retired folks. do you spend more or less now?

[vash]

i'm been crunching numbers.

looking at my savings, etc.. the biggest unknown for me is how much money i will be spending. my home will be paid off easily by then..earlier actually.

my wife is much younger than me, but we assumed she will retire at the same time as me.. she could keep working a few years just in case, but for the most part we want to be together during retirement.

without a mortgage payment it seems like i would be spending less. but not so sure.

our health is covered pretty much till death.

[recycled sixtie]

I have been tracking expenses for about twelve years or so. What impacts me is the effect of inflation. The cost of living for much of everything especially utilities, property taxes, food etc are creeping up. This is one reason why I am spending more than when I was working.

If you are not a big spender when you are working then you will likely be the same when you retire. A good fee only financial planner can tell you where you are at in terms of retirement.

An occasional used car purchase is discretional but the cost of living of just living is creeping up. Yes to answer your question we do spend more in retirement but is due to the increased cost of living.

[LakeCleElum]

Retired 13 years ago at age 52. Wife retired 4 years later at age 56. We spend more as we have more time to travel, eat out, etc.

Due to cheap health insurance tied to our previous careers, no mortgage, no car payments, etc, we live well within our means and continue to save money each month.

If you can retire with cheap health insurance, no mortgage, no other payments, you should do just fine. As long at the State of Calif Pension board stays afloat??

[GH85Carrera]

Our house is paid off. Except for the property taxes, and insurance and routine maintenance. Just in the insurance and the property taxes on our current home is more than the house payment I had when I was single and living in a 900 sq ft house. Our current house is 20 years old.

My wife is retired. We just bough a new 2017 Macan for her daily driver so that alone is more money spent than we spent on cars in the last 9 years. My insurance cost went up some over the cost of her 2008 Infinity G35x but she is getting better gas mileage now!

She is getting 21 MPG instead of 18 MPG. That saving alone will pay the difference in about 100 years.

The main thing is happy wife happy life.

If I retired I can't imagine I would spend much less without giving up something I like.

[KFC911]

"Retired" 9 years ago from my corporate IT gig at 48....didn't want to work for HP....my choice . Lots of ways to skin a dawg....figure it out for yourself as everyone's circumstances differ imo. No regrets whatsoever and life is good...YMMV.

[Jim Richards]

Cliff, our normal expenses are way down since we retired last year. No mortgage, no car payments, no credit card debt. We budgeted for some big ticket items (landscaping, sailboat, travel, new car for my wife) and managed these expenditures to stay within our budget.

You mentioned that your healthcare was covered, but how does your coverage work when you hit 65? Does your insurance co. expect you to have Medicare Part B and your insurance become secondary? However they handle it, you need to look at this closely so you aren't surprised down the road.

[VincentVega]

Instead of getting paid for ~40hrs /week what are you going to do with that time? More projects, travel, ammo... ?

[pwd72s]

Being debt free at retirement is the key...you can then spend less but enjoy life more.

[Jim Richards]

Hey V^2! I'm too damn busy! Sailing (Monday and maybe tomorrow), driving the 964 garage queen (Tuesday), working on some small home projects (today), keeping up the landscape (Sunday), some of the housework (sprinkled throughout the week), going out to dinner (iTaco Tuesday's! and either Sat or Sun), tinkering on the sailboat (whenever I can!), exercising (Mon-Fri), etc. I am never bored.

[Evans, Marv]

Retired 13 or 14 years ago. Haven't owed any body anything since well before that. Figuring out how much you will need isn't rocket science. Like stated before, you need to figure out normal cost of living, add in extra projected costs like new traveling & cars for example, add cost of living increases, then add on maybe 25% for unforeseen/unintended expenses. The last thing I just mentioned there are the killers. As far as spending less or more, it depends on you & your wife. Travel, eating out, & other expenses of opportunity can add up. However, you can also figure on changes as you age. You might not be all that interested in travel or some of your other activities after some time, and other activities may take their places - or not. Generally it seems like you become interested in simpler things as you get older. In the end you need to have a plan for when you might have to go into a place for assisted living or something like that. That especially applies to you & your younger wife. My mother went from her home into a place providing meals and basic things to a geriatric hospital before she died. So that was going from normal expenses to maybe $3K or $4K/month to $6K/$7K/month, and that was some years ago.

