Macrophage87 t1_j5jpz97 wrote on January 23, 2023 at 2:29 PM

Reply to comment by JeannineSellers in Washington DC has the highest average retirement age and is the 2nd most expensive state to retire in behind Hawaii by JeannineSellers

Why does someone who's retired still need to put 20% into savings?? These metrics make little sense. Also, social security doesn't seem to be factored into the number.

MidnightSlinks t1_j5ljt2j wrote on January 23, 2023 at 9:29 PM

That's not what it's saying, but I can see how you could interpret it that way since it's not well written.

They say that they took the total annual costs of groceries, housing, transportation, health care, and utilities, added those together, and assumed that those core expenditures probably equated to around 80% of what you actually spend, so they added an additional 20% that you needed in savings to have enough for your actual annual expenditures, which would include stuff like clothing, haircuts/personal services, dining out, gifts, non-local travel, etc.