It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Albermarle

I suspect/know there will be a cohort of retirees, who are too cautious (even too tight maybe) in spending when they have the chance, but are forced into spending more when they get much older.
Plus of course the other way around, spend like crazy for 10 years and then have nothing left.

Sea_Shell

I'm saving for a chauffeur driven limo in my twilight years.   No plain old taxis for me!! 😉

Ganga

Sea_Shell said:

I'm saving for a chauffeur driven limo in my twilight years.   No plain old taxis for me!! 😉

Yes but will you pay a chauffeur or just nag your old man into doing it

Sea_Shell

Ganga said:

Sea_Shell said:

I'm saving for a chauffeur driven limo in my twilight years.   No plain old taxis for me!! 😉

Yes but will you pay a chauffeur or just nag your old man into doing it

Statistically, I could be on my own for 10 years ☹️

As I'm both female and 5 years younger.

Ganga

Sea_Shell said:

Ganga said:

Sea_Shell said:

I'm saving for a chauffeur driven limo in my twilight years.   No plain old taxis for me!! 😉

Yes but will you pay a chauffeur or just nag your old man into doing it

Statistically, I could be on my own for 10 years ☹️

As I'm both female and 5 years younger.

No he will hang around for the money and to be seen with a young chick

DT2001

OldScientist said:

DT2001 said:

NedS said:

Sea_Shell said:

LHW99 said:

Where we are, they have a bookable minibus that you can phone for. We are also only about 10 mins walk from local shops, having downsized from a remote rural location. Where my mum used to live they had a similar volunteer car service that would take people to hospital etc appointments. There are also the free bus pass for those who are mobile enough.

We still drive as both (just) under 70, but expect that to gradually change over the next 10 years or so.

What sort of distances do these volunteer schemes usually cover.   

What if hospital is, say, over 25 miles away?

Then will they hang around, for an unspecified time, to bring you home again? 

My parents had to give up driving a few years back and faced exactly this issue. The have a local Community Cars organisation of volunteer drivers who just charge for the fuel. They can be booked in advance and will drive my parent to hospital appointments (20 miles away) and wait to bring them home again. They are an amazing service!

When my parents were giving up the car and worried about costs of taxis, we sat down and worked out how much it was costing them per year to keep their car on the road, and how many taxis per week that would fund. Needless to say, I do not think they had fully realised how much money they would save ditching the car and now they don't think twice at paying £20 for a taxi, but the vast majority of their trips are covered by the Community Cars service at little more than cost of fuel.

With respect to the U shape spend - my parents were still very capable at 80 and could still do most things for themselves. 70 to 80 was probably the bottom of the U. At 90 it's a completely different story - they now pay for everything!

Witnessing first hand how their amazing retirement has gone has given me great insight into the challenges we will likely face if we are lucky enough to live a lengthy retirement ourselves. Silly things like top priority for our final house move must be close to a hospital, GP surgery and pharmacist! A low maintenance bungalow is also right up there.

U shaped spending pattern. I think statistically and from my mothers experience it is ‘wrong’. My reasoning is that the term/length of the early spending will be considerably longer than the increase later on.
My mother retired at 65 and was active (overseas travel etc) until into her early 80’s. She then lived independently (with a little gardening help) until late 80’s. For her final 2/3 years she had increasing care costs including about 15 months in a nursing home (She was in the minority of pensioners needing that level of care). So I think we need to find a more appropriate shape otherwise it implies a need to have a bigger safety pot than necessary.

The U shaped spending curve is derived from US research (see https://www.morningstar.com/content/dam/marketing/shared/research/ foundational/677785-EstimatingTrueCostRetirement.pdf) and is based on very scattered data (see Figure 5 in that reference and note that it is U-shaped in terms of the change in spending, not in spending itself). While here in the UK we currently 'only' have care costs, in the US they have both care and medical costs late in life.

From a more relevant UK perspective, Brancati et al. (https://ilcuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Understanding-Retirement-Journeys.pdf ) suggest a real term decrease in expenditure through retirement of about 1.4% per year, while Crawford et al. (https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-does-spending-change-through-retirement-0 )  suggest expenditure is roughly level in real terms. Interestingly, both suggest that the amount saved by retirees increases with time. Both reports are worth a read through since, in my view, the uncertainties around retirement expenditure far outweigh the uncertainties around retirement income and the expectation of level or declining expenditure can make a large difference to initial withdrawal rates (see https://www.kitces.com/blog/safe-withdrawal-rates-with-decreasing-retirement-spending  for a US perspective).

Thank you for the links. The 1st I couldn’t access however through the Kitces link I found the ‘curves’ and the retirement spending smile! Broad and not a U.
It is an average…..and I think the upturn at the end is a combination of the majority spending the same/less and the minority having to pay for care (in home or at a home). My mother’s graph would have shown a steadyish decline in spending from 85 to 89, then a steady rise for 12/15 months with at home care and finally 12/15 sharp rise with nursing home fees. Retirement planning needs to consider this possibility despite the odds being that you will not go into a nursing home. Personally I think odds are we will still have plenty of capital or our house will provide sufficient to cover that situation.

OldScientist

DT2001 said:

OldScientist said:

DT2001 said:

NedS said:

Sea_Shell said:

LHW99 said:

Where we are, they have a bookable minibus that you can phone for. We are also only about 10 mins walk from local shops, having downsized from a remote rural location. Where my mum used to live they had a similar volunteer car service that would take people to hospital etc appointments. There are also the free bus pass for those who are mobile enough.

