After you FIRED and retired, were there expenses you immediately cut or stopped?

[sroby2020]

cutting costs

Not right away, but we cut our clothing costs, not having to have work related clothes. We also halved our cable costs by ditching AT&T, and going with a much cheaper streaming service. We don't watch much TV anyway, so it wasn't missed.
We had to alter our heating/cooling schedules, since we no longer have to leave the house for 9 or 10 hours a day. That's tricky to do and still save money, but we managed to keep those costs about the same as before.

 

[Koolau]

I just recalled: One of my biggest expenses cut was taxes (state and federal.) It's amazing when you have little income, your taxes go way down. Of course, it wasn't long until I started doing Roth conversions and then taxes went back up. YMMV

 

[meleana]

Nothing. If anything we are spending more on eating out lunches because our social life was non existent before and now it is on steroids!


Thought now with the inflation we are trying to cut back on those as well.

 

[JustKickItForward]

Not much change

... because our expenditure before retirement will be about same as during. When I started transition ER a few years ago (still am) , the commute costs went away, but spouse started working so her commute cost went up just a little (lot shorter commute than mine).

 

[Out of Steam]

I used to wear relatively expensive suits every day to the C-suite. I haven’t bought a suit in over 10 years, not the belts or shoes or ties that go with them.

I bought my first suit in 20 years last year, after retiring, for a wedding that was too upscale for my regular sport jackets and slacks.

 

[fishfactory]

Went from 2 to 1 car.
Changed landline from ATT to Google Voice for $0 cost.
Changed cell phone to Mint Mobile for $15/mo. Love it.

 

[Koolau]

I bought my first suit in 20 years last year, after retiring, for a wedding that was too upscale for my regular sport jackets and slacks.

I've decided that, if my Magnum PI Aloha shirt isn't good enough, I won't go. Of course, an original such shirt could have cost $90. Not to say that's what I paid for it at Goodwill.

 

[JustKickItForward]

Forgot to mention earlier. No more house payments!

That was one huge criteria for ER

 

[Almost There 2021]

Cut Expenses?

To enjoy being a FIRE member you should never have to cut back on expenses. Between pension, SS, dividends and capital gains my annual income is much more than my previous salary.

That is what a happy FIRE member should always first consider....before hanging it up.....IMO

 

[Gumby]

Some people hate the job so much, they're willing to cut back their lifestyle to retire. For us, maintaining or improving our lifestyle (to the extent that is determined by money) was a sine qua non for retiring. But everyone values different things and there is no one answer.

 

[MarieIG]

^ For me, work was a bit of a love-hate relationship, although I don't miss it.

I did have a check list of items to accomplish before retirement to make me feel more comfortable/secure, and that was done.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

The trick is to find ways to raise (or at least maintain), the lifestyle while lowering expenses. We found a lot of changes like that - adjusting insurance deductibles, getting free event passes from the library, cheaper cell phone plan, getting rid of the landline, all LED lights inside, getting our glasses from Zenni, etc. It all really added up. One of the best finds for us was joining seat filler groups and getting free tickets to plays and concerts. I didn't even know they existed before we retired. Another was finding all the free summer concerts in the park in our area. They usually have bands that cost $30 a ticket at the commercial venues. Between the different suburbs near us, there is one almost every night of the week in summer.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Almost there, if you haven’t been negatively affected by any of the 3 “D’s” consider yourself lucky (death, disability or divorce).

 

[Pellice]

But my 401(k) expenses came out before my paycheck came to me, so I never thought of them as an expense. In general, I increased spending, particularly for home improvements, which I had put out of my mind while I was working and saving.

 

[Out of Steam]

For me, work was a bit of a love-hate relationship, although I don't miss it.

For me, there was a little more hate than love, but there are definitely things I miss about working--mainly exposure to new technology and opportunities to be around younger people. I thought I would return to work for a couple of years once I had a year away, at least part-time.

Since both my wife and I are susceptible to COVID complications, the pandemic scuttled that idea. I've now let go of the possibility of going back to full-time work, and even part-time seems unlikely.

 

[Out of Steam]

I've decided that, if my Magnum PI Aloha shirt isn't good enough, I won't go.

My niece has a more elegant vision, and a husband with a paycheck and family to carry it off.

 

[cyber888]

To enjoy being a FIRE member you should never have to cut back on expenses. Between pension, SS, dividends and capital gains my annual income is much more than my previous salary.



That is what a happy FIRE member should always first consider....before hanging it up.....IMO

That was not my question. My question was what expenses you don’t need anymore in retirement that you can cut it, even if you FAT fire. Your answer seems to say you won’t cut back on any single expenses, even if you don’t need such items? So you’re still gonna spend as much on working clothes even if you don’t work?

 

[CaptTom]

To enjoy being a FIRE member you should never have to cut back on expenses...

