The Retirement Number French People Target That Americans Think Is Poverty

So here is the friction nobody prepares you for. Ask an American what they need to retire and you hear seven figures. Ask a French couple in Lyon and they say a number that sounds like a typo to American ears. It is not bravado. It is a different machine. France targets monthly income that covers a modest, ritualized life, not a pile of money that must replace a broken system. When you look at the numbers inside a French week, the modest target stops sounding like poverty and starts sounding like enough.

I live in Europe and we watch this pattern play out across the border all the time. Americans panic about an account balance. French households talk about a pension number per month and the bills that number quietly covers. They are not richer. They are coordinated. If you want to copy the calm without moving, copy the structure and the weekly costs they respect.

Where were we. Right. The number, why it is smaller, what it buys, and how to translate it into an American life without becoming a monk.

What “the number” actually is in France

French retirees do not obsess over a total market value the way Americans do. They obsess over monthly guaranteed income. For a lot of households that means a base pension from public schemes plus a required complementary pension, then a small cushion of savings for repairs, trips, and grandkids. When you ask “What do you need,” they answer in euros per month after housing. It is a different question leading to a different life.

The calm answer you hear often is this: a paid off apartment and around €2,400 to €3,000 net per month for two people, region depending. If rent still exists, the number rises by the rent. Not glamorous, not ascetic. Enough for a café life with trains, doctors, and cheese. Americans hear those euros and translate into a lump sum using a 4 percent rule and declare it impossible. The French do not do that translation because their floor is income, not drawdowns.

Why the number is smaller without feeling small

Three levers shrink the target.

1. Healthcare costs are tamed. The state system plus a modest mutuelle means out-of-pocket spends are predictable and low. No thousand dollar surprises per month for basic care.
2. Housing is treated as a project, not a subscription. The classic path is forty quarters of payments and a small apartment owned before 65. Once the mortgage dies, the monthly budget breathes.
3. Transport is rational. A transit pass, a small car used less, trains for distance. Mobility without four insurance policies, endless parking, and a gasoline subscription.

Add in cheaper pharmaceuticals, fewer gadgets sold as necessities, and a culture that treats restaurants as weekly pleasure, not nightly default, and the math shakes out. The number looks tiny because the list it must carry is short.

The French retirement week that Americans misread

Walk through a normal week for a retired couple in Nantes.

• Monday: market day. Basket, greens, fruit, cheese, fresh bread, a few tins. The total is not a flex. Home cooking carries the week.
• Tuesday: medical appointment booked weeks ago. The bill is boring. Administrative competence replaces price fear.
• Wednesday: grandchildren afternoon, pastries, a park bench, small gifts. Spending on people, not plastic.
• Thursday: lunch with friends, a menu du jour that feels like real food and costs less than a U.S. appetizer and a fountain drink.
• Friday: train day. Tickets bought earlier, a town nearby becomes the day’s adventure.
• Saturday: friends over. Soup, roasted vegetables, a roasted chicken from the rotisserie stall, one good bottle. Indulgence without waste.
• Sunday: quiet. Church for some, a long walk for others, family table for many.

No part of that week needs a boutique mutual fund to fund it. The number that carries it is monthly and modest. A French week is a design problem, not a finance stunt.

The budget that makes the number feel real

Take a couple that owns a small apartment in Angers. No mortgage. They pay property tax and building charges. They carry a mutuelle. They eat like they grew up in France, which is to say they cook and buy treats on purpose.

Monthly picture, paid-off home:

• Building charges and property tax average: €180
• Electricity, gas, water: €110
• Internet and mobile plans for two: €45
• Mutuelle (supplemental health insurance): €120
• Transport passes or fuel plus insurance for one small car: €150 to €220
• Groceries with markets and occasional butcher treats: €420 to €520
• Eating out, coffee, pastry, social: €180 to €260
• Clothing, haircuts, small household: €120
• Pharmacy co-pays and sundries: €40
• Travel fund, gifts, repairs: €200

Total range: €1,565 to €1,815. Add €300 as an error bar and you still sit under €2,100 most months. With €2,600 monthly income net of social contributions, there is breathing room for better wine or another weekend train. This is what the French mean by enough.

