How much could you live on – very early retirement question

Just hypothetically. Lets say a mid-forties person wanted to retire. How much could you survive on.

Assume mortgage is paid, but bills (leccy etc), food etc still need buying.

What could people get by on?

And I assume this is an ‘all things to all people’ type of question as it depends on the nature of your lifestyle. I’m just wondering is all…..

If I had no wife/kids, then I could get by on bugger all. At a guess < £5K

As it stands (mid forties, 3 young kids) – retirement = never 🙂

Survive, get by or love life?

As an opening punt, I reckon to be happy £200pw, although (for me) that would be peppered with writing royalties that would pay for nice holidays.

Fixed bills like council tax, heating, insurance etc, which will only rise (above inflation) over time will add up to a few £k per year.

I’d guess it all depends on what prediction you have for state benefits over the rest of your lifetime as well….

£200 per week between us, would see me and my good lady get buy easily.

lot of variables in this..

Can you/would you like get by on £20 worth of food from Lidl every week? or do you like the odd piece of nice cheese/nice meat/bottle of wine?

Do you like to eat out?

Do you have a car? running costs? replacement cost when the time comes?

How big is your house? heating/utility bills for folk in my office range from £50ish to nearly £200 PCM.

Do you like to travel? if you do, could you accept no more ‘big’ holidays?

Mobile phone/TV/internet? some folk I work with give Sky/Virgin over £100 per month…

I can’t really give you a figure – because as a 41 year old, with two little kids and a huge mortgage, retirement isn’t something which I could even consider…

However, we live in a street full of retired people, and the difference in lifestyles between the affluent and not so well off is staggering –
The folk opposite us (aged 80 and 82) have just spent £400k on the house, have another house by the coast for weekends, have just bought two almost new cars, etc…
Lady round the corner (also in her early 80s) flies to New York 3 times a year to see her son, then gets a cruise ship home.
Whereas others are quite clearly living very close to the breadline (scruffy houses, etc)

I think if I had to pull a number out of the Sky, me and the Mrs could live on £1k per month (assuming no mortgage/debts)

work it out

fixed costs (and then allow – say 5% inflation)
then – how much money do you want on top of this

if you have a final salary pension that helps (known income in retirement) but bear in mind there are likely to be even more pension changes …………………….

plogeess – double posted

Depends if you want to go on holiday or not, drive a car, go out for meals, etc.

But for me & wife I reckon we could live on not very much

at the moment with mortgage etc removed from my monthly expenditure I only have about £250 outgoings – that includes full sky package & fibre optic broadband, mobiles, etc. Ah forgot about council tax, wife pays that and I think its £200 and something a month.

So without fueling a car we could live on £500 £750 if I ditched sky and mobiles. But that would be without using a car, walking every where, never buying anything ‘nice’, not buying beer, clothes, so just surviving.

Realistically we could get by comfortably on £1000 a month but there wouldn’t be much of a disaster fund.

Mine down to the lowest number you think you can get by on. Double it.

By downsizing, I reckon somewhere around 750pm is the minimum I’d want to go to for me and my wife and for that luxuries are right out. I think around 1200 is more liveable. Life in the UK isn’t cheap eh…

The trouble is having spare time is expensive because of all the stuff I buy. I think my living costs would double if I didn’t spend 5 days a week trapped in an office.

Interesting question, I get online statements for my credit card, but the other day I got a yearly statement. Yearly spend was in the region of £18k. Admittedly this covers all food shopping, petrol and car servicing, plus a trip to New York. But I actually get cash out of the bank for living expenses on a weekly basis so you could probably add another £5k to that.

Now I don’t want for much in life, but I’m hardly living a ridiculous lifestyle and buying loads of designer tat.

So my honest answer would be loads, I’d need loads to retire. My best option would be to drop down dead before I need to retire!

Conversely I know a guy who is semi-retired at a similar age to the OP, redundancy cleared his mortgage, he doesn’t spend loads on stuff he doesn’t need and he drives the school bus around for a local school, he goes skiing at least twice a year, once often with the school and lives a decent life, so it can be done.

Problem I’d have is if I wasn’t at work, I’d have more time for hobbies, many of which cost money……

I have a spreadsheet with a few ‘scenarios’ in it, and this is one of them. I would need approx £2k per month (linked to inflation and assuming no tax is to be paid on this) to live a nice enough life, ie a couple of moderate holidays, car,eating out now and again, all bills (no mortgage) covered etc.

I would need approx £2k per month

Sort of my guess as well. However all gets quite expensive if you come from a long line of long lived relatives:

£2k / month x 12 = £24k per annum x 40 years say = £960k!

