Table of Contents
Table of Contents
How Much Do I Need to Save to Retire?
The 4% Rule
Retirement Savings by Age
Retirement Savings Confidence
How to Calculate Retirement Savings
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Does a Couple Need to Retire?
What Is the 4% Rule?
How Much Should I Save Each Year?
The Bottom Line
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Jim Probasco
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Jim Probasco has 30+ years of experience writing for online, print, radio, and television media, including PBS. His expertise includes government programs and policy, retirement planning, insurance, family finance, home ownership and loans. He has a bachelor's from Ohio University and Master's from Wright State University in music education.
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Updated September 09, 2022
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A key part of retirement planning is to answer the question: How much do I need to save to retire? The answer varies by individual, and it depends largely on your income now and the lifestyle you want and can afford in retirement.
Knowing how much you need to save based on how old you are now is just the first step, but it starts you on the path to help you reach your retirement goals. There are a few simple formulas that you can use to come up with the numbers.
Many retirement experts recommend strategies such as saving 10 times your pre-retirement salary and planning on living on 80% of your pre-retirement annual income.
That means if you make $100,000 annually at retirement, you need at least $80,000 per year to have a comfortable lifestyle after leaving the workforce.
This amount can be adjusted up or down depending on additional sources of income, such as Social Security, pensions, and part-time employment, as well as factors like your health and desired lifestyle.
To determine just how much you will need to save to generate the income that you need, one easy-to-use formula is to divide your desired annual retirement income by 4%, which is known as the 4% rule.
For an income of $80,000, you would need a retirement nest egg of about $2 million ($80,000 /0.04). This strategy assumes a 5% return on investments, after taxes and inflation, no additional retirement income, such as Social Security, and a lifestyle similar to the one you would be living at the time you retire.
In general, the 4% rule assumes that you will live for 30 years in retirement.
Retired adults who live longer need their portfolios to last longer, and medical costs and other expenses can increase as you age.
Knowing how much you should save toward retirement at each stage of your life helps you answer that all-important question: “How much do I need to retire?” Here are a few useful formulas that can help you set age-based savings goals on the road to retirement.
To figure out how much you need to accumulate at various stages of your life, it can be useful to think in terms of saving a percentage of your salary.
Fidelity Investments suggests saving 15% of your gross salary starting in your 20s and continuing throughout the course of your working life. This should include savings across various retirement accounts as well as any employer contributions you receive to those accounts, assuming you have access to a 401(k) or another employer-sponsored plan.
Fidelity also recommends the following benchmarks—based on a multiple of your annual earnings—for how much you should have saved for retirement by the time you reach the following ages.
| Target Retirement Savings by Age | |
|---|---|
| Age | Annual Salary |
| 30 | 1x annual salary |
| 40 | 3x annual salary |
| 50 | 6x annual salary |
| 60 | 8x annual salary |
| 67 | 10x annual salary |
Another, more heuristic formula holds that you should save 25% of your gross salary each year, starting in your 20s. The 25% savings figure may sound daunting. But don't forget that it includes not only 401(k) holdings and matching contributions from your employer, but also other types of retirement savings.
If you follow this formula, it should allow you to accumulate your full annual salary by age 30. Continuing at the same average savings rate should yield the following:
Whether or not you try to follow the 15% or the 25% savings guideline, chances are your actual ability to save will be affected by life events such as the job loss many experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anxious that you aren't saving enough for retirement? You're not alone. As of 2021, there were roughly 60 million active 401(k) participants, in addition to former employees and retired adults. And while they may be active participants, people’s feelings toward retirement vary widely based on age.
According to the 2022 Investopedia Financial Literacy Study, the majority of adults expect that they will be able to retire. Among those surveyed, 57% of Generation Z and 62% of Millennials expect to retire. Nearly 66% of Generation X have such expectations.
Younger adults, ages 18 to 25, are most optimistic about retiring early—most of Generation Z believe they will retire by age 57.
Those are rosier numbers than what was found in the 2021 data from Natixis Global Retirement Index, which indicated a majority of adults expected to work longer than expected with about 40% saying it would “take a miracle” for them to retire comfortably.
It is possible that data was impacted by anxieties around COVID-19 related economic instability.
In Investopedia’s study, not all adults are particularly confident in their understanding of retirement planning. Behind digital currencies and investing, retirement was the third least-understood concept. And retirement was the top personal finance concern for about one-sixth of all those surveyed.
In the early and middle years of your career, you have time to recover from any losses in your retirement accounts. That's a good time to take some of the risks that allow you to earn more with your investments.
In addition to using the above methods to determine what you should have saved and by what age, online calculators can be a useful tool to help you reach your retirement savings goals. For example, they can help you understand how changing savings and withdrawal rates can impact your retirement nest egg.
Although there are many online retirement savings calculators to choose from, some are much better than others.
The T. Rowe Price Retirement Income Calculator and MaxiFi ESPlanner are two worth trying.
Much like an individual, how much a couple needs to save to retire comfortably will depend on their current annual income and the lifestyle they want to live when they retire. Many experts maintain that retirement income should be about 80% of a couple’s final pre-retirement annual earnings. Fidelity Investments recommends that you should save 10 times your annual income by age 67.
The 4% rule is a guideline used to determine how much a retiree can withdraw annually from a retirement account. It is intended to make retirement savings last for 30 years.
One rule of thumb is to save 15% of your annual earnings. In a perfect world, savings would begin in your 20s and last throughout your working years.
Sometimes you'll be able to save more for retirement—and sometimes less.
What’s important is to get as close to your savings goal as possible and check your progress at each benchmark to make sure you're staying on track.
A 401(k) might be a good place to start—if you have access to one. If not, consider an IRA. Because the importance of saving for retirement is so great, we've made lists of brokers for Roth IRAs and IRAs so you can find the best places to create these retirement accounts.
Article Sources
Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy.
Fidelity Investments. "How Much Do I Need to Retire?."
RBC Wealth Management. "Sustainable Withdrawal Rates in Retirement: Utilize as a Guideline to Help Avoid Running Out of Money.
" Page 1.
Natixis. "2021 Global Retirement Index."
How much money do you need to comfortably retire? $1 million? $2 million? More?
Financial planners often recommend replacing about 80% of your pre-retirement income to sustain the same lifestyle after you retire. This means that, if you earn $100,000 per year, you'd aim for at least $80,000 of income (in today's dollars) in retirement.
However, there are several factors to consider, and not all of your income will need to come from savings. With that in mind, here's a guide to help calculate how much money you will need to retire.
One important point when it comes to determining your retirement "number" is that it isn't about deciding on a certain amount of savings. For example, the most common retirement goal among Americans is a $1 million nest egg.
But this is faulty logic.
Image source: Getty Images
The most important factor in determining how much you need to retire is whether you'll have enough money to create the income you need to support your desired quality of life after you retire.
Will a $1 million savings balance allow you to create enough income forever? Maybe, but maybe not. That's what we're going to determine in this article.
The reason you don't need to replace 100% of your pre-retirement income is that, when you retire, you're typically able to eliminate certain expenses. For example:
But retiring on 80% of your annual income isn't perfect for everyone. You might want to adjust your goal based on the type of retirement lifestyle you plan to have and if your expenses will be significantly different.
For example, if you plan to travel frequently in retirement, you may want to aim for 90% to 100% of your pre-retirement income. On the other hand, if you plan to pay off your mortgage before you retire or downsize your living situation, you may be able to live comfortably on less than 80%.
Let's say you consider yourself the typical retiree. Between you and your spouse, you currently have an annual income of $120,000. Based on the 80% principle, you can expect to need about $96,000 in annual income after you retire, which is $8,000 per month.
The good news is that, if you're like most people, you'll get some help from sources other than your savings, such as your Social Security benefits.
For most people, Social Security is a significant income source.
But the percentage of income that Social Security will replace is typically lower for higher-income retirees. For example, Fidelity estimates that someone earning $50,000 per year can expect Social Security to replace 35% of their income. But someone earning $300,000 per year would have a Social Security income replacement rate of just 11% on average.
If you aren't sure how much you can expect, check your latest Social Security statement, or create a my Social Security account to get a good estimate based on your work history.
If you have any pensions from current or former jobs, be sure to take those into consideration. The same goes for any other predictable and permanent sources of income. For example, if you bought an annuity that kicks in after you retire, or you’re tapping your home equity through a reverse mortgage.
Continuing our example of a couple that needs $8,000 in monthly income to retire, let's say each spouse is expecting $1,500 per month from Social Security, and that one spouse also has a $1,000 monthly pension.
This means that, of the $8,000 in monthly income needs, $4,000 will come from guaranteed income. The remaining $4,000 will need to come from sources such as investments and savings.
In summary, you can estimate the monthly retirement income you need to generate using this formula:
Image source: The Motley Fool
Now let's determine how much savings you'll need to retire. After you've figured out how much income you'll need to generate from your savings, the next step is to calculate how large your retirement nest egg needs to be for you to produce this much income in perpetuity.
A retirement calculator is one option, or you can use the "4% rule." The 4% rule says that in your first year of retirement, you can withdraw 4% of your retirement savings.
So, if you have $1 million saved, you would take $40,000 out during your first year of retirement either in a lump sum or as a series of payments.
In subsequent years of retirement, you would adjust this amount upward to keep up with cost-of-living increases.
The idea is that, if you follow this rule, you shouldn't have to worry about running out of money in retirement. Specifically, the 4% rule is designed to make sure your money has a high probability of lasting for a minimum of 30 years.
To calculate a retirement savings target based on the 4% rule, you use the following formula:
Image source: The Motley Fool
We saw in the previous section that our couple would need $4,000 per month ($48,000 per year) from their savings. So, in this case, they should aim for $1.2 million in retirement savings accounts, such as a 401(k) plan or individual retirement account (IRA), to provide $48,000 per year in sustainable retirement income.
It's important to note that the 4% rule has a number of flaws. It assumes you'll withdraw the same amount each year in retirement, adjusted for inflation.
It also assumes that your portfolio will be split between stocks and bonds throughout your retirement.
In some circumstances, you may want to withdraw significantly more or less than the standard 4%. For example, as of mid-August 2022, the S&P 500 index is down about 10% for the year to date. During a stock market correction or a bear market, you may want to limit your withdrawals to give your investments time to rebound.
Regardless of your retirement goals, recent stock market volatility shows just how essential it is for retirees to have some cash on hand. This can act as a buffer for your portfolio by helping you avoid cashing out on investments while the market is still down.
Working and collecting Social Security benefits? It gets complicated.
When can you retire and collect Social Security? It depends on when you were born.
n/a
Balancing risk and reward is the hallmark of a great portfolio. Here's how to do it.
There is no perfect method of calculating your retirement savings target. Investment performance will vary over time, and it can be difficult to accurately project your actual income needs.
Furthermore, it's worth mentioning that not all retirement plans are equal when it comes to income. Money you withdraw from a traditional IRA or 401(k) will be considered taxable income. On the other hand, any money you withdraw from a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) is generally not taxable at all, which may change the calculation a bit.
There are other potential considerations as well. Many workers have to retire earlier than they planned.
For example, about 3 million workers retired earlier than they anticipated because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even in normal times, older workers often have to retire early due to layoffs, health problems, or caregiving duties. Saving for a longer retirement than anticipated gives you a safety cushion.
It's also important to consider the impact of inflation on your retirement plans. Inflation has gotten a lot of attention in 2022 as prices have increased at the fastest pace we've seen in 40 years.
But even when costs rise at a typical rate, inflation hits senior households harder than working-age households. That's because seniors spend a higher portion of their incomes on expenses such as healthcare and housing. These expenses tend to increase faster than the overall inflation rate.
While we're trying to present the broad strokes here, it's still a good idea to consult a financial advisor who can tailor a retirement savings goal to your particular situation and also help to set you on the right path with a savings and investment plan that can make sure you reach your goals.
By using the methods discussed in this article, you can get a good idea of how much you'll need to save to retire comfortably. Keep in mind this isn't designed to be a perfect method but a starting point to help you assess where you are and any adjustments you might need to make to get where you need to be.
The Motley Fool: What is your advice for someone who may be worried about retiring because of recent financial setbacks?
David John: If your health, family responsibilities, and job status allows, continue to work longer than you might have before. The extra time allows you to save more and for the markets to continue to recover from past losses. Most important, delay taking your Social Security for as long as possible so you'll have a larger, inflation-protected benefit.
