The Retirement Thread

[ColinJ]

My total expenditure last year was ~£10,000, including rent on a 2-bedroom house. That includes about £10/week average for all non-essentials.
If I absolutely had to I could get that down to just below £9,500 but it would be a pretty bleak existence.

I would be a lot happier to be able to spend about £12,000 a year, which will be the case starting in 2022 when I get my state pension, and I will be able to save about £1,000 a year on top of that.

What I am hoping for is to actually have to start paying income tax again as a pensioner! (That's if I ever finish any of the apps that I have been writing AND they make a reasonable amount of money.)

 

[PaulSB]

@Dirk .....yes...... @PaulSB suggestion.
He is common so shops at Lidl
I am dead dead posh and shop at Aldi

Oi........who you calling common? Eh? Eh?

 

[Dave7]

Oi........who you calling common? Eh? Eh?

Well, be honest, you are not from Cheshire are you

 

[PaulSB]

Well, be honest, you are not from Cheshire are you

Lancashire, la, la, la, Lancashire la, la, la.....😄

 

[Paulus]

Oi........who you calling common? Eh? Eh?

Fight fight fight
Or, pistols at dawn?

 

[welsh dragon]

Fight fight fight
Or, pistols at dawn?

Handbags more like

 

[PaulSB]

Fight fight fight
Or, pistols at dawn?

Coming from Cheshire he'll want a foil or epee............

 

[ColinJ]

Tod Lidl is closing early for 3 evenings so work can be carried out on the store. Given that it opened less than 2 years ago, I'm wondering what they are going to do to the building... Possibly putting in a one-way system to reduce the risk of picking up corona virus from other shoppers?

The single best thing they could do to reduce infection risk would be to open more checkouts at once. I don't think that I have ever seen more than 4 of the (8?) open and it is often just 1 or 2. That leads to queues. I want to get in and out ASAP, not stand in a line of shoppers...

I usually go to the store in the evening when it is quiet, but I had a blood test at the health centre next door this morning so I thought I'd do my shopping at 11:00 for a change. It was MUCH busier... I'll stick to the evening shops!

 

[PaulSB]

@12boy - interesting question and not at all rude or vulgar. Some interesting replies as well which show how different all our lives can be.

We try to live on $24500 per annum but usually have to draw $3-4000 from my pension or our savings to make ends meet. That's all in, everything we need to be happy and relaxed. I have a private pension (in the UK this means entirely self-funded, nothing from the employer) and, like many, can choose to either take an annual income or "drawdown" a lump of cash when needed. It's always a balancing act as drawdown is income and so taxable. At the moment I'm using cash savings as these are not taxable.

Finding $500 for health insurance would be scary. Once retired we don't make any contribution to our NHS health service - I had 10.5 hours brain surgery and two weeks in hospital January 2019! God knows what that would have cost in your country? Our meds are heavily subsidized for everyone, mine should be $47/month but zero as I'm over 65.

Our food bill is around $90/week. Netflix is $10/month. We don't often eat out but theatre etc. would be perhaps $100 three or four times a year. Local taxes $230/month. Energy $85/month.

The two major leisure expenses are gym for my wife at $125/month and similar for me on cycling but the cycling tends to be in larger one-off amounts - like the new bike I'm planning would be worth a couple of years of gym membership. Mrs P plays a lot of tennis at the gym, big social thing for her which on an hourly rate works out around $3/hour.

If we have a big trip, like Vietnam earlier this year, that all comes out of savings. We told the kids they get one-third of the house each just don't expect to find any money in the bank!!!! 😂

 

[welsh dragon]

We don't have to pay for medicines in Wales.

 

[welsh dragon]

Our monthly outgoings are roughly £900 A month or $1300 dollars ?

We don't have a mortgage. Don't drink much. Food and community tax are the biggest monthly bills.

 

[Dirk]

@PaulSB - Yep, it tastes like whiskey!

 

[Drago]

We don't have to pay for medicines in Wales.

Neither do I or Mrs D in England - im T1 diabetic, and she's T2 as a side effect of the multiple sclerosis. In any case, we prefer leeches and drinking goats blood over this new fangled medicine malarkey.

 

[PaulSB]

Our monthly outgoings are roughly £900 A month or $1300 dollars ?

We don't have a mortgage. Don't drink much. Food and community tax are the biggest monthly bills.

I knew we were going wrong somewhere!! 😉

 

[PaulSB]

@12boy - I'd like to add, sorry folks said this before, but I come from a golden generation. Free education, largely full employment, opportunity to buy a house and pay for it, chance to save for a pension, free healthcare, a state pension which helps a lot etc. A wonderful era of rock 'n' roll 😉

I count myself enormously fortunate though like most on here I recall the tough times such as 16% mortgage interest etc. Retired at 62.

Keep telling the kids don't look at your parents. Save now 'cos the state will give you bugger all when you hit pension age of probably 72 or later!!