Wow, that's a pretty broad statement. I mean, if your biggest problem is how to blow that dough, great!

But for me that was never the goal. I retired early because I could get by on what I had, since my expenses would be lower for all the reasons I and others in this thread have already covered. Living whatever is left of my life to the fullest was more important than amassing a war chest which would allow conspicuous consumption.

Each of us has to balance our goals and resources. I'm not going to tell anyone what they should do.

 

[ElizabethT]

I know for sure that our grocery bill went down because we stopped buying the convenience and prepared foods we relied on during our hectic w#rking years.

Gas expenses went down
Clothing expenses went down
No more fast lane toll road expenses
No more dry cleaning expenses
No more saving, the biggest 'expense' allocated from our paychecks for many, many years.

Kept the house cleaning and yard services because those are quality of life issues for us!

 

[ElizabethT]

I know for sure that our grocery bill went down because we stopped buying the convenience and prepared foods we relied on during our hectic w#rking years.

Gas expenses went down
Clothing expenses went down
No more fast lane toll road expenses
No more dry cleaning expenses
No more saving, the biggest 'expense' allocated from our paychecks for many, many years.

Kept the house cleaning and yard services because those are quality of life issues for us!

Will add to above that in the 10+ ensuing years since we FIRE'd I stopped coloring my hair, and we switched our hair cutting appts to every 8 weeks instead of six, dropped cable, dropped our landline phone, switched to 55+ cell phone plans, began taking daily long hikes/walks/kayaks/bike rides as our primary source of $0 daytime entertainment, attend as many free concerts and plays as we can handle in and amongst those we pay for, enjoy a lot of lunch and Happy Hour dining (not to be confused with Early Bird - completely different energy!) in place of the too-frequent luxury dining we used to partake in due to looking for quick ways to refill our depleted life energy tanks, and make a point to enjoy sunset picnics on a weekly basis.

Energy depletion more than savings depletion, as we enter our 60's, occupies our thoughts increasingly these days.

 

[scrabbler1]

To enjoy being a FIRE member you should never have to cut back on expenses. Between pension, SS, dividends and capital gains my annual income is much more than my previous salary.

That is what a happy FIRE member should always first consider....before hanging it up.....IMO

While for me one unshakeable condition of being able to FIRE was that there would be no change to my everyday lifestyle (read: expenses), I would never dream of insisting anyone else adhere to that condition in order to FIRE.

 

[Out of Steam]

While for me one unshakeable condition of being able to FIRE was that there would be no change to my everyday lifestyle (read: expenses), I would never dream of insisting anyone else adhere to that condition in order to FIRE.

We lived through 2020 and 2021 with under 60% of our 2018 gross income. While we were postponing some significant capital expenses (car replacement and changes to the house), much of that was due to the pandemic.

In 2022, we've replaced a car and returned to most travel; we'll be just shy of 2/3 of our 2018 income. Expect that that will be our income level through 2024. We've been financially cautious, but haven't felt deprived.

 

[Katsmeow]

To enjoy being a FIRE member you should never have to cut back on expenses. Between pension, SS, dividends and capital gains my annual income is much more than my previous salary.

That is what a happy FIRE member should always first consider....before hanging it up.....IMO

I don't agree with that at all.

Many of the expenses we cut after retiring were expenses that were no longer needed either due to no longer working (clothes, long commute gas, some dining out) or reduced as our kids got older and moved out.

I mean, it is peachy that your income is more than you made before. That isn't possible for most people. They shouldn't be precluded from retiring.

When DH retired and I semi-retired we had a high income. There is absolutely no question that if DH had worked a few more years and I had done so as well (I was mid-50s when I semi-retired and he was 62), that we would have had more money.

We discussed this. Were we willing to give up having as much money in order to retire earlier? Were we willing to live a more modest existence? The answer was yes. A lot of what we spent money on then are things that are no longer of great importance to us.

When DH retired and I semi-retired we lived in a 4500 SF house on almost 3 acres with a guest house, a pool and 2 detached garages. We now live in a house that is about 2400 SF and we think that is too large and plan to soon move to something significantly smaller. Yes, the big house with all that was nice and we enjoyed. But it isn't foundational to our life. We couldn't afford to stay in that house and we are absolutely fine with that.

 

[Almost There 2021]

FIRE

Take away the FI and it is still a pleasure to RE.

Best.....

 

[CaptTom]

Take away the FI and it is still a pleasure to RE.

Yes! I never really consider myself FI. I suppose, if my planning holds, I won't need to ever w*rk again. Maybe that could be considered FI.

But when I joined here, it was the RE part (It's in the domain name, and at the top of every page!) which got me. I'd never heard of FIRE and figured that was just a sub-set of the members. Maybe back then it was.