Does Frugal Living Ever Change in Retirement?

audreyh1 said:
Just that there is cheap, and there is foolishly splurging (obviously both judgement calls) and there is a large universe in between where someone buys something they really want and will make good use of and gets a good deal on it even if it's not the cheapest option. I don't call the latter foolish splurging although some folks might.
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Oh, I get it now. Thanks. I don't call that foolish splurging either if you buy something you truly want and can make good use of it even if it costs more, but I would still call it foolish splurging if you buy something you can't afford, no matter how much you may like it or you can make use of it. Like my brother's case, he liked high-end stuff and bought things according to his taste, and he was happy with his purchases, and that's all good, but he borrowed money from my mom to pay off some debt. So all the luxury stuff he bought is foolish splurging in my book.

As for me, I bought an alkaline water ionizer machine for over $1,000. This was maybe 15 years ago. This was foolish splurging because it was an impulsive buy, and I had no use for it (or got any benefit from it.) But even my foolish splurging isn't very big.

I should have said "frugal" instead of "cheap". I sometimes fall into the cheap useless trap, but I'm getting better at staying on the "good stuff for cheap" side. One extreme example, a pair of summer pajama shorts for $20 seemed expensive to me, so I bought a pair of pillowcases ($10? Can't remember, maybe cheaper) and made two pairs of shorts out of them using a sewing machine. They turned out great, so I have no complaints, but I don't even know why I even bothered to do that. I wouldn't do that now. I'd rather spend my time doing something else since sewing isn't my thing. It was the first year of my retirement, and I think I wanted to tighten the belt as much as I could to see how frugal I could go, or I was simply afraid to spend money.
 
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audreyh1 said:
Certainly if you are spending beyond your means that is foolish.
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Yep, for sure.
My brother's situation didn't look too bad - I thought he was handling it well until he borrowed money from my mom. It was just one time, so maybe he learned his lesson, but I have a feeling he may not have huge savings.
 
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We've been retired for 4 years and we've been all over the map. The first two years, we were busy unloading a house and I was too afraid to spend money, especially with the 2015 market gyrations. We were under budget these first 2 years.

The last two years, we spent like crazy, at the high end or even over budget. Traveled like crazy and bought some nice toys.

This year, we still are planning to travel but we're becoming more circumspect about spending. We discovered that eating out is the second largest expense, just after our mortgage, but higher than health care or vacation.

We're realizing that we aren't getting "full value" from most of these restaurant meals. Often the food is just OK, eaten rather quickly. I think my love of eating out is an appendage of my old w*rk life, where I used food to dull the pain of the j*b. I needed a "food reward", unfortunately.

Now, I am starting to view restaurants more a entertainment, rather than a source of food. We both are starting to cook more again and reserve restaurants for occasional entertainment with friends. As a result of eating more at home, we are healthier and the food even tastes better. It's also rewarding to prepare an inexpensive meal that is better than that at any restaurant that we used to frequent.

We'd like to use the money saved to give us more financial headroom in an economic downturn (our SWR is relatively high) and give us more opportunities to snow bird to escape our long winters. So were still trying to figure all this out even after 4 years in retirement.
 
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daylatedollarshort said:
There is a new edition out of the Millionaire Next Door with research from the late Thomas Stanley and his daughter, who completed the book. Frugality is still one of their main trait findings: https://www.businessinsider.com/millionaire-study-wealth-factors-confidence-focus-2019-1?r=US&IR=T

Social indifference was one of the other traits (or not succumbing to social pressure to buy the latest thing).
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Based on the Amazon book reviews, I wouldn't buy the book....as an example:

Weak version of original. I expected updated info, this was a regurgitation of information and felt like I was listening to someone tell me about the last book.
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Millionaire Next Door; much better book. This book has a lot of references to the original book. I was not impressed with this book; concepts presented in this book are common knowledge: living below your means, education, careers, and behaviors correlated to building wealth, and keeping up with the neighbors and income is not wealth. There is some interesting and supporting research data presented by the authors; but the statement/endorsement of "Ground Breaking" work is an overstatement.
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After 30 years of marriage, we went to Sandals South Coast Jamaica last year as a well deserved extravagance. We enjoyed it immensely, but will go back to weekend camping trips for the next few years, and driving 15 year old cars.
 
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aja8888 said:
If it was pretty much like the original, why bother? :)
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Why bother to borrow a book from the library I hadn't read yet? Isn't that why most people borrow library books?


It isn't the same book as the original. I was curious to see what had changed in terms of occupations, investments, etc. from their research. One interesting tidbit was that most MNDs don't spend a lot of time on social media.
 
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Dtail said:
You seem to have this type of spending down pat.
Could you provide to us in a few lines if you will, how to go about using the "seat filler" concept?
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Many of the local venues where we live have early bird pricing, last minute rush tickets, preview pricing, Facebook specials, senior pricing, discount nights, etc. The 80/20 is buying tickets from Goldstar and Groupon during one of their sales. A big part is probably location. If you live in a small town there likely won't be as many offerings as a larger tourist oriented city with a surplus of acting schools and colleges churning out graduates with theater and music degrees.
 
daylatedollarshort said:
Many of the local venues where we live have early bird pricing, last minute rush tickets, preview pricing, Facebook specials, senior pricing, discount nights, etc. The 80/20 is buying tickets from Goldstar and Groupon during one of their sales. A big part is probably location. If you live in a small town there likely won't be as many offerings as a larger tourist oriented city with a surplus of acting schools and colleges churning out graduates with theater and music degrees.
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Okay thanks.
Living in Tampa, there should be enough of a market for this stuff. Will check this out.
 
A number of snowbirds work seasonally at Walt Disney World. Nice perks include free admission for them and limited tickets for immediate familiy and friends and also working in the most magical place on Earth and in the city beautiful, Orlando.
 
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