Retirement Living Standards - what will my pension buy me?

westv

Silvertabby wrote: »

Back in the 60/70s, Tesco was the shop for 'poor' people. The better off shopped at Booths (the Waitrose of the North).

There is still a hierarchy of supermarkets (excluding the discounts like Lidl) - no matter how unfoundedThe “lowest” being Asda then Tesco, then Sainsbury and finally Waitrose.

Spreadsheetman

coyrls wrote: »

There is a huge amount of detail if you download the spreadsheets. I found it quite amusing to go through the individual items. Many are way off for me. I for one wouldn't be happy with the one laptop for a couple with an income of £47,500 after tax: ACER Aspire 3 15.6" Intel® Core™ i3 Laptop - 1 TB HDD, Red, which is expected to last 5 years.

I have just done that and the detail is very interesting.
The "moderate" version includes 2 x funeral plans :eek:

System

Silvertabby wrote: »

Back in the 60/70s, Tesco was the shop for 'poor' people. The better off shopped at Booths (the Waitrose of the North).

I had to comment on this! Totally irrelevant to retirement living but more to supermarket "snobbery".

Growing up in the far (ish) south west our main supermarkets were International, Liptons and then PriceRite. We got a Tesco in 1978 and everyone was overjoyed as it was better than the other two, and many people (including my family) had already been making irregular 24 mile round trips to the nearest Tesco before we got one in our little city. About 6 of us used to pile into my Great Aunt's Morris Minor and go to Tesco which also had AN ESCALATOR!! Oooooh the excitement.

Sainsburys finally arrived in 1994 followed by Waitrose about four years ago, if memory serves.

I now live with two Tescos (the one which formerly had an escalator), which no longer has an upstairs with clothes, and another Tesco which is to small to count as anything other than corner shop). There is a small ish Sainsburys and a reasonable sized Asda. We also have Lidl. I have no worries about my grocery bills in retirement due to lack of expensive shops to buy food from!

To be fair, the same will apply to clothes and shoes.

bluenose1

Was getting a bit worried that I will not be in comfortable bracket until 67 when SP kicks in. Then when I read the full report realised I would not want to spend out on some of the things they have put down, I quite like being frugal on certain things.
eg - £35 per month for nails, eyebrows, waxing etc, nor would we be getting funeral plans.
We intend to use a significant portion of our money on holidays and will pay for a gardener when we are 67.

coyrls

[FONT=&quot]One problem with the data is that they have an incredibly detailed list and then just throw in some huge “extras” at the end.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As an example the weekly food cost of about 70 items is £90.72 but then they add in two extras: “£50 per person once a week for eating out including alcohol including takeaway” and “£100 per household per month to take out others for a meal i.e. children/grandchildren”, which equates to £123.01 a week.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The same with Leisure Goods that includes £1.75 a year spent on glue but at the end “Family support - looking after grnadchildren, treats, foods + clothes Financual - paying for hobbies i.e. swimming lessons, horse riding, football etc. Help with cost of school trips + uniform. £1000 per year, based on approx. £75 per month” (their spelling).[/FONT]

shinytop

This is great; I've just identified a major area of savings for us in the area of male hair care.

Spreadsheetman

shinytop wrote: »

This is great; I've just identified a major area of savings for us in the area of male hair care.

...and dentures...

Audaxer

shinytop wrote: »

They have chosen minimum, moderate and comfortable but could have chosen poor, average and rich or A, B and C or anything they wanted. Maybe minimum, comfortable and luxury might have been better.

Agree £15,700 is poor for a couple as it is even less than if both were on the maximum State Pension. For a couple I would have thought at least £20k would be the Minimum. I also think the figure for Comfortable is also far too high as I don't think you need anywhere near as much as £47,500 a year to be comfortable.

.

cfw1994

bluenose1 wrote: »

It made interesting reading and would be useful for those who haven't given much though to their income/ expenditure in retirement.
Though I think a lot of us on here have already done the sums (several times) for what we will require in retirement.

A lot of people here poo-pooing this report.....
I think the problem is that most people on this forum (regularly or semi-regularly) are already MASSIVELY knowledgable about 'retirement thinking' in comparison to the broader population.
Don't underestimate that you fine people are a minority in this way of thinking!

I actually think it is a pretty decent report. There, I've said it!

Gives people who are relatively clueless about things a "starter for ten".
& actually I feel the numbers aren't too far off. Sure there are lots of points that won't sit with people - £500 on shoes each year? closer to £50:rotfl: - but broadly speaking, not bad!

moo121 wrote: »

It sets out examples of the costs pa of several levels of retirement such as:

Minimum (£10,200 single, £15,700 couple)
Moderate (£20,200 single, £29,100 couple)
Comfortable (£33,000 single, £47,500 couple)

I wondered what people thought, are these realistic? Is this the sort of retirement you are aiming for?

In answer to that original question.....I think it isn't a million miles off.
We are aiming for 'comfortable', and that is broadly the sort of numbers I am targeting....

shinytop

Audaxer wrote: »

Agree £15,700 is poor for a couple as it is even less than if both were on the maximum State Pension. For a couple I would have thought at least £20k would be the Minimum. I also think the figure for Comfortable is also far too high as I don't think you need anywhere near as much as £47,500 a year to be comfortable.
.

I agree, some of the entries in the 'comfortable' category are more like 'extravagant' - £2500 per year for a couple for clothes and shoes :eek: