2K a month to live on for the rest of your life?

[BankHolidayBulb]

Could you manage (assuming you don't work) on 2K a month for the rest of your life? Assuming no kids & no rent/mortgage. We can say it's easy now but I wonder what 2K will be worth in 30/40yrs time? What problems do you foresee?

I’d miss out on loads of things that are, I realise, luxuries.

• Buying nice things for the children’s houses
• Business class flights
• New car every three years

• Entertaining

- Not thinking before I buy something I want - Trips to our boat

• Weekends away to nice places
• Dog using home boarding and daycare
• Piano lessons

Bills would eat into it quite quickly anyway. Logs, electricity, the gardener, cleaners, emptying the septic tank, filling the oil tank, window cleaners and chimney sweep, satellite internet. I think it all adds up.

Well that wouldn’t pay for care in old age.

Eileen do you mind me asking what kind of things you eat? I can’t envisage spending £50/£60 a month on food/toiletries.

It's far more than I earn now.

Cherry, not looking to adopt are you? I'm turned 30, but very well behaved!

FurrySlipperBoots, the more the merrier.

I'm not sure tbh. My council tax (with 25% off), car, phones (landline and mobile), water, electricity, house insurance, etc., etc., plus tennis (£78 a month) and yoga (£79 a month), prescription season ticket etc., etc., adds up to £1300. Nothing too frivolous apart from yoga and tennis.

That includes a food budget of £250 but no 'life' costs like eating out or going out, no petrol or car servicing. It does include NT & EH memberships (£6.50 a month each) but I save that on parking.

I live on less than that now and we live pretty well.

Depends on your lifestyle, hobbies, where you live, holidays, transport costs etc etc.

Depends if one is coming down to that income level and having to make cuts or if one is already on that sort of amount.

Live on less than that now and that's with mortgage and childcare fees!! Think I would be fine but I'm a very good saver so wouldn't plan to spend it all every month anyway.

I live very well on a bit less than that now. Covers all my bills, NT membership, gym/sports, meals/coffees/nights out, several holidays a year at least one abroad, hobbies. I am mortgage free. I don't buy lots of stuff though still wear nice clothes/have what I want etc.

What do you mean by "assuming you don't work" OP?

We live on about that AND pay a mortgage. No telling what Brexit inflation will do to that in the future though. And to be fair we put up with some less than ideal situations now because we expect, through career progression, to be more comfortable in the future. I think I'd be quite sad if I thought this was it for us.

I agree that with 2K a month now, you could invest some for the future, which would help protect you against inflation (to an extent).

If you have no rent/mortgage, do you have equity in a property that could be released in the future if needed?

At the moment you could definitely live well on that amount, whilst possibly doing something to future proof yourself too!

We could but it wouldn’t be much fun.

2k a month just for me? Yes. I’d be very well off indeed.
in 30 years, I’d probably be fine as well tbh, if inflation was as per the last period. I couldn’t survive hyperinflation but who could?

@LizzieSiddal sure, no problem. This past 2 weeks or so I've bought

Sainsbury's
2 x cabbages @19p each
1.5k potatoes @34p
4 pack nectarines @29p
5 pack of peaches @34p
Iceberg lettuce @14p

large quiche lorraine @59p

Tesco's
3 x 300g packs of coffee @£1.46 each
2 x trays cherries @ 29p each
large chicken chow mein meal @ 73p
pulled pork macaroni cheese meal @ 68p
2 x chestnut mushroom packs @ 25p each

4 x bakery crusty loaves @ 9p each
tray cooked chicken breasts @ 52p
2 x 2ltrs cola @ 17p each
8 x mandarin oranges pack @ 26p
2 x 20 slice packs chicken roll @ 40p each

2 x 4 pints milk @ 1.10 each
1 x 4 pints organic milk @ 60p

Aldi
2 x 900g cheese @ 3.99 each
1k buttery spread @ 1.00
227g butter @ 1.00

PoundShop
4 roll toilet roll pack @ 1.00
2 x 1ltr bleach @ 1.00
4 x moisturising soap pack @ 1.00
1 dozen eggs @ 1.00
500ml Cussons sham/conditioner @ 1.00

Some of these things wont need replenished for a few months, like the cheese, soap, shampoo, coffee. I only use the washing machine once a week/fortnight & I've still quite a few Bold tabs left from the last time I bought them. Some weeks I might only spent about £5 for bread & milk type of things & fruit/veg at the market (£2 for 3 big bowls full). I've a stock of cheap tinned/dry foods like spaghetti (20p), beans (23p) etc & usually get one or two each month to put by.
Sometimes I can be dining on salmon or best steak if it's been really well reduced, sometimes it's just cheap sausages again.

Yes I could manage that even now. I estimate I need an income of around £3k per month to live comfortably in retirement but I could manage on 2 as well. I'm saving towards £3k a month though

Without mortgage and childcare fees yes!

Eileen, I love it! We should go food shopping together!

Thanks Eileen, So much food there.

@WarmthAndDepth I'm up for it . I learned at my mother's knee how to make a penny do the work of a pound, through necessity not choice lol & it stands me in good stead.
I don't live some kind of grim, joyless life though, Aldi has the loveliest sherry for only £4.49 & their Irish Cream at £3.75 is to die for. When the mood hits I'm happy to indulge. I'd begrudge paying about £3 - £4 for a single drink in a bar though - I don't think my constitution could cope with it lol.

The only personal toiletries I need are shampoo, soap & anti-perspirant, and all of those last ages. Household cleaning stuff is the same. Bleach, Bold, cheap vinegar & toilet rolls. I get a can or 2 of fly spray at this time of the year too. All of those items can cost as little or as much as you want them to.

ooops, forgot the toothpaste there. I do use it, honest.

Eileen

Someone started a thread saying she’d bought too many potatoes

So then I read your post and my brain interpreted it as you having bought 1,500 potatoes, 1.5k

@RosaWaiting pmsl yep, that would be a bit on the over-stocking side. On the other hand, if you lnow where I could get that many for 34p........PM me