What are people cutting back on?

[NW-Bound]

This week in Houston, Texas it is going up to 102 -106 F with 70% humidity. Everyone that has A/C in cars and building will be using it unless they are crazy.

We have moved to day old donuts from Walmart and water instead of going to $tarbucks. Dinners have been burgers or hot dogs on the grill or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when the fridge is bare.

Our weekly trash pickup load is down to 1/2 a can full. Recycle can stays empty as we have nothing to recycle (cans, bottles, etc).

I've cut out paid car washes unless I do them by hand using only one bucket of water.

No more dog treats for the furry one. He will survive.

I've taken DW's credit card away from her.

Are you serious, or pulling our leg?

Is this the same aja who is having a positive investment return due to oil/gas stocks?

As for me, I am not cutting down on anything. Not yet. It will be a while before my WR goes from 0.5% to 4%.

Oh wait! Is the SWR still 4%, or is it something lower like 3.5%, as Bill Bengen is now saying?

 

[aja8888]

Are you serious, or pulling our leg?

Is this the same aja who is having a positive investment return due to oil/gas stocks?

As for me, I am not cutting down on anything. Not yet. It will be a while before my WR goes from 0.5% to 4%.

Oh wait! Is the SWR still 4%, or is it something lower like 3.5%, as Bill Bengen is now saying?

I was waiting for your reaction! I was just puling your leg!

(DW still has her credit card too!)

And the dog eats better than me!

 

[NW-Bound]

...
And I don't get the people idling in the drive-through line at Starbucks, either.

Actually, idling takes relatively little fuel. Even though gas has doubled in price, to me the main thing is paying $3 or more for a cup of coffee. A couple ounces of fuel, I can still afford. 16 ounces of coffee - not so much.

This site would suggest it's unlikely you would spend a dollar at today's prices idling for an hour but YMMV.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicle...umption-selected-gasoline-and-diesel-vehicles

I don't idle. Or rather my car does not. It stops the engine when the car's not moving.

It does keep the engine running at a stop if I have the AC on. However, if the interior is cool enough and the compressor does not need to run, it will shut down the engine, but keep the circulating fan running.

I once drove a rental car that had a switch to override the engine shutdown, and to keep it running all the time. However, this 2020 car of mine does not offer that option.

 

[NW-Bound]

Heh, heh, only fly WITH the wind or don't go.

Seriously, one time we flew to a fly-in restaurant against quite a wind. It took 45 minutes to fly about 60 miles or so. On the way back it took about 20 minutes. That was unusual but not unheard of.

A better pilot would manage to have a tail wind both ways.

 

[Amethyst]

Couldn't have put it better myself.

It irritates me that house cleaners require a clean, tidy house before they will "clean." If they aren't going to get it cleaner and tidier than I can do myself, what's the point?

Now once I can't physically manage the chore, that will be different of course.

.... I got in the floor to paint baseboards and saw how dirty the corners of rooms were. I can clean my own house badly, why pay for that? .

 

[Koolau]

Oh wait! Is the SWR still 4%, or is it something lower like 3.5%, as Bill Bengen is now saying?

Well, how many years has it been since you retired. Remember, you were allowed to increase your withdrawal with inflation. So who knows. Maybe you are "allowed" a lot more than 4% of your original stash. YMMV

 

[REWahoo]

I won't be reducing my car AC usage at all.

Nor will I.

 

[NW-Bound]

Well, how many years has it been since you retired. Remember, you were allowed to increase your withdrawal with inflation. So who knows. Maybe you are "allowed" a lot more than 4% of your original stash. YMMV

My notes say my last earned income got deposited in my bank account on 2012/05/18.

So, I just made the 10-year mark on my retirement. And my diary also showed that my stash as of today is now 2.16x its size back on that day in 2012.

Yet, Quicken says that my last 12-month expenses are less than 1/2 of those in 2012.

And that's why my WR is so low now.

Maybe I should spend more money on more lithium batteries for my DIY solar system. And more solar panels too.

 

[DaveInMi]

I am riding my motorcycle more often. It is a Suzuki DRZ400s. It gets 60 mpg no matter how hard I drive it. It has a old school carb and no emissions controls.
I have a Chevy Colorado that averages 20 mpg and the wife drives a Nissan Rogue which averages 27 mpg.

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^ When I think about it, I find it amazing that a modern car weighing 3,000-4,000 lbs can get 40 mpg, while a motorcycle a lot lighter and smaller does not do much better.

 

[Koolau]

^^^ When I think about it, I find it amazing that a modern car weighing 3,000-4,000 lbs can get 40 mpg, while a motorcycle a lot lighter and smaller does not do much better.

