The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: F313 on September 30, 2015, 08:24:14 AM
-
Assume your health insurance is paid for as part of a pension benefit, and assume your house is paid off, how much gross (pre fed taxes) monthly income do YOU need to accomplish your goal of early retirement?
Assume you are in a low/no income tax state, with a medium to low cost of living.
Of course everyone is different depending on family needs, hobbies, interests, etc. But I am interested to see how the numbers average for Mustachians.
I'll start, for our family of 3, two adults and one teen, with the above assumptions, probably $5,000 a month would suffice and make even part-time work optional. You?
-
If my house was paid off, I'd say we (wife, daughter) would need around 2.5K. Maybe 3K if we did a lot of travelling.
-
Assume your health insurance is paid for as part of a pension benefit, and assume your house is paid off, how much gross (pre fed taxes) monthly income do YOU need to accomplish your goal of early retirement?
Assume you are in a low/no income tax state, with a medium to low cost of living.
Of course everyone is different depending on family needs, hobbies, interests, etc. But I am interested to see how the numbers average for Mustachians.
I'll start, for our family of 3, two adults and one teen, with the above assumptions, probably $5,000 a month would suffice and make even part-time work optional. You?
Probably wouldn't enjoy too early retirement. Somewhere between 50-60 years old would be nice in my mind.
$5,000 dollars a month with mortgage paid off, I think we would be living an extremely nice life.
-
I am currently living a very fancy life @ $20k a year while renting. So I would need $1000-1200/month to continue my lifestyle.
-
Family of 4. Our current average spending is $1026/mo. We could live lives of luxury for $1,500/mo ($1,666/mo gross). My bragging thread is over here (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/more-extreme-than-ere/).
Paid off house, free health insurance, etc., etc.
-
I would say approx $2k in a HCOL area, high taxes. Low cost of living... I could probably make do with half that.
-
I would be able to happily live on about $60,000 a year gross with a family of 5 IF I could get wifey to agree to what I wanted. Not much chance of that in the current view of things, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is possible depending on how life takes us in the future.
-
Back in 2008, I was supporting my family of three on a takehome of $1650 a month in a LCOLA. I still had some pennies left over for saving plus I'd get a decent EITC check that would take care of all my irregular expenses. I'd probably be slightly better off now with that amount as I don't have any debt anymore.
I'm planning on living on between $1700-$2100 a month once we hit the road.
-
Over the next year, I intend to find out for sure!
-
we plan to live on 48-50k per year with those criteria so 4k give or take per month
-
A relatively accurate assessment of our estimated expenses in the best case scenario would be around $1200/month. House paid, car paid, kids completely on their own. If I get my way and get my little sailboat, I would add $200 per month for maintenance (no marina slip, just mooring at the nearby cove) on top of that. If not, tough luck, I'll just kayak around the island surrounded by orcas and sea lions...Provisions for travel once a year for 3-5 months, in low COL/high QOL countries, an additional $500 per month. Total: $1900/month.
-
I've lived off 12k quite well a few years back (sports photography is less than lucrative if you aren't in the world's top 20). I currently live on 16k (half of my net income) and feel like I'm living a balls out luxury lifestyle. I have no kids though, and share expenses with the BF without combining income. So if I lived alone and added more international travel in the mix, I think 20k would be awesome.
-
My 80 year old inlaws do it on 24K/ year, my 75 year old mom receives 36K/ year and has more money she she ever has. we are planning for $50K/ year.
ML
-
This is our status right now and apparently my DH thinks we need $10k a month. I could easily do it on $5k. We should be retired!!!! Grr.
:/
-
If I take our take-home right now, get ride of after tax retirement savings, daycare costs, and mortgage principle/interest, that leaves us with about $2500/month. We do travel quite a bit - one side of the family lives overseas. That's for a family of 3 in an average American metro area (relatively LCOL). Give us even more breathing room because I like to be extravagant sometimes and call it $3k/mo.
-
Me and my wife are living on around 25k a year and it feels like too much. I don't know how the people around us are blowing a 100k a year....