The Motley Fool: There are no hard and fast rules about when to retire or how much we should have saved, but what three pieces of advice would you give someone who is just starting their first retirement savings account?
David John:
The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
To imagine life in retirement, imagine that every day is a day off / Maksim Stulov / Vedomosti
For many years we earn, save, sometimes invest in many ways in order to comfortably meet old age. But have you ever thought about how much money you will need by the time you retire, and therefore how much you need to save up?
Typically, an estimate of a person's retirement costs is presented as a percentage of their last earnings. In the US, financial advisors traditionally calculate retirement plans for clients on a 70% basis.
The so-called replacement rate at the level of 60-70% is a worldwide practice, points out Sergey Okolesnov, CEO of the Pension Partner consulting company. In Russia, the replacement rate is not legally fixed, he adds.
Meanwhile, in 2017, the average pension in Russia corresponded to 33.8% of the average salary, and after raising the retirement age, the replacement rate according to the plans of the government will reach 40%.
However, in reality, the expenses of a non-working person can be much higher than not only Russian, but also world standards, American researchers have found out. It is useful to estimate future expenses in advance in order to more or less accurately imagine how much money you need to accumulate by the time you retire.
Determining how much money you need in retirement is not a trivial task, point out Dan Ariely and Elin Holtsworth, retirees psychologists and behavioral economists at Duke University. When asked how much it could be as a percentage of earnings, you are unlikely to think for more than a minute, they note.
“But just imagine for a second how many factors you need to take into account to come up with a more or less accurate answer - for example, the cost of living in the place where you will live in retirement, health costs, social benefits, inflation, risk level for your investment portfolio and especially how you want to spend your time in retirement,” write Ariely and Holtsworth in The Wall Street Journal. – Do you want to walk in the park or go to the fitness room? Drink water or expensive wine for dinner? Watch TV or go to ballet every week? If your children live in another city, how many times a year do you intend to visit them - two or four? How often do you intend to go to cafes and restaurants - once, twice or five times a week? Etc.".
Researchers interviewed hundreds of Americans of all ages, occupations, and incomes, asking what percentage of current earnings they estimate their retirement needs to be. Most immediately answered: about 70%. But the answers to additional questions showed that people did not come to this figure themselves, but heard it somewhere during discussions of the pension topic.
“In other words, 70% is the conventional wisdom,” Ariely and Holtsworth say. “And it is wrong.”
They asked another large group of respondents specific questions about how people want to spend their time in retirement. Then they assessed these preferences (“the price tags were moderate”) and calculated how much money would be needed (as a percentage of salary) to lead the desired lifestyle. “The result was frightening - 130%; this means they need to save almost twice as much for retirement as they thought,” report Ariely and Holtsworth.
They explain it this way: “When we work (besides getting paid), we don't spend much. There is no time to spend money at work.” In addition, during this period, part of our expenses is borne by the employer company: at its expense, you can drink coffee and see the world during business trips, it can pay for mobile communications for employees and provide a social package covering medical expenses and life insurance, organize parties. When do we spend money? Mostly on weekends: we go shopping, have fun, travel, eat at a restaurant.
And retirement is a continuous weekend: 8-10 hours that were spent daily on work and travel suddenly turn out to be free, and they need to be filled with something every day.
Together with the financial technology company MoneyComb, Ariely and Holtsworth did a study and found that in order to roughly estimate their retirement expenses, it is convenient to break them down into seven categories - food, digital services, spending on yourself and recreation, travel, entertainment, shopping, basic needs.
To imagine life in retirement, imagine that every day is a day off, recommend Ariely and Holtsworth. Think about how much money you want to spend in each category? How would you like to spend the year? This does not necessarily mean “very expensive,” the researchers elaborate, but remember: the higher the costs, the more you have to sacrifice today to increase your retirement savings.
Try to answer the following questions as accurately as possible, taking into account many nuances.
