Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: the reference numbers, on one page, from the 2024 Consumer Expenditure microdata. Mean and median household spending, the major categories, and household counts, for the three retirement-age cohorts.
What these numbers are. Computed by Clear Money Guide from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Public-Use Microdata, Interview survey, 2024 (released 2025). Figures are annual means per consumer unit, weighted with FINLWT21, with standard errors from the 44 balanced-repeated-replication weights. Our totals reconcile to BLS’s own published Table 1300 within about 2 percent. The Interview survey is not the whole survey — BLS’s published table also folds in the Diary survey — so our category figures run slightly below theirs, which we state page by page rather than hide.
Totals
| Age of head | Mean | Median | Per month (mean) | Households |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55-64 | $83,102 | $63,323 | $6,925 | 24.0M |
| 65-74 | $64,232 | $50,068 | $5,353 | 22.5M |
| 75+ | $54,915 | $41,548 | $4,576 | 15.8M |
Medians are annualised from a single observed quarter and so spread wider than a true annual distribution would.
Major categories
| Age of head | Housing | Transport | Health care |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55-64 | $24,714 (30%) | $14,492 (17%) | $6,348 (8%) |
| 65-74 | $20,434 (32%) | $10,825 (17%) | $7,504 (12%) |
| 75+ | $20,177 (37%) | $6,553 (12%) | $7,613 (14%) |
Categories are on the Interview-survey basis and run modestly below BLS’s published integrated figures — housing by about 8.5 percent. Food is deliberately absent: it is collected mainly in the Diary survey and our estimate would have been about 40 percent low, so we publish none rather than publish one we know to be wrong.
How to use these
For budgeting, prefer the median. For comparing against published research, use the mean, because that is what everyone else reports. For either, remember these are whole households, not individuals, and household size falls with age.
Where these came from
Every number was computed from the raw microdata under a method fixed in advance, then checked against BLS’s published Table 1300 before anything was published. The reconciliation ratios, including the ones that did not land where we hoped, are on the study page.
The full study, method and reconciliation
Cite this
Clear Money Guide, “What Retirees Actually Spend: CE PUMD 2024 Interview-survey estimates”, August 3, 2026. Method pre-registered before computation; computation script and reconciliation against BLS Table 1300 published with the study.
General information drawn from the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury regulations and IRS publications, not legal or tax advice. Thresholds and dollar figures are adjusted regularly and several of the rules here turn on facts this page cannot see, so check the current year before you act on a number.
Spending is one half of the question — what $750,000 produces against that budget.
To put your own age and housing situation in — the interactive benchmark by age and housing situation.
All the numbers, kept current. This page uses 7 figures from our claims register — every figure we track is on one page, each with the year it applies to and a plain statement of what makes it move.
And how that budget changes over a retirement rather than at one moment: spending by age.