-
In the US, Federal taxes are totally dependent on your income so I suggest its not easy to compare apples to apples. If you are a married couple and your gross is $20k or less then your tax bill is zero.
Having said that last year we two adults spent $29k with a paid off mortgage and our state income tax is 9%. This is with low cost (company provided) HC and we took a 3 week roadtrip in the Summer. Our real estate tax was $2k.
That felt like a comfortable spend, certainly wasn't trying to avoid spending, we are FI.
-
Interesting. Many here are (or believe they can) do it comfortably on $3k a month or less. $5k a month is extravagant. I'll have to let my wife read this thread....
-
$15K for basic, but still great.
$25K for the deluxe version.
There are Canada Bucks so $11.5K - $19K USD.
-
This is our status right now and apparently my DH thinks we need $10k a month. I could easily do it on $5k. We should be retired!!!! Grr.
:/
$10k/month??!! Really??!! Do you guys support your WHOLE family?
-
Me and my wife are living on around 25k a year and it feels like too much. I don't know how the people around us are blowing a 100k a year....
Interesting way to look at it.... We are spending $48k a year and I definitely know it is too high... granted my fucking mortgage accounts for $30k of it.... goodbye to you in January you beast.
To put it this way, $31k house, $12k bills, $5k on ourselves. Fucking miserable.
-
DH and I could (and have) lived on $1200 a month. But for RE, I'm aiming for $2000 a month so we can travel or do home improvements or whatever.
-
Interesting. Many here are (or believe they can) do it comfortably on $3k a month or less. $5k a month is extravagant. I'll have to let my wife read this thread....
i live in an HOA private lake community, Travel 12+ times per year for fun, own a wakeboard boat(that just blew up its engine), go out to eat way more than i should(7-8 times/month), and do all that for around 50k per year with my wife and I ... not counting our mortgage of course. and we own 2 dogs.
Forgot to mention we also both commute around a half hour 20-30 miles one way to work...
You can do cool shit for less money that you enjoy you just have to find out how to do what you want cheaply
-
I want about $5k/month... that's my plan when I'm 40-45... I could live on $2k (giving myself $1k for rent/utilities and $1k for everything else).
Which is about $12/hr which is what anyone can make fairly easily... no idea why there is such a backlash against minimum wage... it's like people don't even attempt to get $4/hr more from $8/hr minimum... granted, working "costs" more too, so maybe $15/hr is needed? Still easy to obtain though for most people
-
I want about $5k/month... that's my plan when I'm 40-45... I could live on $2k (giving myself $1k for rent/utilities and $1k for everything else).
Which is about $12/hr which is what anyone can make fairly easily... no idea why there is such a backlash against minimum wage... it's like people don't even attempt to get $4/hr more from $8/hr minimum... granted, working "costs" more too, so maybe $15/hr is needed? Still easy to obtain though for most people
Don't forget federal and state taxes, SS, and Obamacare. I would think it brings it up slightly. You also assume 2000 hours a year, which most minimum wage jobs will not give you to avoid full-time status, so you would need two. I guess what i'm saying is if you haven't tried to live on minimum wage, I wouldn't be so judgemental on those that actually do.
-
Hmm I live in Chicago currently and if I remove rent from the equation I generally spend about 1400$ per month on all other things (for me + 2 cats). That's already living pretty luxuriously. I can (and sometimes do) cut back to about 1000-1100$ per month, and that's still including some restaurant meals plus 100$/mo for a public transport pass. I hope to retire to a LCOL area, but really have no idea how much I'll spend then.
-
I want about $5k/month... that's my plan when I'm 40-45... I could live on $2k (giving myself $1k for rent/utilities and $1k for everything else).
Which is about $12/hr which is what anyone can make fairly easily... no idea why there is such a backlash against minimum wage... it's like people don't even attempt to get $4/hr more from $8/hr minimum... granted, working "costs" more too, so maybe $15/hr is needed? Still easy to obtain though for most people
Don't forget federal and state taxes, SS, and Obamacare. I would think it brings it up slightly. You also assume 2000 hours a year, which most minimum wage jobs will not give you to avoid full-time status, so you would need two. I guess what i'm saying is if you haven't tried to live on minimum wage, I wouldn't be so judgemental on those that actually do.
