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Old 11-19-2015, 03:41 PM   #21
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Yes, my spending habit have changed. I am spending more on me and mine and less on work related items such as clothing, commuting expenses, coworker's fund raisers, and supplies/materials for the classroom.
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Old 11-19-2015, 04:35 PM   #22
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I spend about $500 less per year in retirement than I did while working. But there's been a shift from vehicle, clothing and tax expense to travel and hobbies.


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This is worrisome. Are you absolutely, positively sure that the difference isn't $497.46 instead of the $500.00 you threw out?
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Old 11-19-2015, 04:56 PM   #23
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We try to live the same lifestyle or better but spend less, which has been fairly easy since we had a lot of fat in the budget before and now we have more time to review expenses, make the house more water and energy efficient, price shop especially for groceries, bargain hunt, cook from scratch and DIY tasks. Plus we spend less on commuting and job costs, less on taxes and the kids will be off the payroll before too long now.

I guess I don't really understand a lot of the spending in retirement articles. Isn't how much a household can spend in retirement largely a function of the retirement income the household has available? We spend what is in our budget or less. If we spent a lot more we would eventually run out of money.
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Old 11-19-2015, 09:38 PM   #24
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Our expenses have gone up most years. We remodeled our house and spent more on the remodeling, than we paid for the house in 1986. Bought all new appliances for the kitchen, except for the refrigerator. It was fairly new. This was do to years of deferred maintenance. We were busy working and rearing our family and did not have the time to buy everything needed for the remodel and to oversee the contractor, until after we quit working. My DH traded corvettes and insurance is higher on the new one. Since I quit my part-time job 05/15/15, I have driven to VA with granddaughter and then we flew to FL to Disney World. DD's family moved to NC beginning of June 2015 and we have driven from WV to NC 3-4 times since then. DH and I also drove to Maine on vacation.

Things we would like to do: I go to WVU Dental School. They have given me 5 different treatment plans, ranging from the least expensive $11,500 to most expensive $33,000. I have not decided which treatment plan I am going to use yet, but I don't think it will be the least or the most expensive plan. I will start having the work done either in 01/16 or wait until after my cruise in 02/16. I would really like to get an Ipad for our traveling. DH takes his laptop, but I feel guilty if I use it too much and know that he is wanting to use it also. It would really be nice to buy a new king size bedroom set. Our queen size set is almost 40 years old and looks like it. We are not as small as we were when we bought it. There are a few other things, but they will have to wait until 2017 or later.
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Old 11-20-2015, 03:21 AM   #25
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I guess I don't really understand a lot of the spending in retirement articles. Isn't how much a household can spend in retirement largely a function of the retirement income the household has available?
Yes, exactly!

And in determining whether they have enough to retire early, I see folks here focus on whether their funds will meet what they would like to be able to do in retirement. That is the appropriate approach (and sometimes cause for OMY syndrome).

I don't think retirement spending correlates with spending while working. We spent more, mainly because a) we were saving a lot while working, b) working too hard to have time to spend much and c) after retiring had the funds to spend.
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Old 11-20-2015, 05:41 AM   #26
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we spend far more now in retirement . with us time cost money and one thing we now have is time .

we are always going somewhere , doing something or taking the grand kids someplace
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Old 11-20-2015, 06:26 AM   #27
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My spending (not including taxes and DD's college tuition) has stayed pretty flat. Local transportation and yes, durable goods are down, travel is up. The numbers I guesstimated based on tallying a few years of pre-retirement expenses worked out pretty close. I don't even track expenses now, just overall money expended for the year.
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Old 11-20-2015, 07:26 AM   #28
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I find these studies only useful in the aggregate, perhaps for the design of publicly supported retirement schemes. On an individual basis they are not very useful. Each person should know where they are spending their money before retirement, adjust this (up or down) to reflect the kind of retirement they want, and save accordingly.

As others have mentioned, it isn't always clear if people plan their spending in retirement ahead of time or whether they simply "play the cards they have been dealt" and spend what is available. Whether this is what they want to spend or not. Also, I suspect that most retirees become satisfied with what spending is available. Otherwise, there isn't much they can do about it, other than going back to work?

