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

NedS

zagfles said:

Albermarle said:

Kim1965 said:

Sea_Shell said:

There's plenty of room for belt tightening if we really HAD to!! 😉

How?
 Your annual spend for a couple is 15 k approx. That already puts you below the last "which" findings for a basic life style.
 What sort of things could you cut back on? 

I had the same thought. In my mind a couple living off two state pensions ( £20K) would be a rock bottom minimum, unless you had no choice but to live on less.

The pandemic year was a good test - when spending was restricted in loads of ways for obvious reasons. We spent £21k in the 2020/21 tax year (ex mortgage), and that was for a couple with 2 (partailly) dependant kids, they were at uni but lived with us about half the year. And there was loads we could have cut back on had we had to, eg we had loads of takeaways, we went on a foreign holiday and a couple of UK ones, we got a new greenhouse, furniture etc.

Agreed - 2020/21 tax year was an ideal opportunity for us to benchmark our essential expenditure and get a good feel for the minimum we would need for retirement. For us, expenditure was £17,800 including a teenager who barely left the house.

plumb1_2

I think most peoples expenditure has grown by 3 or 4k, with rising prices of gas,electric, water, council tax and transportation.
Not to mention food.

Kim1965

I agree 2 x sp will be 21k, if your mortgage free/debt free,  low c tax & low ish energy bills, one car. Its doable.As a singleton only on a full sp i dont think it is. 
 At  15k  i was interested in examples of what exactly could be trimmed? Ať what point, if push came to shove do you ditch your car for example. Below a certain level of creature comforts would retirement cease to be enjoyable? 

GazzaBloom

NedS said:

zagfles said:

Albermarle said:

Kim1965 said:

Sea_Shell said:

There's plenty of room for belt tightening if we really HAD to!! 😉

How?
 Your annual spend for a couple is 15 k approx. That already puts you below the last "which" findings for a basic life style.
 What sort of things could you cut back on? 

I had the same thought. In my mind a couple living off two state pensions ( £20K) would be a rock bottom minimum, unless you had no choice but to live on less.

The pandemic year was a good test - when spending was restricted in loads of ways for obvious reasons. We spent £21k in the 2020/21 tax year (ex mortgage), and that was for a couple with 2 (partailly) dependant kids, they were at uni but lived with us about half the year. And there was loads we could have cut back on had we had to, eg we had loads of takeaways, we went on a foreign holiday and a couple of UK ones, we got a new greenhouse, furniture etc.

Agreed - 2020/21 tax year was an ideal opportunity for us to benchmark our essential expenditure and get a good feel for the minimum we would need for retirement. For us, expenditure was £17,800 including a teenager who barely left the house.

I'm some years away from retirement but track expected retirement expenditure in today's money. Our basic expenses with one car, all bills, weekly food, energy, small allowances for family birthdays comes in at around £16.5K pa. That's our base needs covered with no spare for leisure/hobbies but does include a full Sky TV package

Kim1965

GazzaBloom said:

NedS said:

zagfles said:

Albermarle said:

Kim1965 said:

Sea_Shell said:

There's plenty of room for belt tightening if we really HAD to!! 😉

How?
 Your annual spend for a couple is 15 k approx. That already puts you below the last "which" findings for a basic life style.
 What sort of things could you cut back on? 

I had the same thought. In my mind a couple living off two state pensions ( £20K) would be a rock bottom minimum, unless you had no choice but to live on less.

The pandemic year was a good test - when spending was restricted in loads of ways for obvious reasons. We spent £21k in the 2020/21 tax year (ex mortgage), and that was for a couple with 2 (partailly) dependant kids, they were at uni but lived with us about half the year. And there was loads we could have cut back on had we had to, eg we had loads of takeaways, we went on a foreign holiday and a couple of UK ones, we got a new greenhouse, furniture etc.

Agreed - 2020/21 tax year was an ideal opportunity for us to benchmark our essential expenditure and get a good feel for the minimum we would need for retirement. For us, expenditure was £17,800 including a teenager who barely left the house.

I'm some years away from retirement but track expected retirement expenditure in today's money. Our basic expenses with one car, all bills, weekly food, energy, small allowances for family birthdays comes in at around £16.5K pa. That's our base needs covered with no spare for leisure/hobbies but does include a full Sky TV package

But would you be content with that life style for 20 years or so?
 Bills, food, car for us is15k, our baseline. Over xmas we entertained some friends, the one off shop for that evening was£80 (had to go to sainsburys), it struck mě that there may be no room for things like this in a frugal retirement. Ok, we wouldnt entertained like that every week. 

Nebulous2

Kim1965 said:

I agree 2 x sp will be 21k, if your mortgage free/debt free,  low c tax & low ish energy bills, one car. Its doable.As a singleton only on a full sp i dont think it is. 
 At  15k  i was interested in examples of what exactly could be trimmed? Ať what point, if push came to shove do you ditch your car for example. Below a certain level of creature comforts would retirement cease to be enjoyable? 