Thank you! Now i'm not saying we need 15 hr minimum wage but anyone that tries to live on minimum wage now in this world has to have additional help either from government programs / food stamps, WIC, lower income housing, etc. Otherwise it is downright impossible! - Big big can of worms i'm opening here i'm pretty sure , so lets just stay on topic shall we lol
I currently live on 1500 a month including rent. This is still living pretty fancy (in my mind anyway). I still go out to dinner with the girlfriend far too often. Buy car parts that I can't afford and still have enough left over for savings. Also just sold my Honda / car loan - which will free up even more money! I'm pretty exicted about it!
Also - anyone ever drive a Miata in the winter time?
-
I live in South Africa, so costs are lower, plus the currency has taken a beating, but for myself and my son I consider barebones to be $1100 a month, and my version of luxury living is $2000 a month.
I plan to travel a lot post fire, so trying to hang in there at work for a few more years.
-
There's a lot of range here. We're planning on 60-70K per year, with paid off house. When I think about it, it's probably extravagant. But, we want to travel.
Still, I'm nervous -- mostly about health care. I've pushed the ACA numbers and have a plan, it's just that it's so key for us.
-
I was doing just fine on (post-401k) $37k gross plus $450/mo rental income, so call it $42k - but my house isn't paid off ($848.95/mo now, taxes/insurance are about $137/mo). Remove $8500 net for that, so maybe $11k gross and we're down to $31k. Remove other stuff that'll be paid off (could be now, but meh rates are low) and that's another ~$6k/yr gross.
Looks like I'd be just fine at $25k (basically $2k/mo)...and that's with two cars and an 1800sq ft house.
-
If our mortgage were paid off, $2,500/month would be comfortable. Property taxes are outrageous here, so even with a paid off mortgage, we would still owe $600/month in property taxes and homeowners insurance. This is for an average house, not a mansion.
$3,500 would be awesome. We will be making that much just based on the husband's pension alone in 12 years. He will be 56 and I will be 52. I also have a pension to add to that plus our investments in Roths and his 457 plan. As long as we (or at least he) hold(s) out for 12 more years, we are set!
-
$2000
-
Isn't it great how many of us could really live a crazy enjoyable life with lots of hobbies and travel for less than the median US household income.
My FIRE # will ensure at a 3-4% SWR I will be able to pull $40-50k/yr for SO and I. We could survive on around half of that. Quite a safety margin.
-
I want about $5k/month... that's my plan when I'm 40-45... I could live on $2k (giving myself $1k for rent/utilities and $1k for everything else).
Which is about $12/hr which is what anyone can make fairly easily... no idea why there is such a backlash against minimum wage... it's like people don't even attempt to get $4/hr more from $8/hr minimum... granted, working "costs" more too, so maybe $15/hr is needed? Still easy to obtain though for most people
Don't forget federal and state taxes, SS, and Obamacare. I would think it brings it up slightly. You also assume 2000 hours a year, which most minimum wage jobs will not give you to avoid full-time status, so you would need two. I guess what i'm saying is if you haven't tried to live on minimum wage, I wouldn't be so judgemental on those that actually do.
i didnt forget about them... i just dont expect people to work years and years at minimum wage jobs... i see them as stepping stone jobs for high school and college students. not something you do as a career.
even the people who work right out of high school and dont attend college. i expect that after a few years at a minimum wage job, they will get enough skills to move up. Government should not hand hold you to get a salary increase.
that is how i see it when people want $15/hr minimum wage... that they have no intentions of moving up, so they want their current jobs to pay more. no different than a new couple wanting the government to upgrade their 1 bedroom house to 3 bedroom just because they want kids snd dont want the extra stresses of larger house. yes i know mmm goes on about a house bigger than you need, thats fine. but if someone wanted it, they should be responsible for it. i mean if they cant even secure housing that they "want", they dont really want kids either because kids are more work than getting a house
since this is mmm, arent we all working to fi someday so we can quit working a job? we give up on spending to be able to save... giving things up isnt bad if it works towards your goal. if someone wanted something enough, they will give up somethings to get it. house,kids,wage, all the same... if they want higher wage, they need to give up being a minimum wage worker. even if you increase ir, they will still be minimum wage workers.... that doesnt change until they decide it for themselves.