Do you like to cook, how much do you spend on average on food, how often do you want to visit cafes and restaurants in retirement, and in what price category? How much do you spend on digital services - mobile phone, Internet, digital television, electronic subscriptions (you won't refuse to subscribe to Vedomosti) and books? If you expect to live outside the city, do you need satellite TV? Do you like to pamper yourself and how - to read a book on the beach (and where to get it - to buy or in the library) or to pamper yourself in the spa? Do you want to sit at home watching TV or go to the theater, concerts or sporting events? Do you like to travel and how often? Around the country in your own car, abroad in a first-class plane or go on a sea cruise? Or maybe take a private jet to your own island? Do you like to give gifts to relatives and friends? How much do you spend on clothes, electronics and household appliances, household goods? And the most unpleasant, but necessary: how much money is spent on housing, taxes, health and other basic needs? Even small differences in preferences can quickly increase your spending by $20,000 a year, note Ariely and Holtsworth, who calculated desired retirement spending for the average respondent with an annual income of $160,000.
After calculating future expenses for certain categories, you need to add them all up, increase the amount, taking into account inflation forecasts by the time of retirement, and compare with your salary. But that's not all: the annual amount of spending must be multiplied by the number of years that you can spend in retirement. Now the average life expectancy of a Russian is 67 years, Russian women - 78. In the capital, according to statistics, they live longer: 74 and 81 years, respectively. There are other approaches to estimating life expectancy - for example, take the age of the main centenarian in your family and add 10 years.
But determining how much money you need for a comfortable old age is not all. The question is, will there be enough savings for this. To increase them, you may have to adjust your current lifestyle, understanding what you are ready to give up in retirement, and what now. It is also necessary to assess how much risk the investment portfolio (if any) needs to accept in order to achieve new goals.
And yet: since for many the desired lifestyle in retirement may be out of reach, it is better to be as kind to your children as possible now, the researchers warn.
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Nastya Zhvik
talked to the wards of the Sofia Foundation
Author profile
and pay utility bills.
In Russia, social protection centers, caring people and non-profit organizations help pensioners. Among the latter is the Sofia Charitable Foundation, which since 19For 98 years, it has supported thousands of lonely elderly people every year, as well as those who live in nursing homes.
The NPO purchases food, personal hygiene products, household chemicals, clothes, household appliances for pensioners. Volunteers of the foundation visit the elderly in institutions, organize trips to the theater, to concerts, to museums.
Sophia buys clothes, bedding, gifts for nursing homes, helps to repair buildings, equip the territory, re-equip laundries, kitchens, canteens, libraries.
I talked to Sophia's clients to learn about their lives and how the foundation has helped them.
This article is part of the support program for Tinkoff philanthropists of About Important Magazine. As part of the program, we choose topics in the field of charity and publish stories about the work of foundations, the lives of their wards, and significant social projects. You can read all the materials about those who need help and those who help in the “About the Important” thread.
Nina Nifodievna, 71 years old. Received 9 products from the fund0003 The set included sweets, stew, pasta - this helped to survive
I was born in 1950 in the Stavropol Territory in a large family: there were six children, I am the youngest. Dad had a disability after serving in the Great Patriotic War, so life was not easy.
I started working in a kindergarten, and most of my life I was the head of the library at school. She barely completed her retirement: health problems began. As a result, she left with an experience of 34 years. If I had stayed for another year, I would have received the title of "Veteran of Labor of Stavropol".
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I had a husband and two children. First the husband died, and then the son. The daughter lives far away. After the death of my relatives, I started having health problems on a nervous basis: heart arrhythmia, skin diseases, constant dizziness.
It's hard for me to go out, so the doctor comes home. I walk around the apartment holding on to the walls. Now social workers help me from time to time: they buy medicines, bring groceries, do the cleaning, sometimes spoil me with sweets, provide moral support.
My pension with all supplements is 11,000 rubles.
It is impossible to live on such a pension.
In May I spent 6000 R on medicines, 775 R on social services, 750 R on milk, 600 R on the phone. Of the products, I buy the most necessary, sometimes I don’t even have enough for a detergent. I don’t have a subsidiary farm or a garden: it’s hard for me.
In winter, I pay up to 5,000 R for utilities, and about 2,000 R in summer. In winter, I cannot pay for everything at once, because gas and heating are very expensive. Therefore, I pay off the debt for the winter in the summer: I’d rather not buy food for myself, but pay off the debt for the communal apartment.
