Learning to spend after years of saving...

[Perryinva]

Great thread!! Something we ponder as well. Some things are easy to spend on. Long flight air travel (greater than 4 hours) now that we are 60+ is either business class or premium economy. Overnight European flights we do business class. Of course, so far, every flight has been discounted with CC miles or points. We could never bring ourselves to pay full price for anything. But that is more common sense than frugal, I feel. Exact same item, lower price.

DW REd at 56, has been retired for 8 years, and 5 years younger, I'm still doing OMY, as I just can't give up the pension increases that each year earns, even though we've met our savings and secure income goals. She wants me to retire ASAP, and I am resisting. We both have decent pensions that will easily pay our living expenses plus much more. My SS will be max, hers about half. Those alone will bring us to $115k/yr with no debt, and something over a mil saved.

We've never lived wealthy, and bought our first, ordered the way we wanted it new car ever, for a whopping $30k, had dealt intending to pay cash and was offered a better price if we went financing with them. Based on our credit score we got the lowest rate of 0.5% financing, and I still put down $10k even though there was no reason. I should have financed more as we are getting 1.05% on the cash accounts...just hate car payments, haven't had one in many years.

Net income in retirement will easily exceed what we were used to, when employed, by just on not paying in to SS & Med, lower taxes, and no longer automatically saving.

 

[Live And Learn]

Hehe, I don't even return stuff anymore.

I do a lot of DIY and I'll go buy some stuff for a project and later change my mind and go a different way. I just buy new stuff and toss the old (still brand new) stuff inna trash.

It's not worth the time to return it.

Ouch. I don't like seeing waste like this. I wonder if there is a non profit that would return stuff for you and donate the money .... if I were thinking about w&rking again I might even do that myself

 

[RobbieB]

It's really not that big of a deal. I'm building a new subwoofer for the home theater and I bought 4 PVC caps to make the feet from. Later thought ABS would be better (black already) and tossed the PVC. Big loss, a couple bucks.

 

[Hermit]

Great thread!! Something we ponder as well. Some things are easy to spend on. Long flight air travel (greater than 4 hours) now that we are 60+ is either business class or premium economy. Overnight European flights we do business class. Of course, so far, every flight has been discounted with CC miles or points. We could never bring ourselves to pay full price for anything. But that is more common sense than frugal, I feel. Exact same item, lower price.

DW REd at 56, has been retired for 8 years, and 5 years younger, I'm still doing OMY, as I just can't give up the pension increases that each year earns, even though we've met our savings and secure income goals. She wants me to retire ASAP, and I am resisting. We both have decent pensions that will easily pay our living expenses plus much more. My SS will be max, hers about half. Those alone will bring us to $115k/yr with no debt, and something over a mil saved.

We've never lived wealthy, and bought our first, ordered the way we wanted it new car ever, for a whopping $30k, had dealt intending to pay cash and was offered a better price if we went financing with them. Based on our credit score we got the lowest rate of 0.5% financing, and I still put down $10k even though there was no reason. I should have financed more as we are getting 1.05% on the cash accounts...just hate car payments, haven't had one in many years.

Net income in retirement will easily exceed what we were used to, when employed, by just on not paying in to SS & Med, lower taxes, and no longer automatically saving.

Thank You!

(Its folks like you who will keep my SS fully funded.)

 

[brett]

It is still with me. Changed my cell plan to pay as you go since I do not use the phone five or six months a year. Don't have, don't need data either.

But, on the other side of the ledger just bought a Solara convertable today. Always wanted one, they are out of production. Found a great low mileage used one private sale and picked it up. The double garage is looking smaller.

 

[GravitySucks]

Ouch. I don't like seeing waste like this. I wonder if there is a non profit that would return stuff for you and donate the money .... if I were thinking about w&rking again I might even do that myself

Habitat for Humanity runs ReStore. DGF used to get her stuff there often. I donated things like ceiling light fixtures and leftover molding.

 

[RobbieB]

Another special came up and 8 lbs of "super colossal" (biggest you can get) are arriving tomorrow.

Daily Seafood E-Mail Special

We made sure to "clean out" the last of the mere colossal legs yesterday -

 

[Scuba]

Another special came up and 8 lbs of "super colossal" (biggest you can get) are arriving tomorrow.



Daily Seafood E-Mail Special



We made sure to "clean out" the last of the mere colossal legs yesterday -

Bummer - sale ended 8-16. Sounds like delicious crab legs - enjoy!!

 

[RobbieB]

Yup, 1 day email special for previous customers and "sign-ups" only.

Go buy something on the internet and you'll be "wired for life" with specials -

 

[Scuba]

Yup, 1 day email special for previous customers and "sign-ups" only.

Go buy something on the internet and you'll be "wired for life" with specials -

Good suggestion, thanks!

 

[Golden sunsets]

Yup, 1 day email special for previous customers and "sign-ups" only.

Go buy something on the internet and you'll be "wired for life" with specials -

I was looking for a spot to get on their email list. Didn't see one. Is your reference to "sign ups" an ability to do just that and I failed to see the spot on their page?

Edit: Scratch that. Found it on their home page. I hope they have one of their specials again


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Shanky]

We did the opposite. Until 3 years before retirement we were spending about 30K a month. Now we spend under 10K and it really does not affect our quality of life. If you need advice on how to spend more, I will be glad to consult. (All you need are a few kids in college a Sportfisherman and a high marginal tax rate). If you try you can spend it all in 7 or 8 years.

 

[RobbieB]

Here the latest 'one day only' special, 8 lbs super colossal King legs and 2 lbs pink shrimp shipped next day air frozen with dry ice and only $400.

