Six Costs That Are Making Retirement More Expensive

So a recent article was published by the U.S. News and it talked about the six costs that were hurting retirees the most. And so I want to talk about that a little bit and let’s put that maybe in perspective. So the six costs are groceries, medical expenses, gas prices, housing costs, utilities and entertainment. So when you think about these, you know the first thing medical costs. Yeah, medical costs are one of the highest, I should say fastest rising costs that are out there. I’m sure if you’ve had a medical procedure or even just a check up lately and it’s a higher cost. Insurance is higher too, when you factor in that. When you look at the cost of insurance or the cost of procedures, everything seems to be rising pretty rapidly. Groceries, recently with inflation going up, we’ve all felt that. You know the price of milk, the price of bread, whatever it seems to be that you’re buying, certain products are more than others, but it’s been a rising cost in that environment. Gas prices, obviously you know the price per gallon at the pump has been painful lately. And the more you drive, obviously the more you’re going to feel that. Utilities, you know once again maybe natural gas or propanes and stuff like that. You know you’re feeling that more. Housing costs, obviously here in northern Michigan, if you’re one of the folks watching locally or even nationally, if you’re one of the folks watching on our YouTube channel in another area, housing prices seem to be skyrocketing, which then of course forces rents higher and all that sort of stuff. So naturally that’s rising as well. And entertainment, once again going out and doing things, whether that may be going out to eat. Well obviously food prices are higher. Labor prices are higher. So you’re just naturally going to feel that. So across the board, even if you’re not retired, you’re obviously feeling the effect, but as retirees, you’re feeling that too. So once again, as you enter retirement or even early in retirement, we’ve talked about this in previous shows and all that sort of stuff, is budget. When you build a budget, we know that some of these costs may be fixed, but most of these costs are going to continue to rise throughout the rest of your life. So we have to be prepared as they say, to try to keep up with inflation or better. So not all this stuff is going to be the exact same. So we have to plan for that. And I want to leave you with one more cost that not necessarily is rising, but it’s always going to be there, taxes. Folks, plan for that. Depending upon your situation, taxes could be your single biggest expense in retirement. And I’m not just talking about property taxes and sales taxes and stuff like that. I’m mainly talking about income taxes, Federal and State income taxes. A proper plan addresses that early on and makes sure over the life of your plan, hopefully things don’t get too far out of line.