Reply to Post-retirement spending

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Post-retirement spending"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've been retired for a little under a decade and just turned 60.  My spouse stayed at home and our kids are long out of college and launched so she is retired as well.  We still have a mortgage because we have a very low interest rate so there's no reason to pay it off.  We live a very, very nice life in the DMV, with a home in a highly desirable part of the city and a second home in the country where we also spend a large amount of time.  I track my expenses with the personal cap app.

Removing mortgage payments from our expenses -- because I know others will insist on paying theirs off before retiring, for whatever (often irrational) reason -- here are our average yearly expenses for the last three years, from highest to lowest:

Taxes (federal and DC income and DC and second home property taxes):  35k

Healthcare (premiums, deductibles and all out of pockets): 28k

Home maintenance (for both the DC and second home, including cleaning services, lawn services, swimming pool maintenance in the second home, and all general maintenance on both houses):  26k

General merchandise (basically every "thing" we buy):  18k

Travel:  13k (average probably lower than the past because of covid)

Car (gas and maintenance, including buying a late model used one):  14k

Groceries:  12k

Restaurants:  8k

Utilities:  7k

Cable/internet:  5k

Gifts:  4k

Insurance (home & auto):  3.5k

Phones:  3.3k

Miscellaneous (assistance to elderly mother, entertainment, cash withdrawals from ATMs, gifts to charity, clothing):  6k

TOTAL per year average:  $183k

So, for $183k a year, we are paying our taxes, paying for health care, managing to high end homes, traveling, eating out, buying decent cars, helping out our mother, etc.  It's a very nice life, and it's affordable.

Some DCUM posters worry too much.[/quote]

How do you manage to pay so little federal and state tax on 150k in income
[/quote]

Careful planning and relying on capital gains rather than withdrawing from my retirement accounts as much as possible.  My tax bill really varies each year depending on how well I manage to do that.  For example, for the year that just ended my federal tax bill is less than $500.  The year before it was more like $40k.[/quote]

This will change when you hit RMDs.[/quote]

Tell me something I don’t know.  I’m also 15 years away.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics