1) Ordering out became cheaper for us, after the pandemic. Now we seldom do sit inside restaurants.
We use to eat out at buffets, until the pandemic came. We have a great Golden Corral near here and they have juicy fire-grilled steaks on their open grill. DW and I pay like $26-$27 for one lunch buffet meal. Now, I take out 6 slabs of grilled steak, some southern fried chicken, and corn, they weigh it per pound. I paid $24+ bucks for it last time, and it's like 4 - 5 meals instead of 1 meal - and we just eat it at home. We freeze the steak and we reheat it and the flavor taste the same.
We also use to go to a good Chinese buffet that has endless Fresh Fried Shrimp, Calamari, Crabcakes and other seafood, and they also stir fry hibachi. We also pay like $26-27 for lunch buffet. Now we take out 3 boxes and they weigh it and cost $30+ and the shrimp and other seafood and stir-fry hibachi last us like 7 - 8 meals.
We're doing the same for a really good Indian restaurant that use to offer buffet, but now we order out with lamb curry, tikka masala, tandori chicken, ghee cheese with spinach, and what we paid for buffett last us like 5 - 6 meals.
Now we like eating at home with so many food. It's like having a buffett inside our house.
But we noticed that as we got older, we consume so much less food too.
2) Gas
I don't spend much on gas as I only go to the office once a week and it's an 18 minutes commute. I work much more from home. I put gas once a month and I probably pay $10-$12 more with gas prices today compared to last year. My cars are all 4 cylinder turbos. I have this Bimmer 228i which I boosted with a chip and can do 4.5 seconds 0-60 but I get more than 30-32 MPG on the highway, and around 26 MPG.
3) Hair - zero
My wife and I always cut our own hairs. So, $0 cost on hair cutting.
4) Cutting Grass - zero
I have a rechargable Electric Mower & Cutter which is easy to use to cut my grass. No need for gas. I love doing this. This is my exercise. My neighbors spend $200-$250 a month having someone do the grass trimming for them.
5) Traveling - Timeshare & Europe
We have a Timeshare that we pay $900+ a year and I could use 3 - 4 weeks in various locations - Florida, the Carolinas, Vegas, Colorado, Utah, Canada, Europe. We spend like $180 to exchange the time share for a 2 - 3 bedroom 4-5 star resort like Marriot.
When traveling to Europe we get used to traveling by bus, rail or public transport if it's a city or metropolitan area. If outside the city, that's when we rent a car.
There are always ways to save.
