Alabama & Mississippi rank as some of least expensive states for retirees

When do you plan on retiring? Age 62? 72? 102?

No matter what age you plan to quit working, it's important to have money set aside to help you enjoy that retirement - or do things like cover the house payment. The exact amount you need for retirement depends on your personal financial situation but there are some guidelines that point to the amount that needs to pad your nest egg.

That amount can vary from state-to-state, however, as GoBankingRates.com found when it looked at the earnings you need to comfortably retire in each state.

The rankings were determined by analyzing five factors: Per capita spending on groceries; healthcare; gas and fuel; housing and utilities; and personal consumption expenditures outside the other categories. Once the total annual income needed to cover those expenses was determined, an additional 20 percent was added on top, to account for the "comfortable" aspect of the rankings.

Alabama came as the 49th least expensive, with a comfortable retirement costing an estimated $39,170 a year. Over the course of a 20-year retirement, the average person would need $783,400 in savings to cover the cost of living in the state, the analysis found.

At $37,750 a year, the state with the lowest amount needed for retirement was Mississippi. Overall, the five states where a comfortable retirement costs the least were all in the Southeast or Southwest: Mississippi; Arkansas ($38,896); Alabama; Oklahoma ($41,223); and South Carolina ($41,583).

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