[JavaBrewer]

Marv hit the nail on the head there. You can plan and budget to great effect but the question later becomes what happens when you are no longer able to live unassisted? Or when dementia kicks in and you start making questionable financial decisions? My father started borrowing money out of their paid off home 3 years before he let me get involved. In that time he managed to squander 25% of their home equity on dumb purchases and money lost to scammers. I was able to save the situation but that forced them out of their home and into assisted living which they hated. I am leasing their home and using proceeds to pay the new mortgage and help defray their living expenses. Assisted living (no nursing) starts at $2400/month here and rises quickly on location and quality. If you need nursing care that can add $125/hr based on need or a full time nursing facility runs $6K/month to start per person.

My wife and will have a paid off home in California with property taxes based on 1960's purchase price, no real bills and modest retirement account. That all sounds doable until the day arrives that we need more care. Dealing with this now with my Mom I am terrified of how we will manage when we reach that reality.

[vash]

we are going to buy assisted living insurance (offered at work) for the wife. i am 99% sure i am dying first.

since:
i'm male
way older
ate way to many cheeseburgers.

[VincentVega]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

Hey V^2! I'm too damn busy! Sailing (Monday and maybe tomorrow), driving the 964 garage queen (Tuesday), working on some small home projects (today), keeping up the landscape (Sunday), some of the housework (sprinkled throughout the week), going out to dinner (iTaco Tuesday's! and either Sat or Sun), tinkering on the sailboat (whenever I can!), exercising (Mon-Fri), etc. I am never bored.

That sounds like the life!

I have way too many hobbies and none are cheap. I wonder if I'll scale down later in life. Or, maybe I'll get into more stuff. Worst thing for is would be to want a new tool/gun/knife/part/whatever and not have the $$. Sailing is great but if you dont have $$ for a new bottom or rigging you arent sailing. Cool thing is we all have our own ideas and none are wrong.

[ckelly78z]

We have the house paid off already (52 years old), and have been driving older used cars for a long time now. We don't have fancy meals at home, or while out, and usually only buy the items on our shopping list. Between a nice company pension, and a large 401K that keeps growing, and 2 SS checks (assuming that is still viable), I can't see us being in bad financial shape other than a possible large health claim.


Most of the times we buy food from a resturant, it is out of convenience because of lack of time to get a good meal on the table. We plan on having a green house and large garden when more time allows, and tinkering on home projects. We won't be putting 300 miles on two different cars every week, and could possibly sell 1 or 2 of our 5 licensed/insured cars.

[JJ 911SC]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Being debt free at retirement is the key...you can then spend less but enjoy life more.

35 working days left but who is counting... Wife retired 10 years ago after 35 years with the government.

I did 24 years in the Navy and 18 years in Defense industry.

The planned budget is the same as the present one.

For the last 10 years, the money from my job went to pay the house, cars, toys and RRSPs (our 401K).

Fortunately our index pension also come with insurance to cover part of the cost of assisted living.

From the family gene, I should make it to 85 which is slightly above the life expectancy in Canada.

[vash]

thanks for the various perspectives.

right now it seems as foreign to me as walking on Mars.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by vash

i'm male
way older
ate way to many cheeseburgers.

You say that like it's a bad thing .....?????

[JJ 911SC]

and having/sticking to a budget a few years before retiring really help.

I use this template for the last 10 years. Day to Day covers everything that does not fall in the other categories.

[dmcummins]

I retired 10 years ago at 50, wife still works part time. She teaches an online college class so it's not that time consuming and enjoys it.

We are spending more. We moved to SW Florida and spent more for a new home. We have more time to travel and do. I also took up flying and own a plane. We also get our money out of the local country club.

But these are all choices and planed for, except the plane, I didn't see that one coming.

we spend more, but we could be happy on less. I'd defiantly not give back the last 10 years of retirement for work. And the wife and I were both high earners.

[dmcummins]

I use to track our spending and net worth. After about 7 years into retirement I gave it up. I still keep track of our net worth, but that's it.