Weight is important for two reasons (primarily): 1)It is directly proportional to rolling resistance. Even at that, rolling resistance is a small fraction of the losses due to wind resistance - and weight has nothing to do with air resistance. 2)Weight is directly proportional to inertia. Launching a vehicle takes a lot of engine power because of inertia. But once you get a vehicle to steady state, weight only affects braking and rolling resistance. So, a big car at steady highway speeds is capable of good mileage (my old Buick gets 30 mpg on the road at 70 mpg.)

Air resistance is proportional to the square of speed. The apparent frontal area of the vehicle X Cd is directly proportional to wind resistance. Most motorcycles have very high coefficient of drag while cars have been improving Cd for many years. Next is efficiency of motorcycle engines. Most folks don't really care as long as the bike is quick and fast. Bike engines are tuned for power not fuel efficiency. Also bike engines aren't held to the same emissions standards, (and no CAFE standards) and air cooled engines are inherently less efficient than water cooled.

Put it all together and there isn't much mystery though YMMV.

 

[Teacher Terry]

AC is the last thing I would cut back on while driving. Never had it when I was growing up and only in the bedrooms in Wisconsin when raising my kids. Ugh! The first time I had central air was when we moved to Kansas. In the past 6 months I cut things which didn’t impact my quality of life. Switched to you tube tv and split the cost with a friend, have T-Mobile’s prepaid plan for 15/month, color my own hair, get the dogs groomed every 12 weeks instead of 8, etc. Instead of eating out twice a week doing it twice a month. Our prices are equal to California now and some things aren’t worth it anymore.

 

[Scuba]

Our lives have changed dramatically with DH’s sudden heart attack and bypass surgery, so that rather than inflation has led to major spending changes. We are spending way more on medical and less on travel since we had to cancel two weeks in Hawaii and 2 months in Croatia. We have completely stopped eating out for now, and we haven’t been entertaining at home either, so our dining out and wine expenses have gone down. OTOH, we are buying more groceries and focusing on fresh produce and more fish in lieu of previous unhealthy choices.

 

[NW-Bound]

Weight is important for two reasons (primarily): 1)It is directly proportional to rolling resistance. Even at that, rolling resistance is a small fraction of the losses due to wind resistance - and weight has nothing to do with air resistance. 2)Weight is directly proportional to inertia. Launching a vehicle takes a lot of engine power because of inertia. But once you get a vehicle to steady state, weight only affects braking and rolling resistance. So, a big car at steady highway speeds is capable of good mileage (my old Buick gets 30 mpg on the road at 70 mpg.)

Air resistance is proportional to the square of speed. The apparent frontal area of the vehicle X Cd is directly proportional to wind resistance. Most motorcycles have very high coefficient of drag while cars have been improving Cd for many years. Next is efficiency of motorcycle engines. Most folks don't really care as long as the bike is quick and fast. Bike engines are tuned for power not fuel efficiency. Also bike engines aren't held to the same emissions standards, (and no CAFE standards) and air cooled engines are inherently less efficient than water cooled.

Put it all together and there isn't much mystery though YMMV.

It's quite off-topic, but if y'all indulge me, I will explain why I still find the relatively poor fuel economy of a motorcycle unexpected.

First, it is true that weight or rather mass matters most during acceleration or going up a slope and does not matter when you maintain a constant speed. However, the rolling resistance of the tires increases with the weight bearing down on them.

The four big fat tires of a car with 3,000-4,000 lbs weighing down on them must have quite a bit more rolling resistance compared to the two motorcycle tires.

Secondly, a car body is more streamlined than a motorcycle along with its ride, but a car has a much larger frontal area. Consider the equation for the drag force.

Fd = 1/2 * rho * V^2 * Cd * A

rho: mass density of air
V: speed of vehicle relative to air
Cd: drag coefficient
A: frontal area

Cd for a modern car is about 0.25. For a motorcycle+rider, I saw a number at 1.8, which is 7 times higher than that of a car. But what's the ratio of the two frontal areas? Perhaps the motorcycle frontal area is higher than 1/7 that of a car, hence a motorcycle perhaps ends up having more drag.

Finally, let's look at the engine. I have not looked at the fuel consumption of a motorcycle vs. its output power, but let's compare a 400cc motorcycle to that of a car with a 2500cc (2.5L) engine. You can kick start a 400cc engine, but can you turn over a 2.5L engine that easily? The car engine has so much internal friction compared to the smaller motorcycle engine. I would imagine a car engine burns a lot more fuel just to turn itself at a couple of 1000 rpm, let alone moving the car.

Still, somehow the car does not do that badly, and that's what I found unexpected.