It's very much horses for courses what people enjoy.

I'm a cyclist and know a lot of cyclists with a broad spectrum of expenditure. On two extremes, one person will spend £3k on a rear wheel, and another will have had no new kit for years, doing all their own repairs and maintenance. One of them will have a dedicated vehicle for transporting bikes. The other won't have a vehicle at all. 

Both of them will 'enjoy' what they do. Neither would 'enjoy' being forced by necessity to live like the other. 

I have always regarded us as frugal, I screw down expenditure, switch suppliers, get new quotes. I switch bank accounts, used to do mystery shopping. We drove to France to save money when we had young children. We spend very little in some categories - clothes, grooming, presents etc. 

Yet I don't think I'd like to live on two state pensions.  Fortunately I don't think we will ever have to, as we will have two full state pensions in addition to my DB one. 

There is low-hanging fruit. We run two cars, one of them leased, which we wouldn't need if I retired completely. 
We travel a lot and visit tourist attractions. We do around 20k miles a year, and expect that to continue. My father was still doing 12-15k in his 80s, until he lost his licence due to his eyesight.
 

Sea_Shell

Well to answer our "cutbacks" question.  Here's again our spends from 2022, and where we COULD cut back, if we really HAD to (which I don't believe we would have to).     Yes, it wouldn't be nice, and it wouldn't be sustainable, but like others have said, it wouldn't be for ever as we have SP and DB benefits that start coming on line in 8/9 years time.   Once all in payment, they'll provide about £26,000 in todays money.



Bills £4306.18   Not a lot we can do about these, and we estimate that these will rise to £5,000 in 2023, so plus ~£700

Holidays/Entertainment  £2343.29     As a category this could be slashed to almost nil.

Car Expenses £770.09    We only have the one, so not much to cut back here.

Groceries £2651.78    Includes alcohol and "fancy" foods, so we could cut about £10 a week off - so ~£500 pa

Household £5534.31    Included large capital expenditure, so should usually be around £1000

Health/Beauty £849.36     Includes weekly swimming and fancy toiletries, so could cut about ~£300 here

Clothes/Shoes £160.45     Hardly needs cutting back!!

Fuel £532.01     Would drop dramatically if no holidays (subject to pump prices), so say £200 saving

Gifts/Cards £510.52     Could be cut to nil.  

Bank/ISA Fees £704.75     We are looking at cutting this to almost nothing by switching.

Phones/Calls £107.56     Included a newer phone, so will leave as is.

2022 was therefore £18470.3


Making all the above changes could slash that to ....

£10,170

Sea_Shell

Hands up who else's credit card bill covering December is only £255 !!! 

GazzaBloom

Kim1965 said:

GazzaBloom said:

NedS said:

zagfles said:

Albermarle said:

Kim1965 said:

Sea_Shell said:

There's plenty of room for belt tightening if we really HAD to!! 😉

How?
 Your annual spend for a couple is 15 k approx. That already puts you below the last "which" findings for a basic life style.
 What sort of things could you cut back on? 

I had the same thought. In my mind a couple living off two state pensions ( £20K) would be a rock bottom minimum, unless you had no choice but to live on less.

The pandemic year was a good test - when spending was restricted in loads of ways for obvious reasons. We spent £21k in the 2020/21 tax year (ex mortgage), and that was for a couple with 2 (partailly) dependant kids, they were at uni but lived with us about half the year. And there was loads we could have cut back on had we had to, eg we had loads of takeaways, we went on a foreign holiday and a couple of UK ones, we got a new greenhouse, furniture etc.

Agreed - 2020/21 tax year was an ideal opportunity for us to benchmark our essential expenditure and get a good feel for the minimum we would need for retirement. For us, expenditure was £17,800 including a teenager who barely left the house.

I'm some years away from retirement but track expected retirement expenditure in today's money. Our basic expenses with one car, all bills, weekly food, energy, small allowances for family birthdays comes in at around £16.5K pa. That's our base needs covered with no spare for leisure/hobbies but does include a full Sky TV package

But would you be content with that life style for 20 years or so?
 Bills, food, car for us is15k, our baseline. Over xmas we entertained some friends, the one off shop for that evening was£80 (had to go to sainsburys), it struck mě that there may be no room for things like this in a frugal retirement. Ok, we wouldnt entertained like that every week. 

I didn't suggest that this would be our lifestyle, it's simply the bare minimum fixed costs needed to exist. Everything else would be discretionary and so variable.

GazzaBloom

Sea_Shell said:

Hands up who else's credit card bill covering December is only £255 !!! 

What's a credit card? Don't have one.