Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

fatbeetle

Just to be on topic;

My NUMBER is £2500 pcm, mortgage free.

Though, with the aid of a certain forum, I'm hoping to spend less than that and save the reserve against harder time.

Areas for saving for us will be..

Clothes: minimal spend, neither me nor the wife are clothes horses, and are happy with charity shop purchases.

Food: eating simply, and growing, foraging, and catching what we can.

Alcohol: brewing our own ciders and wines, using as much foraged ingredients as poss.

Holidays: We'll be living in Cornwall. We've got mates all over the UK who will be ever so keen to house swap or to accommodate us. But being in Kernow is a holiday in itself.

Heating: gathering wood from the shores to fuel our log burner.

Hobbies: we will have all the equipment we need, and may even make a small sum from sales of our work. Also, it costs nothing to sit and watch the tide come in, and, if you have a line in the water, may even provide a meal.

Entertainment: Free to air TV in the UK is so much better than what we have now.

Looking good?

AnotherJoe

Seems ample to me Fatbeetle. I reckon if you analysed your spending minus mortgage and pension contributions it might be around £1k a month so an extra £1500 a month on top of that would be a decent surplus.

justme111

fatbeetle wrote: »

Just to be on topic;



Food: eating simply, and growing, foraging, and catching what we can.


Heating: gathering wood from the shores to fuel our log burner.

Looking a very idealistic dream.
Although the number itself looks very reasonable.

enthusiasticsaver

I am working on £2500 per month too fatbeetle. That too is mortgage free and we live in Cornwall too. I also want £50,000 accessible in savings too for any shortfall for large holidays or home improvement projects.

I have calculated this by allowing £400 per month for council tax, water, telephone, internet, electricity/gas. This is accurate as my Husband is already retired so gas and electric is higher than when we were working.

£400 is for personal expenditure for each of us so £200 each. This is to cover clothes, hair, hobbies.

£400 is for entertainment so gym, sky, national trust membership, tv licence, days out etc.

£400 should cover 2 cars, diesel, maintenance, insurance. No car tax on either as newish and eco friendly.

£400 should cover food and one meal out per week if entertainment does not stretch to it.

This leaves £500 per month for holidays, home maintenance, gifts. This will probably be our largest line of expenditure but the £50k savings will subsidise this. We only plan to do one holiday per year though with maybe two or three short breaks. Up until now we have paid for the family to come with us on odd occasions but once we are on a pension they will have to pay for themselves.

We will be childminding our granddaughter one day per week, I plan to join a walking group. We have our leisure club membership and lots of walks, beaches, moors close by. I also play the piano, garden, read and will be looking for cheap theatre tickets.

GSP

Each to their own but reckon fatbeetle will either be taking a lot of money to the grave, or passing on a load to kin if able to.

£2,300 pcm for us tax free.

£500 bills.
£500 shopping.
2 x £300 each to do socialising, anything we want to.
Leaves £700 to run cars, holidays, unforeseen expenditure, gifts.

That's the first year and we'll see how we go from here.

Edit: Would love to spend more time down in Cornwall, Perranporth.

enthusiasticsaver

Yes I think our lifestyle looks more expensive than fatbeetle but both aiming for similar income.

k6chris

If there is 'a' number - then it's interesting to see how many couples have calculated (as have I) that around £2,500 a month net, for a mortgage free houshold, pays for a comfortable and active retirement. Plus at this level, there are lots of option to reduce expenditure if required. Does hunting out the yellow reduced labels at the supermarket count as foraging BTW?!

enthusiasticsaver

k6chris wrote: »

If there is 'a' number - then it's interesting to see how many couples have calculated (as have I) that around £2,500 a month net, for a mortgage free houshold, pays for a comfortable and active retirement. Plus at this level, there are lots of option to reduce expenditure if required. Does hunting out the yellow reduced labels at the supermarket count as foraging BTW?!

Yes, strange isn't it? I would have to say although I shop at Lidls I do not usually look for YS foods unless they hit me in the face :rotfl: That may change.

We calculated it because when we were both working we had a net income of £3000 - £3250 per month but managed to save between £1000 and £1500 per month which we will not do in retirement. We recalculated adding in an amount for a car for my OH as he had a company car, removing the financial help for childcare we give my daughter until I retire and adding more on for entertainment and eating out and increased gas and electric. It is just a stab in the dark though and may be adjusted after year 1.

enthusiasticsaver

Deneb wrote: »

Have you read the article? £39K a year is quoted for a luxurious (not comfortable) retirement and assumes that you are spending almost £12K a year on long haul flights and foreign holidays, so that's most of your £13K gone already.

It was averaged from a survey of 1,590 retired couples (Which readers) in February this year.

We are planning on taking any long haul holidays from our savings pots not monthly income so sounds about right as we are aiming for £30000 net. Interesting how they have included housing costs in both lifestyles so obviously not counted on people living in mortgage free properties. So many people I know are counting on at some point downsizing and using the freed up amount. Not sure this will happen in 30 or 40 years though if youngsters struggle to get on the property ladder.

fatbeetle

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Seems ample to me Fatbeetle. I reckon if you analysed your spending minus mortgage and pension contributions it might be around £1k a month so an extra £1500 a month on top of that would be a decent surplus.

At present it would probably be about that or higher, due to the high cost of living here.