We still drive as both (just) under 70, but expect that to gradually change over the next 10 years or so.

What sort of distances do these volunteer schemes usually cover.   

What if hospital is, say, over 25 miles away?

Then will they hang around, for an unspecified time, to bring you home again? 

My parents had to give up driving a few years back and faced exactly this issue. The have a local Community Cars organisation of volunteer drivers who just charge for the fuel. They can be booked in advance and will drive my parent to hospital appointments (20 miles away) and wait to bring them home again. They are an amazing service!

When my parents were giving up the car and worried about costs of taxis, we sat down and worked out how much it was costing them per year to keep their car on the road, and how many taxis per week that would fund. Needless to say, I do not think they had fully realised how much money they would save ditching the car and now they don't think twice at paying £20 for a taxi, but the vast majority of their trips are covered by the Community Cars service at little more than cost of fuel.

With respect to the U shape spend - my parents were still very capable at 80 and could still do most things for themselves. 70 to 80 was probably the bottom of the U. At 90 it's a completely different story - they now pay for everything!

Witnessing first hand how their amazing retirement has gone has given me great insight into the challenges we will likely face if we are lucky enough to live a lengthy retirement ourselves. Silly things like top priority for our final house move must be close to a hospital, GP surgery and pharmacist! A low maintenance bungalow is also right up there.

U shaped spending pattern. I think statistically and from my mothers experience it is ‘wrong’. My reasoning is that the term/length of the early spending will be considerably longer than the increase later on.
My mother retired at 65 and was active (overseas travel etc) until into her early 80’s. She then lived independently (with a little gardening help) until late 80’s. For her final 2/3 years she had increasing care costs including about 15 months in a nursing home (She was in the minority of pensioners needing that level of care). So I think we need to find a more appropriate shape otherwise it implies a need to have a bigger safety pot than necessary.

The U shaped spending curve is derived from US research (see https://www.morningstar.com/content/dam/marketing/shared/research/foundational/677785-EstimatingTrueCostRetirement.pdf) and is based on very scattered data (see Figure 5 in that reference and note that it is U-shaped in terms of the change in spending, not in spending itself). While here in the UK we currently 'only' have care costs, in the US they have both care and medical costs late in life.

From a more relevant UK perspective, Brancati et al. (https://ilcuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Understanding-Retirement-Journeys.pdf ) suggest a real term decrease in expenditure through retirement of about 1.4% per year, while Crawford et al. (https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-does-spending-change-through-retirement-0 )  suggest expenditure is roughly level in real terms. Interestingly, both suggest that the amount saved by retirees increases with time. Both reports are worth a read through since, in my view, the uncertainties around retirement expenditure far outweigh the uncertainties around retirement income and the expectation of level or declining expenditure can make a large difference to initial withdrawal rates (see https://www.kitces.com/blog/safe-withdrawal-rates-with-decreasing-retirement-spending  for a US perspective).

Thank you for the links. The 1st I couldn’t access however through the Kitces link I found the ‘curves’ and the retirement spending smile! Broad and not a U.
It is an average…..and I think the upturn at the end is a combination of the majority spending the same/less and the minority having to pay for care (in home or at a home). My mother’s graph would have shown a steadyish decline in spending from 85 to 89, then a steady rise for 12/15 months with at home care and finally 12/15 sharp rise with nursing home fees. Retirement planning needs to consider this possibility despite the odds being that you will not go into a nursing home. Personally I think odds are we will still have plenty of capital or our house will provide sufficient to cover that situation.

My bad - in the first link, an extra space found its way before 'foundational' (now corrected in the original and the quoted version above).

I'm also hopeful that we'll still have capital if/when it comes to a care home - it appears the median stay is relatively short (15 months, see https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33895/1/dp2769.pdf) with the longest time being an eye watering 20 years! The report is from over 10 years ago, so the reported costs are somewhat less than they would be now. Interesting article at https://ukcareguide.co.uk/paying-for-care/ that includes some options that we have yet to look at (insurance and annuity).

Sea_Shell

Just checking in.

Not much to report, all been quite quiet here.    Nothing to see!!

Christmas isn't a big thing for us, as we buy very few pressies and don't go OTT on the food and drink, and so December is usually quite a low spend month.

We get organised early for what we do need to buy and so by now, it's mostly all done.

Just a couple of small top-up shops left this year.

Overall things are looking OK, even if the energy IHD is giving us a shock from time to time (£9 a day!!!)


I'll do an end of year round up at, well, the end of the year!!!     But only as this is the Pensions Board, as I know other boards have very different demographics, which I am conscious of. 

quirkydeptless

Sea_Shell said:

Just checking in.

Not much to report, all been quite quiet here.    Nothing to see!!

..........

Sea_Shell

In energy news...

As the cold weather continued, we've just hit our break even point with Eon Next V12 versus the Ofgem October cap.   We're 3p up on the deal, as of this morning.

It will be interesting to see what the total difference will be come April, and then we get thrown back in the pot with everyone else.

For us V12 is looking like its going to cost ~£1510 annually
The current October cap ~ £1670
and the April 23 cap ~ £2025*

Electricity - 1521 kwhs
Gas - 8786 kwhs
Estimates as per last bill (1/11/22), which are slightly above our actual usage over the last 12 months to 1/11/22 of 1470/7700, so we may come in slightly under those figures.

*Based on the rates we think they're going to be.