In February, the Sophia Foundation bought food for me for 2000 R, in that month the cost of housing and communal services was just high. The social workers told me about the organization, they took a picture of me, described my life and posted it on the website. And caring people donated money to help me.
The set from the fund included sweets, stew, pasta - this helped to survive.
When you live in conditions of pain and despair, it is priceless to see such support and hear words of care.
Svetlana Davydovna, 66 years old. Received a washing machine from the foundation
I wanted the extra money to be sent to other elderly peopleI was born in a village in the Orenburg region and have been living here for 66 years. She studied in Orenburg, and after that she worked at the state farm all her life.
I was married, I have three children: two of them live in other cities. The eldest daughter, after she divorced her husband, moved in with me. She is a mother of many children, one of her children has a disability - I am very worried about this.
When my husband was alive, he was given an apartment from production: I have been living in it since 1988 years old. In 2020, my sons helped me insulate it, because the walls began to freeze, and made repairs as far as possible.
In winter, I pay up to 6,000 R for utilities: I have to pay a lot for gas.
In the summer - up to 2000 R, most of it goes to the water, since I have my own garden.
At one time I had fractures of both legs, because of this they still hurt. I also have problems with my heart and joints. Every month I buy medicines for pressure, joint pain, vitamins - it takes about 2000 R. I don't have a disability, so I can't get medicines for free.
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One day a social worker asked me what I needed. I said that my washing machine was broken, and it was hard to wash with my hands because of my sore joints. I wanted to take an installment plan to buy a new one, but the social workers suggested that I apply to the Sophia Foundation. They took a picture of me and posted a story about me on the organization's website.
As a result, in three months I managed to collect 29,000 R instead of the planned 15,000 R. After that, they contacted me and asked what else I needed in everyday life.
I wanted the extra money to be sent to other elderly people, but they told me that they had collected it for me. As a result, in April they bought me a more expensive Candy typewriter, for 24,000 R, and with the remaining money they bought wallpaper and glue.
To choose wallpaper, I was specially brought to the store, and then they took me home with the purchases. I want to save some money and hire a person who will make repairs for me.
Antonina Kuzminichna, 70 years old. Received a hearing aid
from the Foundation I spend my entire pension on medicines and food, pay for utilitiesI was born in the Novosibirsk region, and then at the age of 20 I moved to the Omsk region. Here she met her husband, gave birth to a son and a daughter.
C 19For 71 years I was engaged in library work: until 2006 I was in charge of the Central Children's Library, and then I retired and worked for three more years in the information department of the district library.
In retirement, I was often invited to various events. So I met other pensioners, we self-organized into a group - I became the chairman of the pensioners' union. Then the social club "Territory of Active Longevity" began to work in the village. I was invited to hold events there, and I agreed.
My husband died of cancer in 2002 and my son died in 2013. It was very hard for me: I lost my support. After the death of her brother, her daughter's legs were taken away, she did not feel them. Then it got better.
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In 2014, a hurricane blew the roof off our house, and my daughter had to sell her apartment to fix it. After that, she moved in with me. The grandson lives separately from us, sometimes he helps to the extent possible.
I have always had hearing problems, and at the end of 2021 they worsened after I had a severe ARVI.
Then I felt like an outcast.
I needed a hearing aid to hear better. But I couldn't buy a normal digital device because of my small pension.
About 20 years ago, I bought myself a cheap analogue of a hearing aid. It gave me a headache: it only increased external noises, and I could not make out anything.
After my illness, I went to the audiology center twice, where they told me that I needed a digital hearing aid. It costs 12,000 R - this is my entire pension, an unbearable amount for me. I spend my entire pension on medicines and food, pay for utility bills — I can’t save.
I shared my situation with the social workers from the Comprehensive Center, and they suggested contacting the Sofia Charitable Foundation. Of course, I could not refuse, because I myself always helped other people a lot.
The fund's volunteer studied the hearing aid market to understand how much money is needed. As a result, they collected 17,000 R in a little more than a week. I thought it would take several months.
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I received a hearing aid in May. In June, I went to the city and made an individual earmold under my ear so that the device would work properly. When the device was set up for me and I heard sounds outside the door of the doctor's office, it was a real miracle. Then I returned home and began to get used to hearing the refrigerator running and the clock ticking.
