Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

hugheskevi

DairyQueen said:

On average, we spend around £100-£120 per week for a couple. All of the basics are internet-delivered by Tesco or Waitrose plus we shop locally for fresh food. We prefer to eat less, but higher-quality, meat so our butcher bill is around £20p.w.

It has been interesting to see the groceries discussion here. I've looked at the "Statement of Affairs" on the Debt Free Wannabe board over a period of time, and it seems to be that about £40 p/w for a couple is considered normal, with maybe £10 extra per child (depending on age). I wonder how that is achieved - my wife and I spend a bit over £100 p/w typically, and whilst this could quite easily be cut a bit, much below £80 p/w would start to be difficult and I struggle to think what would need to be sacrificed to get below £60 p/w every week (although Sea_Shell has managed this for years!).

I think the numbers recently mentioned in this thread look much more consistent with the sort of expenditure we have.

Hi Dairy, Have you considered becoming a veggie? It's very easy nowadays (Vegan is a bit more difficult).

I think following a plant-based diet is pretty trivial now too. A few years ago cooking at home was fine, but eating out with omnivores could be difficult - it was fine eating out with other veggies and vegans, but if an omnivore chose the restaurant there may well have been very little plant-based food on the menu, and in the worst case it might be just a bowl of fries or similar. 

I find that just doesn't happen now - everywhere (aside from obviously meat-dedicated places) have at least one vegan option, and commonly more (or dishes than can be made vegan on request). Travelling throughout Europe it is similarly easy to get good vegan food.

The choice available for take-away sandwiches can be very poor sometimes though - typically in rail stations or motorway services where there is only one choice. But I would only buy take-out trash like that extremely rarely anyhow, so it was never a significant issue.

The only place it has been difficult has been rural Africa - without any supermarkets or even large shops it is pretty much impossible to eat a balanced vegan diet from the limited food choice available - and sometimes it would be a challenge to find anything! I follow a vegetarian diet in those places, which has always been straightforward. You can also see the animals roaming free in those areas, with chickens commonly leading a line of chicks around, so it is not like eating eggs here, where you know all the male chicks will have been gassed or ground-up at birth, let alone what happens to the females 

westv

Last 12 months our groceries/take away deliveries bill worked out at around £115 a week for two of us - both WFH.

becky_rtw

Our number was assessed by an IFA in 2019 as £17k, but we're thinking about £20-25K depending on new house costs. 

DT2001

SomeMadeUpName said:

We reckon our 'number' as a couple will be £30k at today's prices. Tax won't be much of an issue at that level (no issue at all really, as some will come from steady draw down on unwrappered savings). Holidays not much of an expense as the hope is to have 1 or 2 holiday homes which will provide 'free' holidays by being let just enough to cover there expenses. We have a lot of friends with big corporate jobs and big ideas about what they need in retirement, but we have lived pretty frugally for over a decade (without denying ourselves) and so see no reason why that should change in retirement. 

We use a house swap site for our holiday home as well as the odd rental. The swaps can be direct or for points to use on other properties. We’ve ended up visiting places we wouldn’t have looked at normally and staying in non tourist areas. When retired hope to swap out of season and for longer.

tiddles

Our grocery budget for a retired couple is £13 per day ( £4745 per year), which includes alcohol and cleaning supplies, but not eating out or takeaways, which we only partake of when away on holiday. We eat very well on that amount, mainly cooking from scratch.

SomeMadeUpName

DT2001 said:

SomeMadeUpName said:

We reckon our 'number' as a couple will be £30k at today's prices. Tax won't be much of an issue at that level (no issue at all really, as some will come from steady draw down on unwrappered savings). Holidays not much of an expense as the hope is to have 1 or 2 holiday homes which will provide 'free' holidays by being let just enough to cover there expenses. We have a lot of friends with big corporate jobs and big ideas about what they need in retirement, but we have lived pretty frugally for over a decade (without denying ourselves) and so see no reason why that should change in retirement. 

We use a house swap site for our holiday home as well as the odd rental. The swaps can be direct or for points to use on other properties. We’ve ended up visiting places we wouldn’t have looked at normally and staying in non tourist areas. When retired hope to swap out of season and for longer.

For sure the house swap sites are on our radar. We have one of the holiday homes already and it is in a resort with a global draw, so hope we should get offered some pretty nice places that are in cheaper countries or less sort after areas.

LHW99

Pre Covid our food bills were areound £45 per week, more at Christmas / when grown up family were visiting, and had been fairly stable for a few years. It worked out to £55 - £60 pw last year, as we started using more home delivery services.

Langtang

All of these food spend posts are fascinating. We're working our way to retirement in the next couple of years, and I've downloaded all my banking transactions going back to 2010!. I'm slowly working my way through them and have been astonished how much we've been spending on food!

2020 excepted, for obvious reasons, the 2 of us have been spending c£180-200 pm on food (excluding eating out!!) It doesn't help that Asda is almost on our doorstep, and Tesco is only a mile or so away, so we have lots of little transactions for £3.50, £6, £4.75 etc.

 Embarrassingly, I'm the one who does most (all) of the food shopping..... and we're not overweight and we're almost always on a diet!

geoffers4

Sea_Shell said:

Someone spends less than me!!!! 😲
My "groceries" does include alcohol, cleaning products and day-to-day toiletries.😇
Just looked back...
2017, £2560
2018, £2410
2019, £2586
2020, £2666
Last year is higher, as no eating out, as that gets treated as holiday spends (we only tend to eat out when away)

Ha! In fairness my figure of £1890 doesn't include alcohol or sweets, but it does include cleaning & basic toiletries. Also doesn't include take-aways, which we don't really have. Looking back at 3 previous years we spent £1690, £1721, £1808 so it just feels normal now. But going back further to when we shopped at Tesco and 2 teenage boys at home, the figures were up around £8200, so my sympathies for those of you at that stage of life!

MallyGirl

hugheskevi said:

The only place it has been difficult has been rural Africa - without any supermarkets or even large shops it is pretty much impossible to eat a balanced vegan diet from the limited food choice available - and sometimes it would be a challenge to find anything! I follow a vegetarian diet in those places, which has always been straightforward. You can also see the animals roaming free in those areas, with chickens commonly leading a line of chicks around, so it is not like eating eggs here, where you know all the male chicks will have been gassed or ground-up at birth, let alone what happens to the females 

I remember trying to get vegetarian food for a fellow traveler in Nairobi. The waiter's response was "vegetables is what food eats"!

I eat meat & non-farmed fish but not dairy on the whole (no eggs, no cheese, small amounts of skimmed milk) - I eat a lot of veg and some fruit. I cook from scratch. I did look at the veganuary recipes but there were far too many attempts to mimic dairy/eggs with plant based sources. Yuck!