What percent of your spending is recreation?

Discretionary - % of Total​
Discretionary Less Travel - % of Total​
2016
49%​
15%​
​

[TR][TD]​
[/TD][/TR]
​

[TR][TD]2017​
[/TD][TD]
51%​
[/TD][TD]
17%[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2018​
[/TD][TD]
45%​
[/TD][TD]
9%[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2019​
[/TD][TD]
55%​
[/TD][TD]
10%[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2020​
[/TD][TD]
29%​
[/TD][TD]
24%[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2021​
[/TD][TD]
47%​
[/TD][TD]
10%[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2022 est.​
[/TD][TD]
47%​
[/TD][TD]
7%​
[/TD][/TR]

I could break things down even further, but I'm lazy. Hopefully this'll be helpful enough. I include dining out in discretionary. We'll spend > $100 for the two of us for a nice dinner that would cost a lot less cooking at home.
 
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aja8888 said:
I heard that old men in sports cars are somewhat invisible to the younger crowd....:LOL: Maybe if the pony tail has a few hundreds clipped to it, it would be visible.:cool:
Click to expand...


Back in the day; I had a boss (partner/ owner) in a law firm where I worked. He had a red corvette. He was older, about 6'5; slim; with a thick head of white hair. Very distinguished looking - but - he needed a double hip replacement which he kept putting off. Soooooo, it was always an involved process for him to extricate himself from that car. I liked to tease him, so if I was in the parking lot when he pulled in, I would make a big deal about watching him struggle to get out of the car, sing (Prince's) Little Red Corvette and he would threaten to fire me. :LOL:
 
Quite variable for us year to year and we manage at the top line (total annual spending). Our spending for 2022 YTD has been ~40% on Travel & ~15% on Recreation.
 
Nearly all of our recreation spending is for travel. And because I have not traveled much recently due to Covid, I looked up the data up to Covid start.

It's almost 10% of total spending.

I expect it to increase in the future, due to more travel and also due to reduced spending in other categories.
 
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The travel budget is 19% of the total annual budget. And we spend every cent.
 
About 40% on recreation / travel. This has been ramping up during 16 years of retirement as income has increased considerably faster than expenses, and I do not feel the need to put aside 'savings' anymore.
 
1% of spending

Well less than 1% of income

That's based on actual spending in 2022 for all entertainment, vacations, recreation, streaming, movies, and dining out. And in fact, ALL discretionary spending would be less than 1% this year, so far.

I don't actually budget any of those things, so it just comes out of what's leftover for discretionary and saving after required budgeted and unexpected expenses.

I'm not retired.
 
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We’ve been retired 6 years and spend about 35%.

We spend a lot on Hobby/Recreation/Fun now (our Go Go years) and expect to spend less in the future (our No Go years) when it might be more difficult to do: DH drag races (Super Comp) and shoots trap. I do art, quilt, videography, photography, attend classes and retreats that interest me. Also, we both golf and go camping. We are not big travelers but sometimes head to the Florida coast and visit friends.

I’m so happy we’re blowing that dough because, sooner than we would wish, this magical time of being healthy and active and free will come to its natural denouement. DH had cancer earlier this year and is clear now and doing well but we both regularly recognize and remind ourselves how fleeting time is…
 
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I was on the sidewalk in downtown Seattle, and I saw one of those perfect old duffers in driving cap and gloves, failing to cleanly negotiate the exit off the Alaskan Way viaduct. Luckily for him, the handicap cutout in the curb saved the rims on his green Miata. :) Just a bump and carry on!
 
Like you have seen, recreation means different things to different people. Your "recreation" category means sum of "Entertainment", "Hobbies" and "Travel" for us. We haven't FIREd but our's average at about 20% not counting COVID years. We expect it to go to 30% once FIREd.
 
Other than travel which we haven't done for the past 4 years I bought a recumbent trike and a new pair of bike shoes. My wife plays tennis at the public courts and bought a new racket about 3 years ago.
I haven't seen a need to keep track of these kinds of expenses since they are less than 1%.

Cheers!
 
Never had a budget so not sure on a percentage per year. Just using some rough figures, I would say I'm in the ~5% area. A lot of my hobbies I do are almost free to do or cost nothing. I find also that I can't do so many things I love to do for free.

Fishing and hunting licenses cost me money so those would be the biggest ticket items. My gas money through the years come from money I earn through carving sales and a few small jobs I do through the years. I spend about ~2500$ a year on gas for recreation and fun time.
 
2020 - 10% (big shocker)
2021 - 20%
2022 - ~25% (Italy will do it to ya) & CO & Mexico...
 
Our basic non-discretionary spend is 65% of total spending capacity, according to FireCalc 95% and other similar tools. So that leaves 35% discretionary. How or if we spend that money each year varies drastically.

One year might be heavy international travel. The next year, some big home improvement projects. Maybe a new car just for fun. Upgrade some woodworking machines... because who doesn't need a 20" planer. This year, our BTD moment was a Class B camper van, which made up for all the pandemic-related under-spending in 2020 and 2021.

But if I look at actual spending on recreation and entertainment as OP defines it... it's less than 1%. For us, that's stuff like movies, concerts, plays, sporting events, taking the grandkids to the zoo, etc. It's not very frequent and it's not very expensive. We don't eat out much, but if I add that, it gets up to around 4%. Travel is sometimes 10-15% and sometimes zero.

Basically... we just have a 35% bucket of fun money. Most years, we spend at least half of it. Some years a lot more. And the types of things we use it for are constantly shifting around. That's the best answer I can give.
 
I'm hoping to spend 24K to 30K per year for the first several years on travel. We never traveled on the company dime, so it is really unknown how much we will do or tolerate or want.
I know that soon is a must, DW can't get around well and that is not going to improve much if at all.
 
We're cheap dates so our entertainment budget is pretty low. Every year I buy some assortment of club memberships, seat filler memberships, wine country passports, and annual passes for parks, garden, and museums. Then what we do during the year doesn't cost too much. Plus I look for activities like college events and Facebook specials. Usually for a few hundred dollars a month we can go out several times a week, or as much as we have time for.

We're kind of burned out on travel from our working years when we'd have to travel for work or family obligations, so it feel more relaxing to just do our day trips and evenings in the city now when we want to get out of town.
 
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I don't keep a budget. Nor do I really know how to compartmentalize recreational spending. Is my yearly trip to the mainland recreation? Who knows.

I'll just WAG it and say 10% but YMMV.
 
I don’t categorize expenses anymore, but I’d say about 60% of my spending is for recreation. Google says that recreation is what one does for enjoyment when not working. So the 60% includes travel, hobbies, entertainment
 
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