nun,
Instead of placing you in a category, I would say you fit comfortably on the nice bell-shaped curve of spending represented on this forum.
I know that, one way or another, we have discussed this subject many times before. It is always interesting to see what others spend, save, "have", etc. Any feedback is probably worth about what we all pay for it. Still it can be fun. I would rarely criticize what someone else spends or doesn't spend. Still, the budget differences on this forum probably represent at least the 99% we all hear about. (Haven't heard many claims to be too far up into the 1%, but if you count assets rather than income, many of us actually are in the 1%!)
I've mentioned many times that part of my retirement "strategy" is to be able to cut back if need be. So, currently, we (2) spend more than 3X your budget. Don't know if I even have a handle on some of the "ponderable" questions like opportunity cost of owning a condo, depreciation costs of our 2 beaters, keeping a "foot" on the mainland by owning a business and apartment and car there, ($9k so far this year), etc., etc. So, if I were to comment on your current spending, it would be to suggest you dno't have a lot of room to cut back. Perhaps I am wrong. I was once.
Looking over what we spend for the various categories, I'm certain we could cut most things by half or more (we eat out a lot and buy ready-to-eat foods.) We live in Paradise instead of on the frozen tundra of the midwest. We are giving our kids their inheritance while we are still living by funding their Roth IRAs and insurance policies. We give significant amounts to several charities since we feel that we have been abundantly blessed. None of this is to imply that anyone else should do what we do. It's just our thing. We've become comfortable with the prospect, that if it all goes south (make that north in our case) we have options to help us survive on a budget almost as tight as yours. I wouldn't want to, but I've done it before and could do it again. YMMV.
