How much to live on

[Deleted User]

As a single person I am heartened by the Which figures!

SandyShores

[Deleted User] said:

Otb666. Have you now paid off your mortgage? Have you also got the redundancy money as a back up? Just being curious. I think you will be ok. You may need to use just over half of your drawdown pot to fund the next 9 years say at £15000 a year, plus your £5000 a year DB Pension giving you £20000 a year. You may to drawdown more  more if still paying off your mortgage. Also your pot will hopefully grow a little too over the next 9 years. Even if the pot is exhausted by the time you reach state pension age, you will still have about £23000 a year income at today’s prices. (9300+9300+5000). Plus a mortgage free house. How do my estimates add up? Best wishes.

Just wanted to say that I appreciated your answer Baron_Dale, its helped me put my situation into perspective a bit (although I'm unlikely to retire until SPA its good to understand it all).  Sandy

RetSol

I also am a "Which?" consumer subscriber. They reckon that an annual household expenditure of £17,200 would allow for small luxuries, such as a European holidays, hobbies and eating out. 

I think that an annual spend of £17.2k is sufficient for a moderately comfortable existence but I don't know about it being enough for overseas holidays.  Or do I need to improve my budgeting?! 

MovingForwards

RetSol said:

I also am a "Which?" consumer subscriber. They reckon that an annual household expenditure of £17,200 would allow for small luxuries, such as a European holidays, hobbies and eating out. 

I think that an annual spend of £17.2k is sufficient for a moderately comfortable existence but I don't know about it being enough for overseas holidays.  Or do I need to improve my budgeting?! 

That's more than my annual take home pay and if so inclined I could afford a few overseas holidays, or a longhaul and Europe holiday each year for two of us and cattery fees.

[Deleted User]

If you look at the 'Which' categories for expenditure, there are probably some where you would spend more or less. So once again its a very individual thing. For example I would not need the £726 for tobacco and alcohol although I would spend more on food. I also spend far less on insurances.  They say a single person would need £30000 for a luxurious retirement. With my spending patterns I could do the 'luxurious' retirement'on just over £25000, and that would include more holidays than I would probably take and saving for a replacement car.

[Deleted User]

Interestingly on the main pensions board, somebody has also started a thread talking about the 'Which' article. As expected, several of the posters there just dont believe the numbers suggested are enough!

RetSol

Here's a link to the Which article. - https://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/starting-to-plan-your-retirement/how-much-will-you-need-to-retire-atu0z9k0lw3p. 

203846930

This thread has shown to me just what other people think is a 'comfortable' income in retirement.
Most are quoting numbers that I never earned in a year in my whole employed life and that includes a period when I was engaged in 4 different jobs at one time.

Farway

duncanthedog said:

This thread has shown to me just what other people think is a 'comfortable' income in retirement.
Most are quoting numbers that I never earned in a year in my whole employed life and that includes a period when I was engaged in 4 different jobs at one time.

I suspect I was in same situation, once I took voluntary redundancy & the state pension kicked in I had more left than I had while working

scottish_lassy

I have worked out that I would need a minimum of £1100 per month to cover all my living costs comfortably.  As Farway says, once my state pension kicks in, I would have no worries but it is the 7 years till that point that I am pondering about.  Another thought that it is in those 7 years that I might be the fitest and most active for adventure!!  BTW £30,000 would be fantastic! but that's dreamworld for me.