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It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!
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A total annual spend of £15k to £20k in retirement seems very low for a couple in my view, even not taking account of occasional very large purchases that may be needed.
This should now read "It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts"!!! :j:j:j
For some perspective, our year to date spend is currently a whopping £11,748.
So if we gave ourselves a £20k spend, that's almost doubling our current level of spending. Who gets to do that in retirement!!?? It's all relative.;);)
This should now read "It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts"!!! :j:j:j
Well you seem to be on track to be around budget. But you need to plan for periodic significant over spends. As an example I get $36k/year in pension and rent and my spending budget is $30k/year, but this year I had to paint the house and that cost $14k so that came out of my "slush fund" that I build up with the $6k/year that I have left over from the pension and rent.
Median household income in the UK is around £28k.
If you are a homeowner and have repaid your mortgage by the time you retire then for many households £15k to £20k will be comparable with what they were taking home when working and paying off a mortgage, particularly when you factor in that spread across two people there will be no NI or income tax to pay.
We're currently spending about £15k - £18k a year, although we have a separate savings pot put aside for any large spends such as a new car etc (although we may do away with the car altogether when the current one reaches the end of it's life)
We intend living on our pensions but supplementing this from our capital in the early years to enable us to travel and for any big purchases. The hardest thing for us will be changing our mindset to start to spend capital rather than saving it.
We stopped 1 year ago and even though we have done everything in the year we wanted to We have spent less than we budgeted for.
Better that I suppose than the other way. You only get one chance so enjoy it while you can!