State-By-State Cost To Retire

Above, yours truly in New Mexico. No regrets! Photo by Nandoh Munoz.

How much money would you need to retire?

MarketWatch has an article on how much money it will cost for retirees to retire in each state.

California and Hawaii are the worst. New Mexico, where I live, is the sixth least expensive state. 

According to MarketWatch:

We’re in a state of low savings. 

Depending on what state you choose to retire in, you could need anywhere from $666,000 to upward of $2 million saved. And that’s outside of what you get from your Social Security checks. 

Those figures are according to an analysis released Thursday by personal finance site GoBankingRates, which estimated how much money you’ll need to save to retire in every state in America. To determine this, the site looked at the estimated average annual expenditures of a typical retired person in each state and then subtracted that from the average annual Social Security check. It assumed retirees would be drawing down savings by 4% each year and the money would last 26 years. 

The cheapest state to retire in, according to their calculations, was Mississippi, where you’ll need about $667,000 to retire. That’s thanks, in part, to low housing and transportation costs. That’s followed by Oklahoma and Arkansas.

To read more, go here.