-
If our house was paid off... need is such a 'touchy' word. I mean I don't "need" 2 cars, a 1700 sq/ft house, tv, dishwasher, A/C, memberships, etc, etc.
Family of 4, I would say to 'maintain' our current lifestyle... it would be around 35-40k/yr. I'm pretty sure we would be fine on less than 30k/yr if push came to shove...
Man some of those numbers are HIGH... had to check if I was still on MMM, lol.
-
With a paid off house and no insurance or debt to worry about, we would spend about $19044 a year right now. I think by the time we retire or go part time that will be even less though. So $19044/12=$1587 a month.
-
Man some of those numbers are HIGH... had to check if I was still on MMM, lol.
I'm estimating in the 60K range, to be able to do what we want to do. This is where I'm jealous of Canadian mustachians for your health care... although we will be getting some premium credits (assuming they don't change the Affordable Care Act), health care expense could easily eat up $6-12K per year of that if something happens to one of us. So we need to budget for worst case scenario. Still we are pretty high compared to some. But we want to travel a lot. It's all about doing the things you want to do, right?
-
It's all about doing the things you want to do, right?
110%
-
Living on my own, I'd have a small 1 bedroom 1 bathroom house.
$12/month for phone
$50/month for internet
$40/month electricity
$40/month water/sewer
$100/month for food
$200/month emergency fund for house/bike
$300/month for traveling/shopping/other
Total: $742/month, $8,904/year (won't have to pay for taxes)
-
We could easily live on $1000 a month. $1500-2000 to live very well(traveling, dining out ect)
-
I live on $1100/month VERY comfortably right now, including my housing. But I would say we need to index for inflation for increased costs over my lifetime. If my house was paid off, $1100/month would be exceedingly comfortable/wasteful.
-
Good stuff. Lots of frugal people with good ideas. Cars and health care costs seem to be budget killers.
-
With all of the front running GOP candidates saying they will dismantle Obamacare I think the HC cost is highly uncertain going forward.
Without the ACA I think we are highly likely to move out of the USA.
-
We rent, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so we would need the same as what we use now. We get by perfectly well on $2500 a month including rent (and $600 on food/$150-200 on entertainment, shopping, etc), the other $800-1000 goes to savings.
Oh, if we didn't pay rent...which is $1100 a month, it would be $1400 a month. $600 of that is the fun stuff for us like eating out and going to the movies, museums on the weekend, etc
To be honest, I don't feel like we're super frugal...and we make peanuts compared to others we know, but we live really comfortably.
-
I am currently living a very fancy life @ $20k a year while renting. So I would need $1000-1200/month to continue my lifestyle.
+1
I have a current gross of about 5.5k/month, but after 401k contributions (to get the company "free money" match), taxes, mortgage, and the debt emergency (which will all be re-allocated to retirement savings once it is paid down), only about 1000 of that goes to living expenses for myself, my wife, and our cat and dog. That $1000 includes food, transportation, utilities, and occasional hobby purchases. with 1200-1500/month we could afford to take a road trip vacation every 3-4 months or fly somewhere for a week or two once a year on top of our normal expenses, and we really still have a LOT of fat left to trim from our lifestyle. I understand how cost of living in your area and having children can raise the required monthly income somewhat, but can't fathom how over 5k gross (with no debt, insurance, or mortgage included) would be considered anything short of outright lavish, and that would be with a large family in a HCOL area...