If rent exists for a modest T2 apartment, add €650 to €900 outside Paris and €1,200+ inside it. The target becomes €3,000 to €3,500. Still not heroic compared to U.S. expectations, still workable in a dozen regions once the pension streams are set.

Healthcare is the fear shrinker

Americans plan for medical chaos. French retirees plan for appointments. You choose a doctor, show your card, pay a small fee, get most of it back, and your mutuelle fills the gaps. Prescriptions cost what state policy says they cost. Big events show up with forms, not a second mortgage. Predictability shrinks the emergency fund.

Copy the idea if you cannot copy the system. Pre-plan your care, price your generics, and decide what you will self-fund and what you will insure. Do the admin in advance so your budget is a number, not a hope. Fear evaporates when a bill becomes a line item.

Housing is a project with an ending

French retirees do not assume rent forever unless they choose it. The standard path is own a small apartment in a building you can manage. Stairs are counted. Elevators are loved. Proximity to markets matters more than granite. The mortgage ends before knees complain.

Translation for an American reader who will not move. Treat housing like a time-bound project, not an eternal payment. Either pay it off, downshift to a smaller paid-for place, or pick a rental that anchors you near what you actually use. Distance is expensive and so is a house that demands a ladder every other weekend. The French win by choosing modest and central. Copy that and the rest of your budget stops shaking.

Transport is movement, not identity

One small car often shares a life with transit. That means one insurance policy, one set of tires, and far fewer tank stops. Outside cities, couples still drive, but they drive less. In cities, a yearly pass makes the world reachable and parking becomes someone else’s problem.

American translation. If the second car is a reaction, not a need, price the reaction. Fuel, insurance, depreciation, surprises. Then price the alternative. You do not need to become European to steal the savings of using your car less. Your retirement number cares more about kilometers than logos.

Food is pleasure without performance

A French retired kitchen is heavy on legumes, vegetables, canned tomatoes, tins of fish, a rotisserie chicken now and then, and olive oil that tastes like food. Dessert appears like a holiday, not a habit. Restaurants are planned, portioned, and social. The grocery bill is honest. You can eat grand without spending grand.

If you want to steal one rule, steal this. Plan lunch, shrink dinner. Cook midday when you have energy, keep evening light, and your health numbers shift while your grocery budget stops behaving like a secret enemy. Light dinners make older people lighter. Doctors and belts agree.

What the French number buys that money cannot

Rhythm. Walks to markets. Names for the people who sell you mushrooms. A sense that time is not a product. When your month is built on a stable floor, you do not need retail for entertainment. You can still buy things. You just do not need to buy relief.

That shift reduces accidents. People do not drink boredom away. They do not drive to nowhere to feel alive. The heart beats slower at 16:00 because the day has done its job. You cannot price this easily. You can feel it.

The American habit that explodes the number

Three, really.

1. Medical roulette. Carrying plans you do not understand, skipping maintenance, then paying retail for surprises.
2. House-as-brand. Square footage that steals every other budget line.
3. Car as default. Parking, insurance, fuel, repairs, fines, and time lost.

You can keep all three and target a million. Or you can adjust them and watch your number sink into human range. You do not need to become French to stop lighting money on fire at noon.

A side-by-side you can actually use

Two-couple thought experiment. Same ages, same decent health. One lives in Clermont-Ferrand. One lives in Phoenix. Ignore taxes for the moment and look at monthly burn after housing choices.

France, paid-off apartment

• Core bills and food as above: €1,800
• Transit and small car: €200
• Health extras: €160
• Life fun and trains: €300
  Total: €2,460

U.S., paid-off house in car life

• Property tax and insurance on a typical place: $650 to $950
• Utilities and internet: $300 to $450
• Two cars all-in averaged: $700 to $1,000
• Groceries and restaurants at American prices and habits: $800 to $1,200
• Med premiums and out-of-pocket for a Medicare couple with supplements: $600 to $900
• Life fun and travel: $300 to $600
  Total: $3,350 to $5,100

The French couple’s income floor can be €2,600 to €3,000 and they breathe. The American couple needs $4,000 to $5,000 just to stop thinking about bills. That is the gap Americans call poverty when they hear the French number. It is not poverty. It is a cheaper week.