In our case we spend maybe 30-40% more (after tax) in retirement than while working. This would not include a fair amount spent right out of the gate buying more property and things associated with them. I think it would be fair to say our spending increased to match the funds available and we are quite comfortable with this level at this point.
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Old 11-20-2015, 08:29 AM   #29
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Our spending has remained fairly constant however how we spend it has changed completely.

We downsized from a large home to a rental condo. We needed a lock and go. Real estate where we live is going down so no rush to buy. Huge impact to our budget especially when we our things were in storage for seven months and we had no rent to pay.

We travel extensively- often five months of the year. We downsized to one vehicle. No more suits, parking, lunches etc for work. Less dining out when we are in town. We changed our eating habits. We spend more of fresh fruit, veg. We no longer buy/eat prepared foods. We eat much less red meat and more seafood. Our health, weight, and well being is much better.

We buy summer clothes at the end of summer in preparation for our winter trip. We buy winter clothes in the spring when we return in late March/early April.

We buy fewer books because of what we went through in our downsizing exercise. The library is our friend and we are fortunate to have a very good one. Most books that we do buy are donated to the library or given away. We don't keep them hanging around.

Now retired, we do not have to as much forward travel planning. We can now take advantage of last minute travel offers-and we do.

After three, almost four years, we have just increased our after tax budget by eight percent.

I do not believe in the rule of thumb about percentages required/burned in retirement. There are too many individual variables when it comes to income levels and spend.
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Old 11-20-2015, 08:35 AM   #30
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We spend a ton more money, all on discretionary things. Time is so much greater than money right now for us at mid-60s so we say yes to any suggestions that appeal to us. We could easily cut back and know we will when the things we are spending on stop being fun for us. Life is good.
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Old 11-20-2015, 08:49 AM   #31
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We spend a ton more money, all on discretionary things. Time is so much greater than money right now for us at mid-60s so we say yes to any suggestions that appeal to us. We could easily cut back and know we will when the things we are spending on stop being fun for us. Life is good.
+1

The market has been so great since my retirement in 2009, and it turns out that I can afford to spend a lot more than I had planned on spending due to my portfolio growing by leaps and bounds. Plus a modest inheritance, and now I even have SS, neither of which I had depended on getting.

Honestly I have been trying to loosen the pursestrings, and I am now spending more than I ever did before retirement. Like Bestwifeever, I say "yes" to anything that appeals to me. At first very little did appeal to me, because I was used to living a certain way. I am in my late 60's and awfully set in my ways! So I am working on that.

I even bought my Dream House, something that was unthinkable for me even a few years ago. What a wonderful purchase and I am getting huge satisfaction and happiness for the money. Surprisingly that turned out costing me much less than I anticipated once all was done, so I still need to work on loosening the pursestrings. I am still gleeful that the electric bill is lower at the new house than the old one. I shouldn't care, but I do...

I hope that I am not getting too used to living "the high life", so that I can revert back to former habits easily the next time the market crashes badly.
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Old 11-20-2015, 09:44 AM   #32
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Five years into ER my spending has gone down somewhat. I find I have $400-$500 more each month than I expected. I attribute this to simply moving to a lifestyle and set of interests that just aren't as expensive as when I was w*rking. Fewer fancy restaurants and wine; fewer clothes; just less stuff. More activities like hiking and book clubs and classes that cost almost nothing.

We did replace the roof and paint the house the first year but I've budgeted for that sort of thing anyway. My commute miles went down but I replaced it with a couple of road trips.

One way to look at this is that just because you have more time doesn't mean you are going to fill it with spending. I also tell everyone that being retired is not like being on vacation. Vacations when I was w*rking was a spending splurge. Not so with retirement.
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Old 11-20-2015, 10:37 AM   #33
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Wow, I'm surprised by all the people saying expenses went up.

I'm 2 years into ER, and our expenses have gone down in a very significant way. But I'm counting income taxes, payroll taxes, college and other expenses for 2 kids, and no more mortgage payment. Perhaps those weren't entirely relevant to the EBRI study, but they are very real and significant reductions for us.

