Ok for those who have retired. Roughly speaking. My wife and I are in serious calculations stage for retirement. What amount of money after expenses do you estimate needing. So all expenses for the month are paid we "I have OOOO.OO dollars or percent left" for what I-we want to do. So what are you guys finding you are comfortable with. Yes, I understand each is different. I also understand you may not want to disclose that. Just Trying to figure. Not going to tour the world etc. when we retire and will be debt free.

Not retired but what do you make/spend now? I want about the same thing when I retire. The house will be paid for and PLEASE GOD I pray all the crumb snatchers will be out of the house. So what I’m making now will leave me and the wifey comfortable.

The calculation is not as hard as you think. Whatever number you think is about right, triple it. Nothing in life gets cheaper and even if it did, you won't want cheap stuff after you retire. Taxes take a real bite our of IRA and pension income.

You need to assess your life style and know as we get older medical expenses will come along more often. After normal living expenses. Do you have savings to pay for automobiles none of them last forever. Do you hunt? Fish? Vacation? Or have other hobbies that you spend on?
So you have todo some soul searching with the wife an do a little forward thinking on how you want to live. A couple vacations and a couple cruises and out of state hunts and a few out of state fishing trips start adding up fast. If you stay home and garden and sit around doesn’t take much if your healthy.

A guy called and asked how much money I thought I would need when I retired. I said "About three million dollars." He immediately hung up.

Not knowing your age have you checked into Social Security do you have the figures on what you both will receive, if your unclear visit the Social Security office and find out ? when do you intend to start social security as there is a limit on how much you can earn until your 66 . Just throwing out food for thought.

Insurance if your not eligible for Medicare you better have a huge pocket book cause health insurance cost unless it is part of your retirement from work will wreck any retirement plan. Don't take this for granted? Is your wife younger than you? You have a lot of serious questions to look into.
Good Luck

Ok I'll help some without giving to much detail I hope. Wife will retire in 2 years at 65. She will need supplemental health care plan and has funds from work to cover those for around 6 years. I will retire at 60 in 3-4 years. So I will need a single health care plan for 5-6 years. I have 12000.00 give or take a little. a year toward health care til medicare age. We both have pensions that are very secure. We also have some TSA and savings for extra adventures. We plan a single vehicle payment in our monthly expenses forever, we never buy new, but if we don't have this, then money in our pocket. We have our social security figured pretty well. We currently estimate to have 1500 to 2000 a month after expenses.
Thanks all but Furvor.

We lived a frugal lifestyle while working and saved money from day one of my two career jobs that I held for 36.5 years. I found extra work to do for good pay so my wife spent all but 7 years at home taking care of the home front.
We now have more spendable money for our lifestyle than we did when we worked.
Some things to think about say you are total earnings are 80 K and you are saving 10% well that means that you will have about 12K less in outflow. Some other work related things may change as well. So 68K is about what 80 is now. SS makes up about 30-40% of many persons working incomes. A lot of that depends upon how long one was working and what salary levels were at 25-35 years ago.
Also don't under estimate Health insurance costs when on Medicare. With Medicare and a decent supplemental costs run $300 to 400 per person per month. If you have LTC insurance those continue as well.
If you have zero dollars for things you want to do and your expenses are trimmed and very basic you may want to work longer or find part time work to pay for the things you want to do.

Bryce

^ first off I'm no expert but I done it and been there so I can tell you what I have learned.

The very first thing you need to do is get an exact expense number and pad that number with an extra 300$ for incidental items for each month. So add 3600$ extra for the year.

Second get a number of years you plan on living in retirement. So if you retire at 60 you think you will live to 90 then plan for 30 years.

Now you should have a number for expenses, right then you can take that number for the year and that number times the years you plan on living.

So if you can live on 40000$ a year times 30 years of life then you should have about 1200000.00$ right?

You know what you have now then divide that number by the years you plan on living and see what you should be able to spend in retirement as of today.

You also will be receiving SS and I didn't figure that into my equation and used those dollars as a comfort zone and a cushion for the unexpected things in life.

The one thing I would strongly suggest is to be totally debt free before you throw in the towel. IMO

Hate to make it sound worse than it is but I am retiring in 2.5 yrs. My wife is already retired. Our 401k is pretty solid. Things that I have been looking at are--- a new roof will be needed during retirement, car repairs or purchases, and I have a slush fund from my paycheck of $300/mo that will not be there. I do not need a pt job right now but I did pickup a pt job @ Field & Stream for $12/hr. I only work the firearm dept and only do 2-4hr shifts per week mostly Aug-Thanksgiving. So an option would be a small part time job at something you enjoy. I will drastically have to curb toy spending habits before I retire.

I'm a year away from it, I have nothing, I'll have to work til I croak

A buddy retired a year ago. Said he spends a lot less now than when he worked. But everyone's lifestyle is different, of course.

I do know being in WI, your healthcare is about 1/3 of what we will pay here in MN. retired.

Become debt free,..rail against all school referendums,..advocate against RE/taxes in favor of consumptive taxation.

Same here. I was driving three hours a day with two toll booths to go through so I was easily spending $600 a month commuting alone . Here's where it really gets bizarre is my pension for my first year is 60% of what my last highest pay grade was ( actually 3 highest years ) , but my take home is actually more than when I was working.

Find something to do. The worst thing to do in retirement is to stop.

2X

Good point Aaron. For me, my check will be the same at 72%...Something few take into account. We have to remember after retirement we won't be paying in all those extra benefits, etc. Then add up the commute fees (and time) let alone wear and tear on a car, and often times we are way ahead in the end.

Along with medicare get a good supplemental insurance plan. If we had not had supplemental insurance we would have been completely wiped out by the Golden Years!

Geeez talk about beating a horse to death !! No one knows what the future holds. BUT !!Are you paying all your bills now? can you save any at all each month? Stop trying to put a DOLLAR amount on how much you have to have saved up. Look at what your monthly income will be at the time you retire. IF you can live on that your fine.
It may also be helpful to secure an insurance that has a maximum out of pocket. People want to scare you by saying "Oh if you have open heart surgery it will wipe out your savings" Not with a safety net like maximum out of pocket.
ALSO remember IF you die with a smile on your face and you are 200,000 in debt or 200,000 in the bank and pinching pennies , have you really accomplished anything........
Bank ain't going to dig you up and your kids will fight over anything you leave and then pee it away !!!!!!!!

If you have any kids do a reverse mortgage LOL . BUT DON"T TELL ANYONE . Income , you live in the house till you die,