22 US Cities Where You Can Retire on $5,000 a Month
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Bob Haegele
7 min read
One of the most common worries people have when approaching retirement is whether they’ll have enough to retire comfortably, especially with many people living longer. Kiplinger calls this the longevity risk; the life expectancy for American men has increased more than 15 years since 1950. For women, the increase is nearly 15 years.
That presents a challenge for soon-to-be retirees who will likely earn less after leaving the workforce. To add to this problem, many people fall victim to lifestyle inflation as their earnings increase, and it can be difficult to reverse that trend. However, keeping your expenses under control is key to having a financially secure retirement.So, how do you make that happen? The answer will inevitably vary depending upon your own expenses. In other words, we all spend different amounts on different things; some prefer only buying organic produce or luxury vehicles. In general, though, some cities are better than others in terms of affordability.Thus, this list will take a look at some of the winners by total monthly expenditures.
Methodology: For this study, GOBankingRates found the best cities to retire on a budget of $5,000 dollars or less. GOBankingRates used ApartmentList October 2021 data to find every city in the U.S. that has an (1) average 2021 monthly rent of $2,500 dollars or less for a 1 bedroom apartment. GOBankingRates then used Sperling’s Best to find the cost of living index for every city on the list, looking at (2) grocery and (3) healthcare index scores. Next, GOBankingRates used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2020 Consumer Expenditure Survey to find the annual expenditure amount for both grocery (“food at home”) and healthcare costs for people aged 65 and older in order to find how much a person 65 and over would spend on groceries and healthcare in each city on a monthly basis. GOBankingRates then added monthly housing, grocery and healthcare costs together to find where a person 65 and older could survive on $5,000 or less. In order for a city to be qualified for the study, it had to have a livability score of 65 or higher as sourced from AreaVibes and its population had to be 25% or more over the age of 65 according to the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey. All data was collected on and up to date as of November 15, 2021.
