I’ve been staring at the same question for months now: did I really save enough for a $100,000 retirement lifestyle? On paper, the answer looks reassuringly simple; in real life, it feels a lot less certain and much more personal.
I first laid out my numbers in a comment on Reddit’s r/Fire subreddit, explaining that right now my family of five spends about $70,000 excluding taxes and healthcare, and my retirement plan is built around spending $100,000 a year in today’s money. Of that amount, $72,000 is earmarked for necessities and $28,000 for fun.
One year into actually trying to live that $100,000 lifestyle in retirement, I’m starting to ask myself, “Did I save enough?”
How I Built My $100,000 Retirement Budget
When I built that $100,00 number in Fidelity’s calculator, it wasn’t some wild guess pulled from thin air. I looked at what we currently spend, around $70,000 a year without counting taxes or healthcare, and then added room for better travel, more experiences with my kids and the reality that medical costs will rise.
That’s how I landed on $72,000 for necessities — housing, utilities, food, transportation, insurance, basic healthcare — and $28,000 for things that make life feel rich rather than just survivable. My target nest egg has always been somewhere between $2.5 million and $3 million, depending on how markets behave.
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How My First 365 Days Actually Looked
So, what happened when I tried to live that $100,000 lifestyle for an actual year? The short answer is that my spending didn’t land exactly at $100,000, but it orbited around that number in ways that taught me a lot. Some months we were clearly under the line while other months, especially when travel or medical bills hit, we drifted over.
The necessities behaved about as expected, which was both comforting and a little scary. Housing, utilities, groceries, transportation and baseline healthcare ended up near that $72,000 mark. That was after I’d added back things I’d undercounted, like random home repairs and kids’ activities.
The fun bucket, meanwhile, proved to be incredibly elastic: a couple of extra trips, nicer hotels or saying yes to more sports tournaments for the kids could push that $28,000 line upward surprisingly quickly.
Comparing My Plan to What Experts and Averages Say
One thing that both reassured and unsettled me was comparing my spending to what other retirees report. Federal Reserve data using the Consumer Expenditure Survey shows that households headed by someone 65 or older spend around $61,000 a year on average, significantly less than my $100,000 target. In other words, I’m consciously aiming for a lifestyle that costs almost twice what many retired Americans actually live on.
Watching my own withdrawals this last year was a wake-up call: my plan might be mathematically sound, but there isn’t as much slack as I once thought.
So, Did I Save Enough?
After 365 days of living close to my $100,000 retirement lifestyle, I still don’t have a clean, satisfying yes or no. If you take the classic 4% rule with a $2.5-million-dollar benchmark at face value, then yes, my savings target lines up with my spending plan. I’m not wildly out over my skis, and in calmer market periods, the withdrawals feel reasonable rather than reckless.
But emotionally, the answer feels more conditional than I expected. I’ve saved enough if markets don’t deliver a decade of weak returns, if healthcare costs don’t explode beyond what I’ve modeled and if I’m willing to dial back that $28,000 fun bucket when life throws curveballs. Living a $100,000 lifestyle in retirement for a year hasn’t convinced me I’ll be fine no matter what. Rather, it has convinced me that “Did I save enough?” is a question I’m going to keep revisiting.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Did I Really Save Enough to Enjoy the $100K Lifestyle in Retirement This Year?