I get online statements for my credit card, but the other day I got a yearly statement

I’m going to try to put all my “staying alive” expenses on one card, and “fun” expenses on another so, that after a while I can answer exactly this question….

A safer bet would be to see if your company will let you go part time.
Mine did ,it was a great 7 years,although it did reduce the works pension a bit,as I went for 3 days a week.

The answer is probably “whatever you currently live on”. If you’re used to magazine subscriptions, expensive new bikes, foreign holidays and a shiny new car every two years, you’re going to struggle to get by on less money.

Our youngest should finish uni the same year that we turn 50 (2027). I plan on paying our mortgage off in the same year and then just working part time.

I get online statements for my credit card, but the other day I got a yearly statement

I have been putting all mine and the wifes spending on a single credit card (1% cashback with no upper limit) for the last few years, and we typically spend £30k-£35k per annum on it. scary really.

I’m going to try to put all my “staying alive” expenses on one card, and “fun” expenses on another so, that after a while I can answer exactly this question….

I put all expenditure/income on a spreadsheet anyway so I know exactly what I spend money on.

€15 A night’s camping at a site in France
€15 plat du jour at the café
€10 bottle of wine
€5 breakfast
€10 Lunch
€20 transport/play money

I reckon I could survive 6months of the year on €3-4k 🙂

I reckon I could survive 6months of the year on €3-4k

Think you need to take a look at your figures again if your going to spend €75 a day.

Exist? Not much money.

Live? Not enough money in the world.

It’s easy enough to live on a survivors budget for a year or so. I did this when I was potless and had no work coming in. But as soon as I had new work, I ended up overspending to make up for the lean times.
Like a diet, very difficult to manage long term.

This is quite a relevant topic for me. I plan to to retire through ill health within the next twelve months. I’ve already had my pension figures and even though it’s half my current salary I’ll more than manage. Having no debts or other mouths to feed, plus very little in the way of monthly outgoings make it all possible. A colleague who recently retired said to me, you cut your cloth accordingly. I’m 41.

£2k / month x 12 = £24k per annum x 40 years say = £960k!

No inflation in that calculation though … even with 2% the total is £1.5m, 4% its £2.3m

Also £24k net income would normally mean you need a gross income of closer to £30k assuming you where single, less if that was split between a couple. That pushes the totals to £1.8m at 2% inflation and £2.9m at 4%

The problem is that if you retire and have naff all money to spend then its going to be a long and boring life. If you’ve no money to go anywhere, or do anything nice then life would be quite dull.

No inflation in that calculation though … even with 2% the total is £1.5m, 4% its £2.3m

yep, done the maths, hence I won’t be retiring anytime soon…

The problem is that if you retire and have naff all money to spend then its going to be a long and boring life. If you’ve no money to go anywhere, or do anything nice then life would be quite dull.

I figure Gardening or bird watching would be two time consuming, yet quite cheap hobbies to cultivate in old age……

well spotted Gary! 😳

i spent most of the last 7 or 8 years getting by on around 750 quid a month including my rent. so about 450 a month or 5.5k a year without housing costs.

it was somewhat of a downsized lifestyle; i didn’t have a car or anything. but once you get into the rhythm of it, it’s really quite easy.

No inflation in that calculation though … even with 2% the total is £1.5m, 4% its £2.3m

Holy crap, when you put pension figures like that it’s pretty scary (given that I haven’t yet started mine – 37, I know, I need to resolve that)!

you could lose the play money Stoner, or lunch and wine. 🙂

If you haven’t started contributing to a pension at 37 then unless you can put serious amounts in the is there really any point. You’ll need to work until you’re in your 80’s before you have enough to retire!

@toby the good news I started early, the bad news is I got divorced 😥
I’m 51 not retiring soon

EDIT In fairness I don’t think too many are planning to retire at 40 but yes these figures are why pension provision are such a major issue and why frankly defined benefit (ie final salary_ pensions just don’t work these days, the numbers are too big

you’d hope that the interest on your savings/investments would cover the inflation tho…

@doris – that was always the logic but not in the last 10 years, investment returns in many cases have been below inflation / cost of living.

Semi retirement is where it’s at I reckon, 1 or 2 days per week doing something you like, to pay for the extras and nicer things.

One thing people seem to be missing out is house maintenance. The earlier you retire the more you’ll have to do/need to replace.

^ +1 @ jota

I’ve been semi retired since I was 32 and I intend to stay that way for a long time yet.

Proper retirement kicks in when you dont have to run a household for your offspring to linger around in. Once Junior’s are gone, I pack a bag and start walking 🙂

@jota has it, most early retirees do something, not just for spending but for social reasons and to keep active. Even my ex MIL kept her cleaning job at the school for social and financial reasons, they only told her to retire when they found out she was 72 !