How to Define Your Retirement Lifestyle and Financial Needs

What does your ideal retirement look like? That’s the simple question that everyone should start with. Not in vague terms like “comfortable” or “secure,” but in real, practical terms.

What would you like a typical week to involve? Will you travel often? Live in one country or split your time between two or three? Would you prefer a quiet routine with hobbies and family, or are you hoping to stay active with volunteering, part-time work, or starting a new business?

If you're a British expat in Asia or a US citizen in Europe, you might be thinking about retiring in a different country altogether. That adds a whole extra layer to your planning, with additional considerations for things like healthcare, tax implications, and currency exposure.

Here are some things to consider as you picture your future:

• Where will you live? Will you buy a property, rent, or downsize?
• What will your day-to-day life involve? Think about hobbies, social life, family time.
• Will you work part-time or consult or stop work cold-turkey? Many retirees like to keep some income flowing.
• How often will you travel, and where? Seasonal trips, long stays, or spontaneous weekends?
• Do you need to be close to family, schools, or healthcare providers?

The more clearly you can define your desired lifestyle, the easier it is to estimate what it will cost.

All these lifestyle factors have a cost, and once you’ve narrowed down which will apply to you, it’s simply a matter of assigning those costs to your personal list. This will be a combination of one-off expenses (such as a holiday property), larger ad-hoc expenses (replacing cars or large holidays for milestone birthdays), and regular expenses (such as groceries, utility bills and golf club memberships).

From there, consider how long your retirement might last. Most people underestimate this. If you retire at 60, you may need your money to last 30 years or more. Add inflation to that, which can silently erode your purchasing power over time, and healthcare costs, which often rise later in life.

If you’re an expat, you also need to factor in currency risk. If your assets are held in one currency and your retirement income needs are in another, you’ll need to build in a buffer to handle exchange rate swings.

Finally, consider your income sources. Will you have access to a state pension, a 401(k), a SIPP, or other retirement accounts? When will these become available? Will you draw down from investments, or rely on rental income or business proceeds?

All these elements need to come together to create a realistic plan for retirement income that supports the life you want.

Modern financial planning tools can make a big difference when you're looking at your future finances across borders. You don’t need to guess your net worth or rely on back-of-the-envelope calculations. You can use apps and software to see how you're progressing, track your goals, and adjust for changes in income or lifestyle.

The Hoxton Wealth App is one example. It allows you to:

• Track your net worth across multiple accounts and currencies
• Set and adjust long-term financial goals
• Monitor your retirement readiness through personalised projections
• See how changes in inflation, exchange rates, or spending habits affect your future

These tools help bring your retirement plan to life, turning abstract numbers into clear forecasts. The more visibility you have, the more confident you can be in your decisions.

Take Mark and Helen, a British couple in their early 50s, currently living and working in Dubai. They plan to retire by 60 and split their time between southern Spain and the UK. Their retirement vision includes hosting family holidays, exploring Europe by train, and volunteering with a local charity.

We can help them model the costs of two homes, international travel, and health insurance coverage for non-residents in Spain. They also wanted to continue contributing to their grandchildren’s school fees and help their children with house deposits.

Using the Hoxton Wealth App we mapped out the income they could expect from their pensions, investment portfolio, and rental property. We also built in rising costs and ran multiple projections to ensure they wouldn’t run out of money, even with generous travel and family plans.

The result? A retirement plan that’s grounded in the life they want, not just an arbitrary savings target. And the best part is that this plan can be revisited at any time, when circumstances or goals change, to assess how different choices might impact Mark and Helen’s retirement funds.

Retirement planning starts with clarity. Until you know what you’re working toward, you can’t know how much you need or whether you’re on track. Defining your retirement lifestyle brings your future into focus and turns long-term savings into something real.

If you’re an expat thinking ahead to retirement, take time to visualise what success looks like for you. Once you have that vision, you can set specific financial goals, explore your options, and use tools and expert advice to build a plan that works, wherever in the world you decide to live it.

At Hoxton Wealth, we help individuals and couples translate lifestyle goals into appropriate financial strategies. Whether you’re planning a quiet life in the countryside or an active retirement across continents, we can help you get the numbers right.

Ready to start building your retirement lifestyle plan? Talk to a Hoxton Wealth adviser today.

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