How French households build the floor

They do not manifest it. They count quarters of work history for pension credits, they track complementary schemes, and they plan housing payoff dates like birthdays. They also do something Americans skip. They learn their exact monthly bills and rehearse living on the floor before the job ends. Months before retirement they treat the pension like the only income and test the week. There is no cliff. There is a handrail.

Copy that. Six months before you stop working, live on your target floor and route every extra dollar into a renovation or a cushion. If the floor pinches, adjust now, not after the cake at the office. Retirement is not a date. It is a budget you already lived.

The psychology of enough

When you say “I need two million,” what you often mean is “I do not trust my country’s prices.” When a French couple says “€2,800 a month,” what they mean is “we know what an ordinary week costs and it does not include panic.” Enough is not a slogan. It is a practiced week that repeats without drama.

If your week is chaos, any number looks small. If your week is a machine, a smaller number looks large. This is why two people with the same money age differently. The one with a ritualized calendar spends their energy on people. The one with a defensive calendar spends their energy on fear.

A 30-day install that pulls your number down without moving

Week 1: Find your floor

• Write last month’s real bills on paper
• Add a calm grocery and market budget that fits how you actually eat
• Add the transport you will really use, not the wish
• Add healthcare premiums and routine out-of-pocket
• Circle the fixed costs you can kill within twelve months

Goal: a monthly floor you can say out loud without flinching.

Week 2: Practice the French week

• Make lunch the big meal five days in a row
• Keep dinner light and early, soup or salad and bread
• Replace three car errands with walks or transit
• Set all bills to autopay on the same day
• Price your prescriptions as generics and mark the difference

Goal: prove that structure lowers appetite and random spending.

Week 3: Shrink the housing noise

• Decide whether your mortgage has an end date you like
• If not, model a downshift to a smaller place you could own
• List the work on your current house that is stealing weekends
• Put two items on a handyman’s calendar
• If renting is in your future, price the exact neighborhoods that cut car dependence

Goal: housing as a project with an end, not a cloud.

Week 4: Lock the number

• Commit to the income floor for two months as a rehearsal
• Route all overflow into a separate account labelled “repairs and trains”
• Schedule one cheap ritual a week that feels like a French Saturday
• Share the number with a friend or partner and stop moving the goalposts

Goal: enough becomes muscle memory, not a fantasy.

Objections you will have and the answers that help

“I like my big dinners.”
So do lots of French people. The trick is making lunch the heavy event and keeping dinner smaller. Try it for a week and look at your morning blood pressure and your grocery receipts.

“Our healthcare will never be like theirs.”
Probably true. Do what you can do. Predict what you can predict and buy the parts you cannot. Guessing is the expensive bit.

“We cannot live without two cars.”
Maybe. Map the week. If one car becomes the default and the second becomes a security blanket, price the blanket. You might decide to keep it. Deciding is cheaper than drifting.

“I want to leave money to my kids.”
Teach them how to run a week. The money will follow. Skills inherit better than sums.

Signs you are on the French track even if you never cross the border

• You can say your monthly floor without reaching for your phone
• Housing no longer feels like a bully
• Transport is a mix, not a trap
• Meals have a rhythm and do not require apps
• Doctors are on a calendar, not in your nightmares
• Weekends do not need shopping to feel alive

At that point, yes, your retirement number will look smaller. That is not poverty. That is precision.

Open a notebook and write one sentence. “Our floor is ____ per month after housing.” Spend this month proving it is true. Make lunch an event, dinner a whisper, and errands a walk where you can. Put your bills on one day and your fear on none. When a colleague says they need two million to stop working, wish them luck and go home to a life you can afford without sweating. Enough is not the absence of desire. Enough is the presence of structure.