 

[punkinhead]

I have noticed that with the price of gas going up nearly every day that people seem to not use the AC in their cars and trucks nearly as much. I suppose the real rich don't care, but it seems many people who might have run the car with AC blasting back when gas was $3.15 a gallon are not doing so with gas that is
now well over $4.00 per gallon.

I'm curious if turning off AC improves gas mileage. I wouldn't be surprised if the reduction in aerodynamics of the dirty air swirling through the windows offsets the reduction in power needed to drive the AC.

 

[Ronstar]

Driving truck and jeep less, ebike more.

 

[Still Learning]

While on road trips earlier this year turned everything off at the house except for refrigerator and was surprised to see a 50% usage reduction over two billing periods. So hot water heater is now off 18 hours a day except for clothes wash day with no reduction of bathing, dishwasher, etc. We also unplug all the electronic stuff each night.


Still budget $300/month for eating out. No longer working, we do more breakfast/lunch meals vs suppers so that helps. Food budget includes $$$ for Friday night take-out. Also enjoy cooking/freezing meals....have sausage & peppers in the oven as we speak.


Used to commute by train and usually put $20 in my truck every two weeks. The $20 has increased to $30 so we drive wife's Subaru more often, It gets double the fuel economy and we do our normal driving.


Only got a cellphone plan when I retired 3 years ago and never use it for investment activities, found I never used much data even when on road trips and had two GPS units beyond the cellphone. At a personal level I do not make many calls or text often so going to cancel my plan and we'll just keep my wife's phone and save $70 a month. Just have basic cable, and home phone is free with Internet package so that will remain.


Still keeping the lawn guy. To purchase a mower, trimmer and blower would pay for 7 years of mowing.

 

[Fermion]

Our WR250R motorcycles get 70mpg...but of course that is only carrying 1 person...so for cargo per gallon they are very inefficient.

 

[aaronc879]

Nor will I.

If that was my weather forecast I would either be going to the library right when they open and using their AC all day or I would not be leaving the house and have the house AC going at all times. Good luck to you, hope you don't melt.

 

[aaronc879]

Still keeping the lawn guy. To purchase a mower, trimmer and blower would pay for 7 years of mowing.

You must have a cheap lawn guy. I did the same comparison and found it to be around 2 years instead of 7. That is for a self-propelled walk behind mower though and I assume you are talking a high quality rider.

 

[Romer]

We haven't really cut back. Filling my Land Cruiser yesterday with two tanks was the most expensive fill-up ever. I do tend to drive the Z4 more as it gets 33 MPG

 

[target2019]

Anyway just wondering what other posters on here have noticed people cutting back on or what they may cutting back on themselves to help deal with inflation.

I'm only looking at our household, as it is exhausting trying to understand what other people cut or reduce.

We have always been in a thrifty stance, and try not to waste anything. But the plants need some additional water in our region from time to time. I drove 5 miles to the Acme to get a $6 hoagie. I'm sitting at a desk with three monitors. My $5 wonder drug is going to $1K (at least).

So I am cutting back and getting things under control by planning a trip to Europe in early fall.

 

[RunningBum]

Not changing much. Since my WR has been 2-3%, I have plenty of room to absorb higher costs. The only food I think I've passed on is King Crab, which jumped from $20/lb to over $50.

 

[HarveyS]

I've been biking more and using public transit. Walking to the grocery store every other day. Managed to lose weight as well as do a bit to save the planet.
Have also stopped dining out.
Cut my peacock subscription as well as Netflix.
Renegotiated the WSJ for another 6 months.
Dropped a cc that had an annual fee. I was no longer using the perks that this card came with.

 

[FlaMariner]

I consider myself already cheap/frugal but we have made even further adjustments:

Driving less & combining trips to be more efficient

Tripled the vegetable garden and planning to can lots of stuff

Installed a rain barrel for the vegetable garden

Further cut back on going out to eat...and if we do, it's the lunch special

Dropped the Y membership and taking long hikes

Not buying bacon (sad)

Cruising the meat counter for the "reduced" meats that are about to go out. Love to get the whole chickens when they mark 'em down to 99 cents/pound!

Dropped collision insurance on the 8 year old car

Dusted off the library card (although it seems most of the books I want to read are not available)

Holding back on fall travel. Skipping it this year but we have two great cruises (South America & Japan) planned for 2024 and we booked them at what we think is a great deal

We are fine. We are fortunate this is all being done more as a game and challenge for us than economic reality. We fear for many of our neighbors (fellow citizens) who are really hurting because of the lack of leadership in guiding our economy right now. Hoping this does not continue much longer.