My second order and won't be the last. This is good stuff and straight from the source. These legs were bigger too as advertised 8 lbs was only 7 legs. It's the best King Crab I've ever ate and the best always costs more.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

Start off slowly by upgrading to premium economy and then slowly work your way into business class for the really long flights . I also am extremely thrifty but my days of coach on long flights are over .

Yep.

 

[Danmar]

I guess I need to look at spending just like I did when I was looking at OMY earnings. So using the 4% SWR - everything I spend I won't have that much going forward. So if I spend blow 10k on whatever, that's only $400 bucks a year. That's still hard for me to wrap my head around!

I understand this point of view. But I have a slightly different approach. My divs represent over half of my spending (pension, no cola, the rest) and are growing by about 7% per year. This means my total income available for spending increases each year by about 4%. Inflation in Canada is about 2% so each year I have more real income to spend. I figure as long as my real income keeps pace with inflation, I can spend down the portfolio. Current yield is about 3.75% so I figure I can spend down up to about 1% of the portfolio each year and still stay even with inflation. This would also probably maintain my portfolio at its current inflation adjusted value.

Obviously things can change and a big "correction" would certainly cause a rethink.

 

[kcowan]

We bought a $2000 leather chair for our living room. Helped work on the surplus!

 

[brett]

Alas, I seem to have been on a steep learning curve as of late. Might even have accomplished the goal!

 

[Palmtree]

We've had no problem spending in retirement. New driveway, trips abroad and to the Caribbean, plus a major year long renovation to our house. We had set a sizable amount aside for all the work still, going forward it's going to be sticking to the budget.

 

[Gumby]

Well, I actually don't mind planning our trips down to the smallest detail, hence we try to avoid group travel as much as possible. It requires quite a bit of homework but I don't mind that at all. But I get it...we are considering a package tour for our future international trips.

We plan our own trips in detail as well - down to looking on Google street view for the path to the front door of our chosen hotel (which was really helpful in Venice). We may save money doing this, but that's really not the motivation. We just prefer to see and do things slightly off the beaten path, which most group tours would not include, and we prefer to travel at our own pace.

 

[athena53]

I haven't read all the posts here but it's been easy for me to open up the wallet for travel, especially with no need to restrict the number of "vacation days". DH and I had some good trips after I retired in 2014 (he was older and already retired)- Alaska, Paris and Iceland- and he died last year, which was NOT a good travel year.

This year I'm sort of burning off pent-up demand. I took a cruise in Central America in April and went to Iceland and Greenland this month. India next year and probably Iceland/Scotland next summer.

I compulsively run numbers because I don't want to outlive my savings but figure as long as my withdrawal rate is reasonable (3% this year), I'm better off spending it on things that can be cut back if necessary, such as travel and charity, rather than a big mortgage and/or car lease payments.

Like others, my spending on clothing is so small it's a joke and I mostly live in freebie T-shirts from athletic events. DH consumed more meat and the grocery bills are down because I eat less meat and more veggies. I sold the older car, so less insurance and maintenance. DH and I got used to flying long hauls in Business Class and paying only one airfare makes a huge difference in the travel costs.

So, things look good unless I buy a boat, an airplane or a gold-digger husband. Not planning on any of those.

 

[DrRoy]

One of our favorite experiences a couple years ago was to attend the "History of the Eagles" tour event. We always hoped for a chance to see them again, and then Glenn Frey died about a year and a half ago, so that seemed to be it. We heard a couple weeks ago that they are going to tour again with Glenn's son. It took us no time at all to find when they would be close and drop $500 on tickets.

On the other side, we needed to get our garage floor epoxy sealed against damage from winter salt that melts off the cars. It looked like having someone do it would run $2000 so we are doing it ourselves over several days for $210 of materials. Just couldn't blow the dough for that one.

 

[ears20]

...

On the other side, we needed to get our garage floor epoxy sealed against damage from winter salt that melts off the cars. It looked like having someone do it would run $2000 so we are doing it ourselves over several days for $210 of materials. Just couldn't blow the dough for that one.

Though I'm not yet RE (class of 2018), I'm starting to look for opportunities like this to conserve capital. I'll be purchasing a riding mower so I can eliminate that element of the lawn service, and am paying very close attention to the fertilizers and pest controls they use in order to be able to fire them altogether.

Will be volunteering at Habitat for Humanity to develop some basic home maintenance skills that I can use at our house. The less I have to spend on things like this, the easier time I'll have opening the wallet for the fun items -!

 

[FIREd]

We have had a lot of unexpected expenses this year (home repairs, dental issues, cat emergencies) in addition to planned fun spending (home renovation, travel). So there is no worry about money going unspent.

But I have spent very little from my personal fun account this year. The balance is growing nicely.

 

[NW-Bound]

We plan our own trips in detail as well - down to looking on Google street view for the path to the front door of our chosen hotel (which was really helpful in Venice)...

Google went through extra effort to get "street view" in areas where cars cannot go; the panoramic cameras are hand-carried.

I had fun doing Google street views to look for the Airbnb's we rented in the recent European trip. Some were nearly impossible to find because of crooked narrow streets in tiny Italian villages, or the facade of the home is hidden from view and I could not spot the street number plate.

It was a lot of fun as I also had to do a "drive" around the neighborhood to spot potential parking spots. I remember my trips, by domestic RV'ing or foreign trips, because I did all this planning and sleuthing. In contrast, my wife just tags along and so barely remembers where we have been.

 

[kcowan]

Google has also captured boat trips. Try their blue tracks from PV to Yelapa!