For retirees looking to stretch their dollars the furthest, Mississippi is best place to live in the U.S., GoBankingRates has discovered in a study of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Researchers looked at five factors, including “an individual’s spending on groceries, healthcare, housing, utilities, and transportation,” according to the GoBankingRates report. The research team then calculated the annual retirement income needed to cover these living expenses and added 20 percent to create a “comfortable” budget. The findings do not account for Social Security payouts, pension income, or interest from savings accounts.
Mississippi’s total yearly expenditures came out to $44,059. When the team added the 20 percent “comfort buffer” of $11,015, the “cost of a comfortable retirement” became $55,074. That’s a stark difference from the most expensive state in the U.S. — Hawaii. There, GoBankingRates found that someone would need enough to cover $96,982 in expenditure costs and $24,246 for a total of $121,228 for a comfortable retirement.
Of course, there are plenty of states in between to explore too. The second-most affordable state for retirement, the team said, is Oklahoma, which came to $56,508 for its comfortable retirement figure, closely followed by Alabama in third, at $56,769. Outside the U.S., of course, there are places to go. At Aguascalientes, Mexico, for example, GoBakingRates finds that it’s entirely possible to retire comfortably for under $1,000 a month.
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