-
WE have been semi-retired for almost 4 years. The first year we lived on 30k once I subtract what I paid for health insurance. WE did not travel that year. The last 3 years without HI we have spent about 65k but about 15k of that has been on travel. Also we have 4 old dogs ages 10-18 so vet bills are costing us a small fortune. We are happy with our life. Our COL is medium.
-
Less health care, we're planning to spend 5k/month in retirement. That includes the 8k per year we pay in property taxes/home insurance and multiple nice vacations (cruises or international travel) per year. The less we spend on everything else, the more vacations I get to take :)
-
Taking healthcare out of the mix, I'd be very comfortable on 3k/mo. Of course, even if I was certain I'd have that amount every month, I'd still work hard at living on less.
NDQ
-
Interesting. Many here are (or believe they can) do it comfortably on $3k a month or less. $5k a month is extravagant. I'll have to let my wife read this thread....
My wife and I have averaged about $3000-$3200 per month, averaged over the last year or so. This is not a "one month we spent $X!" it's our average of everything (except tuition). We rent and tithe (which combine for about 50% of that total).
The trick is to find out what adds value to your life and spend on it.
And nothing else.
You like having a boat? Spend $500 a month on it? That is fine -- if and only if you don't also like nice cars, fancy meals, have horses, extensively garden, like nice computers, lots of pets, giving grandkids/kids lots of things, etc.
-
With house paid off we would be at about 3,000 a month and there isn't much else we need. We are a family of 5.
-
Wow. This thread has my eyes bugging out of my head on how much people think they need to live on.
I'm already FIRE (2 adults in the house) and we set ourselves a budget of $2k/month (this is not a hard cap). We spend less than that. This is including rent. We are frugal, but we aren't depriving ourselves of anything either. We have a lot of fancy things, are paying for pretty fast internet, etc. We have a house fund set aside to buy a house, but since we just moved back to the States in September from overseas, and it's a state we've never lived in before, we need time to look for a house to buy (thus why we're renting).
I can't see how I could spend $5k+ per month if we're assuming a house is paid off.
-
Let's see...
I like to separate "needs" and "wants" to get a sense of how comfortable I'd be at different levels of income/burn rate.
NEED: If I average out the results of the last few years of expense tracking, it comes out to a little under 20k/yr. I'd like to build some buffer into that to account for the travel that I don't do much of now, so maybe 25k, not a hard cap. Also could be substantially affected by whether or not I remain in a HCOL area, as rent is a huge budget line item.
WANT: This could probably be scaleless, but I don't envision getting decent marginal enjoyment out of spending more than 50-60k/yr. on myself (no family yet, I'm a single guy who lives relatively simply). A 4% WR suggests a 'stash of 1.5MM would sustainably yield this. Could also probably play with withdrawal rates. Above these levels, I'd give serious thoughts to helpful means of philanthropy.
-
If my flat was paid off and I continued to live in Scotland, where all medical care and most dental care is free, including prescriptions, I would only need about £800 [$1100] per month, and that would allow me to travel to Europe a couple of times a year too.
-
(2015 spending - rent - healthcare)/12 = $455/ month
That included some fluff. I'd prefer to live on more; $1000/month seems like it would be pretty luxurious for a single person.
-
Family of 6. We planned Ridiculous spending for the next 3years and that money is set aside but were trying to not spend it all. At that time 2 will be off fully funded for college. After that as we continue our Retirement we will be down to 6k a month including HC as a family of 4. After 4 more years then I cant imagine more than 3-4k. These were all things we had to plan when we did FIre.
-
A couple with no kids: $2.5k / month
Could we be fine with half of that? Sure. Would I FIRE if my stash could only cover half of that? No.
-
We live on $4000 a month -- my husband is ER, I am not. $1400 of that pays our health insurance costs (I am self-employed) and another $200 or so goes to pay medical bills that that insurance doesn't cover (deductibles.) If we could get rid of that healthcare cost albatross, we would be in high cotton indeed. There's just two of us and two dogs. We travel quite a bit and we live in a high COL area.
