What would a retirement on £3,145 a month look like?

[serin]

DH has retired. He is 10 years older than me and wants me to retire as well. His reckoning is that if I work another 10 years he will be 77! Just 3 years off 80 and it won't give him long to have the freedom to travel much as a couple etc.
If I retired tomrw our joint income would be £3145 per month. If I took my small private pension it would be £3800 in total.
Does that sound like a reasonable amount to live on or am I deluded?

We own the house outright and do have some savings. Our DC have flown the nest.
I grew up in absolute poverty and even whilst our children were small there were times we were really struggling. I think this has affected my attitude to money and I'm terrified of not having a steady income and returning to egg on toast every night.

Does £3800 seem ok as a long term situation? My friends are of a similar age, some retired and some not, money is never discussed so I have nothing to compare with.

@serin have you worked through how much your pension will be actuarially reduced due to taking your pension early and gone through your retirement policy and considered R&R or partial retirement. If its you in the NHS, you will have more than one pension with different retirement ages so you will need to work through the implications of taking them both early. Pengage has a fabulous facebook page about public sector pensions which is very helpful. Most IFAs do not fully understand public sector pensions so be wary if you decide to take advice.

With NHS pensions they will increase every year in line with inflation.

if you think you can retire I would say do it after your next birthday. It takes a while to get used to but you will be amazed how much you then don’t fritter away in terms of money. I volunteer one day a week in a local hospice shop which is great as I get to meet people. I meet up with friends, go for a walk and a coffee. And have time to spend on projects that I have put off over the years.

It has taken me a while to settle but blood pressure now down and I am a lot fitter and healthier than I was working. I always remember an older teacher ,15 years ago, saying no one goes on forever and that she didn’t want to be carried out of the school in her casket - carpe diem she spent her last year calling out in the staff room and there’s no point being the richest woman in the graveyard. I thought bloody hell she is as old as the hills but was actually 57 at the time and has had a fascinating retirement so far. Whereas my brother in law has been diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of 61 after retiring at the age of 60 with his NHS pension.

That is so scary about your poor brother in law. 61 is no age.

I would be looking into what happens to his savings/ pensions if he needs care. You could be left with very little. I’d run those numbers too to check that you have enough to fund the rest of your life if all of his savings/ pension pot goes on care fees.

We are now retired 10 years. When we retired in 2015 we had about £3300 a month. Three pensions each (occupational, private and state). We managed fine. Now about 4k but circumstances changed as we sold the big house and moved in with our single son.
Since retirement we have travelled extensively including 2 x 3 month trips a year around Europe in our campervan (hence the selling up…too much maintenance and gardening) and a big trip to Australia , another to NZ.
We pay all the bills for our son’s house (he pays mortgage) and food. We have enough left over from pensions to help our daughter out with a regular sum every month.
You should be fine if you have savings to do the travelling you want and to do any house repairs or replacements. If he is 10 years older than you might there be a gap until you reach state pension age should be left on your own? If so you would need to plan for this.

Do not underestimate the joy of time together or time just not working. Time you will never get back. Do it as soon as possible. If you run short of savings downsize.

Well we could manage on that but depends on your lifestyle. Add up your bills and work out what you spend on food, car expenses and make sure there is enough to cover your travel plans.

We retired on about £3k a month 8 years ago at 58. We started drawing down an additional £1500 from investments in 2022 to cover a few long haul holidays after COVID. Now our state pensions also pay out so we have approx £7k a month now. Don’t be afraid to use savings for trips etc.

Are these amounts after tax?

I'm only posting now as this thread is showing on 'my threads.'

BUT it is 4 months old and the OP has not returned.

I did return! My last post was the last post on the thread above, until today's post!
To answer the above question, yes the figures are after tax.
I have an update in that I took the advice, weighed it up and decided that the time was right to quit work. My first pension payment is due in Feb and the figures were a bit better than expected. I've signed up to a college course in art and design and an online course learning a language.
I've done the maths and think we can make this work. I heed about what others have said re: being vulnerable if anything happens to DH or if he requires care along the line and we do have contingency plans.
For the moment I'm just intent on enjoying our time together but I may look for another (less stressful) part time role down the line.
Thanks to everyone who contributed. I really appreciated it.

I couldn’t but many could. It’s not about an amount of money. It’s what you’re typical living costs are and if you want to cut back or maintain current lifestyle. Secondly, where is that source of income coming from? Investments? Drawing down capital? Have you factored in inflation? Rising costs of living?

It's public service pensions (defined benefit) so do rise with inflation.
Separate investments and savings which aren't included in the monthly total.

It’s plenty.

@serin congrats and enjoy your retirement when it starts - what a good way to move into 2026. It’s good that you have some activities planned to help structure your week whilst you develop a new routine. You have more than enough to keep you going

Wow, great update! Enjoy your retirement, I went to (yet another) funeral yesterday and it certainly gets you thinking about the shortness of life and making the most of it. Enjoy your courses and freedom!

