What the baskets leave out

Every standard prices a basket, and the edge of the basket is where your own figures begin. The Retirement Living Standards leave out rent and mortgage payments, social care, dependants and pets. A household of two shares bills, and the two-person figure assumes that sharing.

• Housing is the largest gap. A standard priced for an owned home is a different figure for a renter, and a mortgage has its own place in Edit plan rather than in spending.
• Large costs arrive in lumps. A roof, a boiler, a kitchen or a replacement car is a one-off event in Landfall, not a cost spread across every year.
• Health costs rise with age and sit outside the NHS more often than people expect: dental work, hearing aids, glasses.
• Care is in nobody’s basket. Landfall models it on its own, under ‘Later-life care’ in Edit plan, and its own topic says how.
• Helping others is in the basket at the level of presents and a little support. A deposit for a child is not.

A retirement also changes shape. The early years tend to cost more, the middle years less, and the late years more again if care arrives. One yearly figure averages all three, which is why spending in Landfall runs in phases. In a couple, costs do not halve when one person dies, and the survivor’s income can fall by more than their spending does.