat out whenever and whatever (always footing the bill), and basically don’t want for anything or really even have to think about money. It’s amazing how much more money you have when you’re no longer saving for retirement or spending on kids.

I wouldn’t say we live extravagantly, of course—we certainly don’t spend foolishly—but living on what we have has proven over ten years to be very easy. Maybe it helps that we were never the country club type when we were making money. You don’t miss what you never had—or wanted.

What do you estimate is your monthly spend on two paid-for homes? Ie: what do you spend on insurance/taxes, cleaners, yardwork and general upkeep?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Realistically I am looking at $1000 in SS honestly. I’ll have to move back to my home country most likely. I also hope to not live past 75.

I will have $900 from SS. It's actually enough to live in the old country. I have a paid off condo there, everyone has a garden, social worker in every town. I will try to help out others until I can't anymore. I know my parent volunteer to take people to hospital and so on.
I think it will be lovely to go back as aging here is expensive.
I want to live til 97 though. I want to see how the world changes.

Yes, my plan is to find a nice social worker and pay her extra to help me with things that aren’t part of the help paid for by the state. I have a very run down condo there and I’ll either update it or sell and buy a better one.

As for living past 75, unfortunately most seniors I see who are older just require too much “maintenance” and are always aching, they are also losing sharpness of mind. It’s just sad. I’ll probably change my mind though which is also sad