The cost of living

rosie51

We live on 13000 and do ok. We eat well, pay our bills, have days out, a holiday at least every other year. We run a car, it is a decent one as we are rural with no bus service and a car is a must.
We both have state pensions and i smallish private pension each.
Not all people are luck to have a good pension pot, some of us have through no fault of our own have not been in high paying jobs or able to save.What i will say is cut your clothe according to your means. You don't have to have lots a money to enjoy retirement, who needs expensive holidays abroad, when we have a beautiful country to explore that we live in. Give me a holiday in Northumberland or The Borders any day

greenglide

Given that pension credit's about to disappear and that if you were on your own even that would be much lower, I think that's a very risky strategy

Ermm, no it isn't.

With the new State Pension changes the full rate of nSP is pitched above the single person minimum guarantee amount (only by 5p or so) so that, in future, the vast majority of people will not "need" to claim PC but that isn't the same.

The savings credit does end with nSP though.

I certainly wouldn't base any planning around any benefit, whether means tested or not though as it is a very high risk and totally beyond your control.

mgdavid

jamesd wrote: »

The median average income for retired households in the UK is about £18,000. Without car and lots of eating out or holidays £12,000 should be sufficient.

Some ideas for some possible core annual costs in that area, erring on the high side, would be:

£2000 Food and household consumables, much less is possible
£1500 Council tax (property tax)
£1200 Gas & electricity
£600 Water
£350 Property insurance
£146 TV license
£200-400 30-150 megabit/s internet
£170 basic Android mobile phone and low data use package, unlimited texts, limited included calls
£150 Landline phone

£500-900 cable or satellite for extra TV stations beyond broadcast depending on source and channel selection

Just for balance, everyone's 'normal' is different. We like good food & drink, and we are in Berkshire not Cornwall, some of our costs are quite different from the above example:
£5000 - food and household basics
£2300 - local council tax
£2000 - gas, electric, coal, logs
£1000 - phone, internet, mobile, TV licence
£700 - buildings & contents insurance

Linton

From my detailed expenditure figures £12K net is just OK for an ongoing reasonable but simple existance for 2 people. However many people would surely want rather more than that, and also if you dont have significant savings you have to keep some aside to pay for large one-off expenses or replenish your emergency fund.

Unless one goes for frequent long cruises or runs a boat or similar expensive hobby I think spending more than say £35K /year could require some effort.

greenglide

Give me a holiday in Northumberland

Not as much fun when you live there but we can go to Yorkshire instead!

robin61

rosie51 wrote: »

who needs expensive holidays abroad, when we have a beautiful country to explore that we live in. Give me a holiday in Northumberland or The Borders any day

Yes. Northumberland or maybe the Yorkshire Dales are hard to beat especially if you are lucky with the weather.
I think there are holiday people and home birds. Some of my friends live for their holidays abroad. That' s never been the case for us. Even prior to having a family with two decent incomes we tended to have a couple of long weekends away either in the UK or in France ( which is easy for us in Kent) rather than long holidays abroad.
Mind you both of us travelled more when we were single so maybe by the time we got married we had the travel bug out of our systems.

missbiggles1

greenglide wrote: »

Ermm, no it isn't.

With the new State Pension changes the full rate of nSP is pitched above the single person minimum guarantee amount (only by 5p or so) so that, in future, the vast majority of people will not "need" to claim PC but that isn't the same.

The savings credit does end with nSP though.

I certainly wouldn't base any planning around any benefit, whether means tested or not though as it is a very high risk and totally beyond your control.

Thanks for the correction but we agree on the basic point, don't rely on benefits to support yourself after retirement.

enthusiasticsaver

We have been looking at the same scenario and came up with £1500-£2000 monthly income although we have substantial savings plus will get a £130k+ lump sum from my husbands pension. I would think £2500 would be more than comfortable if net income after tax

missbiggles1

rosie51 wrote: »

We live on 13000 and do ok. We eat well, pay our bills, have days out, a holiday at least every other year. We run a car, it is a decent one as we are rural with no bus service and a car is a must.
We both have state pensions and i smallish private pension each.
Not all people are luck to have a good pension pot, some of us have through no fault of our own have not been in high paying jobs or able to save.What i will say is cut your clothe according to your means. You don't have to have lots a money to enjoy retirement, who needs expensive holidays abroad, when we have a beautiful country to explore that we live in. Give me a holiday in Northumberland or The Borders any day

In many cases, considerably more expensive than going abroad.

Even without mortgage payments for a few more years, we couldn't have a particularly good quality of life on such a low income - that's only £20 pw more than pension credit for a couple and, as you've still got council tax to pay which those on PC don't, you'd actually be worse off.

That isn't allowing for all the extra costs you may well need as you get older and frailer - housework, gardening and decorating, for a start.

westv

Any budget that didn't allow for two overseas holidays a year just wouldn't float my boat but that's just me.