Expenses that went up/down during COVID?

[Chuckanut]

Gas, travel, dining out, entertainment, auto insurance are down.

Utilities and food are up.

Net result is that I am saving a lot of money every month.

[mountainsoft]

Gas is down 75%. Only filling up once a month instead of once a week.

Groceries are up 10-20%, more snacking, more drinking.

Travel and entertainment are 0%. No where to go to spend money.

Home improvement projects are WAY up. New EGO mower, New EGO chainsaw, new woodworking projects, putting in a new driveway drain, etc.

[GoodWishes]

For the first six months of this year:
Travel is way down to almost nothing, only took a short trip early February.
Recreation and entertainment are down to nothing.
Dining out is way down, done some take out but still not at the level of eating out before.
Gas is way down although this is not a big expense.

Grocery is up some.
Biggest expense is had to replace a very old sewer line.

Overall
- expense down
- portfolio up

[W2R]

I couldn't do this as "first quarter vs second quarter", because we were hit in early March. So I did "March through June, 2020" vs "March through June, 2019".

These expenses were lower:

• gym fees (gym closed for 10 weeks, so no fees)
• restaurants
• gasoline and other car expenses

These expenses were higher:

• Video games and gaming

All the other categories were about the same amount. Overall I spent less while sheltering in place, but not as much less as I had expected.

[tb001]

Haven’t run the full numbers through the first half of the year, but last I checked, we’re spending significantly less, ex a few one time home improvement projects we planned to do when we moved.

Tuition cut in half for DD and no summer camp costs for the kids has saved us a ton. We’ll likely be spending it next year on an unexpected extra year of private school, unless the plan put forth by the public school district changes significantly. Having zero extra activities for the kids has been enlightening—life is so much easier when we’re not racing from school to after school activity to dinner and bed and up every Saturday AM for sports. We’ve saved a lot here and more importantly, realized we enjoy life more without some of the extras.

Gas is way down, as is entertainment. We’ve only done take out a few times, so that’s way down too.

Groceries are up, but liquor bill is way down since discovering we are ok drinking Costco’s boxed wine as our nightly dinner wine.

Not much change in utilities, since we were wfh last year at this time. Took some time this weekend to review the cable and phone and will be making some cuts there. Some extra $ will be spent on electronics as we prep for cutting the cord and upgrade phones.

Fitness/gym spending is up, due to more online classes and investing in home gym equipment. Luckily we did this right before the shelter in place order, so avoided the big markups, but still expensive. The upside is we’ve both been working out much more consistently and I’ve lost a fair bit of weight.

Medical and dental is way down. Skipped dental visits the first half of the year and not having kids in school has meant we’ve all stayed healthy for the first time in ages.

Household/home improvements are up, mainly due to having more time to focus on projects. We’re tackling a couple of big $ items we’ve had on the to do list for a while next month, so will be way up then, but this is the last of the big ticket things we’ve wanted to do. The upside is that since I’ve been home I’ve had time to get multiple bids and do some comparison shopping. So far the work has come in at about 1/3 of the original bids we received.

Clothes and personal care way down. DH used the time to grow out his cut and finally stop coloring his hair, so that’s a significant knock off our regular recurring expenses. No need for nicer clothes for us or the kids. We’ve all been living in workout wear. Need to get the kids some back to school clothes soon though.

Spent more on amazon that I would have liked—mainly homeschool supplies, household organization and kid stuff. Spent what felt like a ridiculous amount on toys and activities to keep them busy this summer, but in retrospect, it’s about what we spent on DD’s bday party last year, which won’t be happening this year, so...

All in all some significant reductions, but I would expect a decent pick up in the next two months, between school and projects. What’s encouraging is how many of the changes I hope will be long lasting changes to our budget. Eating out is the one item I think will go nuts once we feel safer doing it. I would much prefer to keep our food spend down and cook at home, but the rest of the family is itching to go out.

[FIREd]

Everyday life is pretty much back to normal here. And my everyday expenses (groceries, gas, utilities, etc...) are now back to what they were pre-COVID. During the lockdown though, groceries and utilities were up marginally while gas was down to zero.

I'm still not spending a lot of money on eating out, travel, or entertainment. But being locked up at home for 2 months made me want to make my condo even more comfortable and I've been spending more money on furnishings. So it evens out overall.

[DrRoy]

Travel went from largest bracket to zip. Groceries up, take out up.

[scrabbler1]

Groceries went up, mainly because beef prices rose sharply and quickly. Store sales have shrunk quite a bit and have only begun to returning the last month or so. As for dining out, I have done that less than usual for this time of year (my b-day is in April and my LF's b-day is in late March). But my LF got some restaurant gift cards back in January (CC perks) , so we only begun using those which lowered the cash outlay.

[Moemg]

Gas is way down . Entertainment is down. Travel is down to nothing . We eat out occasionally so that is down.Groceries are the same . Clothing is way down. I bought books freely so that is up slightly . All in all I saved a lot of money but I want this over and my life back.

[Badger]

Gas is waaaaaay down since we only go out for groceries that are either a 2mile or 20mile round trip every 2-3 weeks. The only thing that is up is last months electric bill but it has been hot here and it is not much different that last year at this time and groceries that is a little higher since we are buying a bit more since we are in the hurricane season. Entertainment is Netflix. Travel is $0. Everything else is $0. Almost forgot. We did buy a mid-priced dishwasher and had the house pressure washed. I can't seem to find a way to spend money other than wasting it. If I could find a chest freezer I would buy one (again for the hurricane season). A whole house generator would be nice but don't like anyone in my house. That may have to wait. The dishwasher install was enough.


Cheers!

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tb001 Groceries are up, but liquor bill is way down since discovering we are ok drinking Costco’s boxed wine as our nightly dinner wine.

+1

It's very nice drinkable wine. The only 'problem' is that they offer only one red and one white - a red cabernet and a white a Pino Grigio IIRC.

But, it beats the heck out of Two Buck Chuck, which is Three Buck Chuck in my neck of the woods.

[T-Minus]

Amica gave us a good rebate on our car insurance because their actual expenses declined - I like that. Dining out dropped a bit (still got some meals to go), but was almost completely offset by grocery expenses. Travel expenses dropped to zero, and gasoline dropped to near zero. However, I actually spent more online shopping (clothes, gadgets, etc.). Utility expenses increased a little and we subscribed to BritBox in addition to our Amazon Prime. Personal training expenses dropped too, but I bought some home exercise stuff (in addition to my Peloton) that partially offset that saving. Thankfully, our ISP temporarily eliminated data caps, so I could complete some data-intensive projects (backing up everything to Backblaze, organizing all of our digital photos, etc.).

[Out of Steam]

Groceries are up, utilities are flat except for water (daughter put in a vegetable garden). Hardware and home items are up, mostly since we furnished our patio.

Most other things are down.

[flintnational]

Travel down
Wine up

[tmm99]

Amazon orders definitely up!

[Involuntary Retiree]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrsHaloFIRE groceries way up. even after we try to "normalize" by backing out the odd items like kilz we order alongside the grocery pickup dining out ZERO but groceries now plus dining out now is still less then groceries plus dining out precovid travel zero now but we still journal 1k a month to the pot. clothing now zero for DH. higher this month for me bc I ordered summer lounge dresses grooming/personal care almost zero now. haven't had a cut since march and I give DH his covidcut with a razor gas almost zero now. a tank every other month maybe Amazon bill is as high as it is at Christmas. If it brings me joy, "add to cart". I expense it all to Home Maintenance and look confused if im questioned. LOL

This made me chuckle! Our Amazon bill is out of control. I need to work on a proper and effective "confused look" when questioned.