-
I was calculating this last week - when my mortgage and student loans are gone, and my kids are grown and gone (no ER until then) I could live very comfortably on $40,000 per year. (in 2016 dollars, obviously) That would be extravagant, including travel and good food and hobbies. If needed I could live on much, much less, but that would be a crappy goal.
-
We live on $4000 a month -- my husband is ER, I am not. $1400 of that pays our health insurance costs (I am self-employed) and another $200 or so goes to pay medical bills that that insurance doesn't cover (deductibles.) If we could get rid of that healthcare cost albatross, we would be in high cotton indeed. There's just two of us and two dogs. We travel quite a bit and we live in a high COL area.
$1400 a month?...Wow!
-
Yeah, that $1400 hurts big time -- 2 adults in their 50s in Colorado. $6600 deductible, $45 office visit copay. I shopped like crazy and this is the best we could do. I make too much money to qualify for any subsidy.
-
That's terrible! I am mad about paying $900/month for 2 people but at least we don't have deductibles for most things-just co-pays.
-
Thats one of the primary reasons we are looking at moving out of the country.
-
I was working on these numbers just a few days ago. With my house paid off and no healthcare costs. I could easily get by on $1100 a month at my current level of spending however, I would want closer to $2000 a month.
I also question in retirement if I would keep my house (it's just me) I would probably sell and rent an apartment in a more rural area which would lower my costs considerably.
-
For two adults it would be about $2,000. This would allow for luxurious living and traveling.
-
I'm retired and live on $33,000 per year.
-
For 2 Adults and 2 (spoilt) dogs - our retirement budget varies from A$3,500 for bare bones (no travel, few meals out etc) to A$6,700 for a more extravagant lifestyle including meals out, holidays, motor cycle each etc. That's about US$2,500 to US$4,800.
What about the other Aussies out there?
-
The 2 of us easily live off of $2500 a month now with a mortgage. If we use your scenario, we would be fine with $1700 a month. We would still be able to enjoy life, eat out and travel.
-
If my flat was paid off and I continued to live in Scotland, where all medical care and most dental care is free, including prescriptions, I would only need about £800 [$1100] per month, and that would allow me to travel to Europe a couple of times a year too.
Yes, we're in England and we could live happily on £1,500 - £2,000 a month for both of us (and our pets) and in fact that would be quite luxurious.
-
I'm planning on living on between $1700-$2100 a month once we hit the road.
I don't know what my husband and I did wrong, but we spent one month total on the road with our paid off 24ft travel trailer and truck and spent over $3000.00. Gas was cheaper than the year before, we joined boondockers welcome and stayed for free in some places. We dry camped some. I froze a bunch of whole dinners which we ate at night, and we stayed with some friends in two places. Our average night's lodging cost us $22.00, with all the free camping and stuff. We actually spent a total of $3500.00 but we had to buy 3 tires on the road and I am not including them in the total. We did eat out some and we had to take our friends out to dinner for staying with them. We bought a few souvenirs, but most of them were from thrift stores.
I just don't know if $1500 to $2000 is realistic. Maybe if you are tent camping, but even then, the camping fees start to add up even in a tent. I mean averaging $22.00 per night was awesome to me! Our truck gets 13 miles per gallon, but it is diesel and is needed to pull the camper. We did spend a lot in gas because we went 6000 miles, so I guess if you stayed in one place for a month, it would be a lot cheaper.
Just wondering how I compare to other mustachians on travelling the country.
Miss Prim
PS. The travel trailer was bought used as was the truck.
-
We spent 60K last year, so 5K per month, for everything.
Pay off the house, and we're down to 48K or 4K per month.
That includes a fair bit of travel (nice!), our clothing budget would drop (yay! no more fancy work clothes), and I'd have a bit more time to shop/cook more strategically, so I'd wager I could get it down another 500/month. I'm keeping our medical expenses in there b.c. I really do think those will go UP not down.
So with a paid-off house and skepticism about health care, call it 3.5K-4K a month for a rich, fun life for us (and our pooch)!
