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An average person is going to be different in different cost of living areas ....an average person in Dallas or Phoenix is not going to be average in the tristate area.
Trying to define a middle class lifestyle in all different areas is going to take a widely different income..
Average is for straw people .....on average we should be comfortable strapped to a bench with one side to the fire place and the other side packed with ice.
Why do you suppose we all earn different amounts while working ?
Retirement means different things to different people. Some are very happy to have the time to go down to the creek and go fishing. To my wife's cousin it was hiking in the Himalayas. To me it is somewhere in between.
The best laid plans often go down the tube, such as when I was downsized at age 59 during a recession. That gave "being frugal" a new and intense meaning.
Ha ha ha , I would never have retired if all I had was 3600 a month here...
I would be living in the hood...
I don’t live in the hood! I’ve been at retirement for 4 years now and have a monthly spend of about 2400. I worship at the altar of wr (withdrawal rate) and the lower that percentage is, the better. Spending 3600 a month would seem luxurious!
I don’t live in the hood! I’ve been at retirement for 4 years now and have a monthly spend of about 2400. I worship at the altar of wr (withdrawal rate) and the lower that percentage is, the better. Spending 3600 a month would seem luxurious!
Do you live in nyc ? If you don’t then you are proving my point ... there is no such thing as an average number that applies everywhere.... plus what you may accept as a life style may be quite unacceptable to someone else.
We have a million people living in low income housing projects here ..it may be very acceptable to them ...I grew up in one , I spent my life making sure I never ever had to raise my own family in one .. that lifestyle would be totally unacceptable to me , been there done that ....but to millions quite an acceptable life.
Our rent is over 2k alone so while you may live on 2400 the lifestyle it would give us would be unacceptable here.. so yeah we would be living in the hood or an undesirable area
Do you live in nyc ? If you don’t then you are proving my point ... there is no such thing as an average number that applies everywhere.... plus what you may accept as a life style may be quite unacceptable to someone else.
We have a million people living in low income housing projects here ..it may be very acceptable to them ...I grew up in one , I spent my life making sure I never ever had to raise my own family in one .. that lifestyle would be totally unacceptable to me , been there done that ....but to millions quite an acceptable life.
I was trying to prove your point! You’re one of my heroes on this forum!
I was trying to prove your point! You’re one of my heroes on this forum!
Well you did prove it ... while you are living an acceptable life on 2400 bucks it wouldn’t get us to first base here except in the most undesirable areas and apartments
Not very many people plan to retire to New York from other parts of the country, either in Manhattan nor the hood.
Irrelevant , you still can’t compare all areas with some silly number and certainly can’t define the lifestyle someone wants and expects as a minimum lifestyle..
We all have our minimums of what is acceptable to us ..most of us developed lifestyles based on how we lived working ...
"How much (average) does it take to retire?" is the same as the pre-retirement question, "How much (average) does it take to live and pay one's bills? -- From prior threads on the Retirement Forum, it's clear there is a range of answers as wide as there are people ... and no 'one-size-fits-all' average.
There are some reports on retiree spending trends in different parts of the country, which should give you a basic frame-of-reference. Social Security has one titled, 'Expenditures of the Aged Chartbook' (I've got a 2010 version (last census) - Not sure if there is an update available.
Irrelevant , you still can’t compare all areas with some silly number and certainly can’t define the lifestyle someone wants and expects as a minimum lifestyle..
We all have our minimums of what is acceptable to us ..
You were right with your first answer. Basically how long is a piece of string? There are so many variables that are unique to each person that its almost impossible to do an apples to apples comparison or to make sense out of someone else’s numbers.
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