What monthly income do couples need for a comfortable retirement?

[sha777]

Hi.
I'm just trying to work out what we need money-wise in retirement.
Can anyone give us a real-life experience of what they live on.
Our requirements are quite simple we have no debt or mortgage.
Couple of holidays abroad per year and like to eat out once a week .
Were hoping £2500 a month will give us that.

Depends on so many things. What are your rates, power bills, car costs, type of holidays etc etc

You could start by listing all your current bills and work from there.

Way too broad a question! For a start, owner outright of a home or a renter?

Agree with the PP and also, there's holidays and holidays. You need to work out what your holidays cost you and add up all the other costs. When you eat out, do you go to Nandos or is it a nice restaurant with an expensive bottle of wine? £50 per week meal or a £250 meal? You need to be more specific.

This BBC article reckons that for a couple to be comfortable in retirement, they would need £62.700: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3928m30v89o

Edit: Copied the wrong number.

The Which website had an article about this, I recall.

https://www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk/

This suggests £62,700 net income for a couple excluding housing, but of course their definition of comfortable might not be the same as yours. They list out what they have included so you can see how that fits with your expectations.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

This is a good budget planner- would suggest you enter all your likely expenses in retirement and see what it tells you.

I'm working on this atm too - £2500/month (£30,000/year) for a couple doesn't even get to the moderate bracket according to the Retirement Living Standards website, moderate bracket for a couple is £45,000/year and comfortable is £62,700.
Home - Retirement Living Standards

If it's the study that I have seen reported, the startling figure is that 90% of people are falling short of saving enough for a comfortable retirement.

The state pension of £12,xxx is not enough for any quality of life in retirement. The minimum requirement is nearer £15k, which means effectively given the £12,570 starting threshold for income tax, that a person needs an additional £4 from other sources.

On the money saving expert forum they have a budget list. Write down all of your daily, weekly, monthly and annual expenses. There are your fixed bills, then things like haircuts, presents, coffees, pet expenses, money for kids, holidays etc. It all needs to be accounted for.

You’ll also need to have lump sums/savings set aside for large ticket item replacements like cars (if you drive), white goods, house maintenance, care costs for the future.

After that, work out what your occupational and state pensions will give you after tax each month. £2,500 a month seems tight to me if you want to go abroad twice a year but I guess a budget holiday in France will cost a lot less than two weeks in the Seychelles. Sad to say but you also need to model what would happen financially if one of you dies.

Sorry... £4,000 from supplementary sources.

We have £75000 between us. Mortgage free. We do go away every month somewhere, about 6 meals out a month, gigs, theatre etc.

At the moment, pre retirement, we are living quite happily on £20k as we are shoving as much as we can into pensions.
Household bills, including food and car lease are £1200 a month, so say £15k, the other £5k goes on holidays.

The house has been future proofed, roof done, new windows and doors etc.
We’ll continue to live on £20k ( DH’s military pension and income from both our Sipps) when we retire next year at 62, for 4 years until we get State pensions then our income will jump by £26k .

Our take-home income is just over £4k per month.

We spend quite a lot on food (I like to buy organic where possible) and health (apps, supplements and so on) but other than that we live modestly. We eat very little meat.

We own our house outright. Council tax is about £2.5k a year. We have two, one-week, UK-based holidays per year, usually not during the school holiday times. We haven't been abroad since before Covid and haven't been on a long-haul holiday for over a decade. Most of my clothes purchases nowadays are 2nd hand, usually from Vinted, or in the sales.

We run two cars, both of which we bought used and are over 10 years old.

We mostly live within our means, only occasionally dipping into savings to pay for large or unexpected expenses. Any surplus money we have at the end of the year goes to the grandchildren's ISAs, usually about £4k per year.

I think we wouldn't be able to live life as we want to on £2.5k per month. We would inevitably be cutting back on something or dipping into the savings more.

I think the best thing to do is look at all of your spending for the past 2 years, take out commuting costs and other costs that you won't incur when retired. Then divide the total by 24 to get an approximation of your liking monthly spending.

Did you read the post…that the op says no mortgage is indicative of it being owned outright…it’s not guaranteed but it’s called reading between the lines

If you retire at 62 next year you'll have a 5 year wait until you can claim the State Pension, as the pension age is currently in the process of rising from 66 to 67.

Really just looking for real-life experiences of couples spending around that amount money.
But a bit more detail
Car changes every 5 years
No rent
1 x Holiday last year was £1500 total for two people (turkey 5 star all inc)
Eat out spend £40-60
Dont smoke eat out occasionally.

last bit was drink occasionally

Echoing an earlier comment, every couple must plan for the eventuality of one being left on their own. So factor in the loss of a spouse’s pension income (state and private). Sad but inevitable.

How much do you actually spend at the moment?
I don't mean what are your DDs (as this ignores so many actual spends) but how much do you really spend? What do you earn less what do you save? Over the year is easiest.
This should be your starting point, what you spend now +/- any changes you anticipate making in retirement, e.g. remove work travel and lunches.
Can you start tracking your actual outgoings? This would give the best indicator of actual spends.
We spend about £3k per month plus holidays (which obviously is very variable and controllable).

Some of the retirement quantities recommended online are more than I have now, when I'm paying the mortgage and raising 2 kids. I can't understand why you'd need 5 or 6k a month in retirement.

Thank you for all the replies. Will not respond anymore just wanted real life experiences of around our figures.
Not the anything else
Thank you

I don't think you need this much either especially if you don't have a mortgage. We wouldn't need anywhere near that much.

According to this article you are definitely in the "happiness" bracket with that income https://www.legalandgeneral.com/retirement/pension-annuity/guides/happiness-in-retirement/

Our house costs £400 a month to run - bills, CT etc
£50 a month for wear & tear
Food costs about £300 a month for two

Add in your budget for car or transport, holidays, clothes, presents, phones, entertainment.

As a single mum when I don't have a mortgage, I'm assuming a base cost of £1,500 per month, with holidays and presents on top.

£18k per year would work.