-
With no debts and free healthcare, I could get by pretty well on $20K, and that's with boarding two horses and leaving some slush in the budget for activities. If I didn't have dogs or horses and had no debts, it would be pretty easy to get by on $12k/year or less as a bare bones budget (but still owning a car and eating like a King).
-
Miss Prim, we have a 21-foot fifth wheel (bought used and we have enjoyed the heck out of it.) We took a 3-week trip last summer, drove 4000 miles and we spent $2200, so I think you are in a good ballpark. A lot depends on where you go and how much you drive. About half of that trip was spent in Canada in paid campgrounds, so that increased our costs. In the U.S. we mostly boondock in National Forests or on BLM land, and cook for ourselves. We're planning a 4-week trip in the U.S. this fall and it will be interesting to see how much the total for that one is. Compare that to 3 or 4 weeks on almost any other kind of vacation and I think it's a real bargain.
-
We could live off $1600/ month and have change in our pocket.
Sent from my XT1526 using Tapatalk
-
Family of 3 (so far).
I think the range we could live on is $500/mo on the low end, $4k/mo on the high end.
Probably will end up in the middle, 2-3k/mo. Might do the 500/mo one year, just for fun.
Don't really think about the spending, just spend, but doing a low spending challenge might be a fun lark.
-
Miss Prim: we have a paid for RV -27 ft and we took it 8,000 miles last June. WE spent $6,000 miles. It only gets 10mpg. I mostly cooked as we have a full kitchen in the RV. WE only ate out a few times. We spent the most $ on gas and RV sites. As we went to a bunch of places we had to pay the nightly rate. At one of the parks some other retirees said they saved $ by staying for a month because the monthly rate was usually between $300/400/month. Well we had a bunch of people we wanted to see and some National Parks. At Yellowstone we paid $55/night & the Grand Tetons it was 75.00/night. Ouch! I think the cheapest we managed to find was $35.00/night. WE were looking to stay at a RV park in Oregon next summer on the coast and it is old but well kept. Because you just need to cross the highway to get to the ocean it is $800 for a month. That is the cheap rate-ugh! WE are looking at a Plan B. One other expense we had is that you can't pull most newer cars behind an RV. So you can buy a trailer for $4000 to put your car on and pull it, buy a much older junkie car that can be pulled. In the end we rented a car for the 2 national parks because it would be too difficult to drive an RV around the parks all the time. So that expense added up because we had it for a week.
-
I have a goal of 3k a month. $100 a day. But this is honestly more than double what I need. But taking into account a potential wife and then even more hypothetical kids. This seems a good round number.
I have lived in an RV 6-8 months a year since I was 8 yrs old. The goal is to never pay for a campground. I have tracked expenses, for long term living, it is exceptionally inexpensive.
-
12K a month if I live plush, in the 7th most expensive city in the US. That's assuming I have a paid for place to live, which I do, both outright and in creative rental situations (multi-plex).
-
If my flat was paid off and I continued to live in Scotland, where all medical care and most dental care is free, including prescriptions, I would only need about £800 [$1100] per month, and that would allow me to travel to Europe a couple of times a year too.
Yes, we're in England and we could live happily on £1,500 - £2,000 a month for both of us (and our pets) and in fact that would be quite luxurious.
£2000/month and a paid off house in the south east of England (that notoriously expensive place) would definitely be living high on the hog for the two of us. £1000/month and a paid off house would be nice but there would be some things I would want to do but couldn't afford (mostly expensive classes/hobby equipment/materials for me). If we moved somewhere like rural Wales... we'd be rich beyond our wildest dreams!
-
I've thought about this a bit and I think we could live quite nicely (and happily) on $1500/month. Now, we choose NOT to do this (more like $2500)...but we COULD.
Housing costs for us are less than $400/month...this is the key to EVERYTHING for us.
-
We currently live on just under $2k a month with a killer commute and college tuition. In retirement, well, I'm starting to think hard about working until I earn retiree health care (for us both). That comes before Medicare eligibility but after we could otherwise retire.