Now I go to events and don't tense up - it used to be a torment for me to ask something again. Plus, it pissed people off.
Pavel Vasilyevich, 68 years old. Received
products from the fund The nearest grocery store is two kilometers from me I was born in the village of the Krasnodar Territory in 1953. He worked at the state farm as a tractor driver, and then, in 1973, he began to serve in the Kaluga region and stayed here. Here I got married, my wife and I had a son. After some time, we divorced, and our son died in a car accident.
So I was left alone.
Now I live in a house with friends and do not pay for rent, only for utilities. There is no water in the room, it has to be brought from the well.
I have arrhythmia, bronchitis, high blood pressure often. My pension is 13,400 R. Of these, 4,000-5,000 R is spent on medicines, about the same amount on a communal apartment, and the rest I spend on food. I don't buy new clothes for myself because I don't go anywhere.
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The nearest grocery store is two kilometers from me. I usually go to him once a week on foot and take a taxi back. In winter, I have to take a taxi in both directions, I spend about 200 R for this for one trip. Basically, I go to the store for bread, and I buy cereals right away for a long time. In autumn I buy three grids of potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables for the winter.
Sometimes you have to give up certain products because the pension is not enough.
I tell myself that I'll manage somehow and buy only what I need.
Sometimes a social worker comes to see me. She brings water and buys groceries when I get sick and can't go to the store, and I give her money.
The Sofia Foundation once a month buys me food packages for 1000 R. I can order the products that I need. Before Victory Day, Easter cake, sugar, rice, stew and canned food were included in the set. It helps a lot to survive because you don't have to buy groceries yourself.
Valentina Mikhailovna, 76 years old. Received a washing machine from the foundation
I am very grateful to those who humanely treated us and donated money All my life I have worked at a construction site: a finisher, an auxiliary worker, a foreman. Due to constant work on the street, I developed several diseases: a microstroke, an ulcer, it’s hard for me to walk.
I was married. Our son was born, but he had an accident, after which he can no longer walk. My husband died, so I have to look after my son myself.
I learned about the Sofia Foundation through the All-Russian Society of the Disabled, where we are members. My washing machine just broke down at that moment, and it was hard to wash with my hands because of the pain in my joints. Then I turned to the fund, and we collected 25,990 R. It was a great joy and help for us.
I am very grateful to those who treated us humanely and donated money. The machine was brought to us at the end of April, and together with it we also bought a frying pan.
My pension — about 10,000 R — would not be enough to buy the equipment myself.
I spend about 4000 R per month on medicines, now there will be more. I pay more for housing and communal services in winter because of heating, but I don’t count how much: I came, paid and left. There is not much left for groceries, so social workers help us with kits.
Vyacheslav Grigorievich, 68 years old. Received a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner
from the fund Maybe for someone it will seem like a trifle, but for me it's a lotI was born in 1954 in Essentuki. He studied at the Rylsk Aviation School of Civil Aviation Special Services, which no longer exists. Then, in the nineties, he studied at the higher literary courses at the Gorky Institute in Moscow. I did not graduate from them: my mother fell ill, I had to take care of her. I am a member of the Writers' Union of Russia, I have several published works and books.
I have a room of 3 × 6 meters in an old pre-revolutionary building. It has no heating, only water, gas and an electric heater. The floor is very cold, for insulation I put old rugs and rugs. I wash on the street, and in winter in a basin.
Sometimes you have to sleep in your clothes, but what can you do.
Now I am retired, I live alone. My pension is 10,000 R, in June they promised to raise it by 10%. There is no more income.
I have a disability of the third group, it is difficult for me to move around, because my hip was broken after an accident. It is even worse for someone: there is not enough for anything, lies alone and does not get up. But I still feel not so abandoned and abandoned. I have a son, he lives in Voronezh. He comes once every two or three years, sometimes he helps with food, but this is rare.
I met the Sophia Foundation through the Essentuki Society of People with Disabilities. I asked the organization to help me buy a washing machine - the organization quickly responded and immediately announced a collection. As a result, I managed to collect 6000 R, with which they bought me a washing machine and delivered it to my house. Then I applied again: they bought me a small vacuum cleaner for 3990 R, and with the rest of the collected donations, a frying pan.