Even excluding those huge reductions, we're still down about 15-20% on other items. Some of this came from the obvious: commuting, clothes, dry cleaning, expensive work lunches. The rest came from DIY services/repairs and simply having time to pay attention to details (cable, phones, energy use, groceries, cash-back CCs, and many others). Also, we still live in a monstrous house, which will be downsized at some point, reducing expenses even further.

I concede that there was a lot of wasteful outflow last several years of working. For example, we lacked the time and energy to cook at home during the week, so we ate out quite a bit. We also paid for lots of services just due to lack of time. It was relatively easy to reel that stuff in and it now keeps me entertained.

Also, DW decided to keep working for a while, so we're not traveling as much as planned. That will certainly change the landscape a bit. Also her health insurance will go up quite a bit more than mine did at retirement. There's also some pent-up demand for hobby-related toys, like upgrading some of the woodworking machines. And we need a new car. So maybe there's hope for me yet.
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Old 11-20-2015, 10:39 AM   #34
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An additional point of view (the writer has been retired for many years):

Does Spending Change After Retirement? by Bob Lowry | Olderhood.com
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Old 11-20-2015, 10:41 AM   #35
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5 years after DH retired and I semi-retired, we have been spending a lot less than when we were working full-time (there was one year that was an exception when we had some major one-time purchases) and we have 2 kids in college. We will have college/kid expenses for 2016 and then we will have a significant reduction for 2017 and beyond.
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Old 11-20-2015, 10:45 AM   #36
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This is worrisome. Are you absolutely, positively sure that the difference isn't $497.46 instead of the $500.00 you threw out?
The $500 is the projected figure for the end of 2015. I'll know exactly on 12/31.
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Old 11-20-2015, 10:51 AM   #37
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I'm happy to see you folks spending more in RE after LBYM for years to reach your goal.

Congratulations and enjoy !!!
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Old 11-20-2015, 11:17 AM   #38
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18 months into retirement we are tracking $5K less in annual spending excluding taxes than while working. Some expenses like traveling are up and some like clothing and transportation costs are down. We had planned on 100% pre retirement spending so we are pleased to be able to enjoy our free time while spending less.
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Old 11-20-2015, 11:46 AM   #39
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Wow, I'm surprised by all the people saying expenses went up.

I'm 2 years into ER, and our expenses have gone down in a very significant way. But I'm counting income taxes, payroll taxes, college and other expenses for 2 kids, and no more mortgage payment. Perhaps those weren't entirely relevant to the EBRI study, but they are very real and significant reductions for us.

Even excluding those huge reductions, we're still down about 15-20% on other items. Some of this came from the obvious: commuting, clothes, dry cleaning, expensive work lunches. The rest came from DIY services/repairs and simply having time to pay attention to details (cable, phones, energy use, groceries, cash-back CCs, and many others). Also, we still live in a monstrous house, which will be downsized at some point, reducing expenses even further.

I concede that there was a lot of wasteful outflow last several years of working. For example, we lacked the time and energy to cook at home during the week, so we ate out quite a bit. We also paid for lots of services just due to lack of time. It was relatively easy to reel that stuff in and it now keeps me entertained.

Also, DW decided to keep working for a while, so we're not traveling as much as planned. That will certainly change the landscape a bit. Also her health insurance will go up quite a bit more than mine did at retirement. There's also some pent-up demand for hobby-related toys, like upgrading some of the woodworking machines. And we need a new car. So maybe there's hope for me yet.
Expenses didn't go up for us, spending did!

Basically, people ramp up their discretionary spending when they have the funds available.
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Old 11-20-2015, 12:00 PM   #40
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Expenses didn't go up for us, spending did!

Basically, people ramp up their discretionary spending when they have the funds available.
+1

(After two longer posts written and lost in response to this, due to not being cautious, I think the above will cover it.)

Oh - - one of the posts was in my cache. Here it is:

Quote:
A question that often seems to arise in these discussions is what governs the amount a retiree spends?

Is the amount spent equal to one's living expenses?

Is the amount spent equal to the money available to spend?

My outlook on it, is that after meeting one's living expenses, if there is more left to spend, the amount spent on discretionary stuff is governed by free choice.
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