It’s loads of money 🤷‍♀️ surely you could still save at least a grand a month of that especially if you’re care with money.

That said if you’re not ready to retire why not just go part time? 57 is young to give up work completely.

Still a huge amount to retire on.

Its not a huge amount at all. It's slightly more than 2 x the minimum wage annually.

The state pension alone is £12K a year and will reach the basic level of tax soon because of the personal allowance threshold at £12 ,570.

My pension including occupational and state is around £1400 a month.
My H has 3 x that from his occupational pension.
We're comfortable and save, but the cost of living is very high and when neither of you are working you still have increasing council taxes (ours is £3K pa), utilities (£1500pa) , water rates £600 pa, car insurance and maintenance, fuel, food, house insurance £700pa) and so on.

But if you own your own house, it's a fair chunk to retire on? I guess assuming you have some savings etc to cover a new car if you need it. Because if you don't have a mortgage or a car lease, then:

Council tax - £150-£300 per month (running total [RT] £150-300)
Gas and electricity - £100-£300 per month (RT - £250-600)
Water, internet, TV licence - £100 per month (RT £350-700)
Phones and other subscriptions - £100 per month (RT £450-800)
Car tax, MOT, service - £100-£200 per month (RT £550-1000)
Insurances - £100 a month say (RT £650-1100)
Food - £400-£500 per month (RT £1050-£1600 per month)

My equivalent costs in a single person household are circa £600 total so I think it's a reasonable set of estimates.

That leaves a fair whack for gym memberships, work on the house, presents, clothes, petrol, holidays, eating out, haircuts etc.

@serin I hope you have a wonderful retirement and enjoy your art and design course - I bet it will be fab!

I don't understand your figures and what Running Totals mean. The RTs are not direct multiples of the monthly outgoings you've listed.

Food - £400-£500 per month (RT £1050-£1600 per month)
eg
Is it £400 a month or £1600 a month?

If you want to estimate the costs per month then there should be one single total figure for a month x 12 = annual costs.
eg Food £150 a week (includes all cleaning stuff, loo roll etc) that 150 x 4 x 12 = £7200pa

I was not saying we are hard up.
We've both worked hard for 45-50 years each.
We don't need to watch the pennies and have considerable savings.

What I was saying to a previous poster is that 2 x the minimum salary in retirement is not living the dream because the only missing cost is a mortgage and perhaps fuel/ fares for work.

We have a lot less coming in. We own the house and got a new car before we retired.
Washing machine/fridge freezer etc are relatively new. These were all sorted in the last couple of years.
Just in case we put some money away each month for emergencies.
You just need to cut your cloth according to the money coming in.
Cheap rail tickets, free bus fares. We have a great time.

Seems reasonable given the context
[edit as realise you mean 2 incomes]

A running total is when you add up the numbers above it in order to give you a total of everything so far. In this case that's monthly expenditure with a minimum and maximum range based on the ranges in my estimates.

So basically that bills and food would probably take about half your income - or less, as excluding my mortgage I spend about £600 per month on the equivalent. So that gives about £1500 a month for petrol, holidays etc. Not paying your mortgage anymore is a pretty massive difference for most people, as will be not paying for a season ticket for commuting etc if that applies to them.

I am saying I think it's enough to enjoy a pretty comfortable retirement on and given my tastes and expenditures it would be entirely sufficient. Obviously if you want to spend more that's totally fine.

I do know what a Running Total is but I think yours underestimates costs.

So basically that bills and food would probably take about half your [do you mean My- yours?] income - or less, as excluding my mortgage I spend about £600 per month on the equivalent. So that gives about £1500 a month for petrol, holidays etc. Not paying your mortgage anymore is a pretty massive difference for most people, as will be not paying for a season ticket for commuting etc if that applies to them.

But what you spend as a single person is not the same.
£600 a month for all food and all bills is very low.

Many couples spend £600 a month on food alone (£150 a a week including everything, not just food) and bills- you need to itemise fixed outgoings like house insurances, council tax, water rates, car insurances, car services, fuel, phone, TV licence (or subs), and other costs like dentists (2/3 visits per annum), hairdressers (per annum) , clothes, gifts for birthdays and Xmas. .

Before we retired we did a spread sheet based on a year of outgoings. To have a basic lifestyle we needed £25K. This is the same amount, as it happens, that is listed in a lot of retirement planning websites.

So yes, OP with around £35K pa and no mortgage is doing okay but it's not mega bucks.

Clearly it is for you, but it isn't for me. My food costs are about £50 per week including loo roll etc. My council tax is £95 per month, so it would be £140 ish if two of us lived here. My gas and electric is £70 per month. I chucked a massive additional amount on top of all my costs because I know they're low - that's how I ended up with an estimate ranging from £1000 to £1600 instead of £600 which is what actually applies to me (for those coats).

The "your" in that instance was probably the wrong pronoun, it should have been "OP's".

£12k extra a year vs a basic lifestyle also sounds like a fair amount to me! But we all have different perspectives - and for me, retiring earlier would be a higher priority than being able to spend more on retirement.