martyp
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Wine club. Living near the Napa Valley, spending on wine was fine during my w*rking years but an indulgence when retired. I cut back on restaurant spending as well.
The NYC subway and for the most part the Long Island Rail Road.
Also "shopping the stash" for clothes and jewelry which I (or DH) bought while working. I might as well enjoy some of my own vintage stuff.
We cut our expenses by a lot. Some of the main ones:
1. Less money on clothes since not going to the office. I did work very part-time for a few years and kept one or two nice outfits in case I had to go in. But I mostly worked from home. This also less to virtually no dry cleaning costs.
2. Less dining out. We still eat out a couple of times a week but before we ate out more often.
3. Way less money spent on gas. Basically our fuel consumption easily decreased by 80%. Also, very rarely driving on toll roads when before we did it every work day for two of us.
4. We downsized in stages. When DH retired and I semi-retired we still had kids at home. We downsized to a smaller house once we were down to 2 kids at home. Then 4 years ago (no kids at home) we downsized again. We have realized even this house is too large and plan to downsize again.
5. We upgrade our computers less often. Used to it was every couple of years, now it is more like every 4 or 5 years.
6. Health insurance and healthcare costs are far, far, far less given that we are both on Medicare with a supplement.
7. Kid related expenses. While these lasted longer than we anticipated they are nowhere near as much in recent years as they were back then.
We moved to a lower-cost area, reducing our basic bills by about $1500 a month.I told my DW that I'm not going to spend on clothing, jackets, and shoes, because I still have brand new walking & running shoes I have not worn and we've had enough clothes bought.
At risk of starting a new thread. When did you kick DKs off your cell plan? Its a big expense for us and DD's phone is over half of ours. She's 25.
At risk of starting a new thread. When did you kick DKs off your cell plan? Its a big expense for us and DD's phone is over half of ours. She's 25.
Funny, I now have more cars than when I was working for mega-corp. (I am now working on reducing - sold the old RV I never took on trips, donated a car (picked up today). The fleet now consists of four vehicles, two I bought (new) in the last six months.We immediately sold one of our 2 cars.
Overall our expenses went up because we then started doing a lot of travel.
I kicked them off 3 months after graduation (DS - BS, DD - AA, GS1 - BA, raised him). Never put GS2 on a plan bc he opted out of college & lives with parent. Opened cc with him but he keeps it paid in full (so far). GD1 lives with me - on now & just put $20 on her clipper card. No to CDL. She doesn't need one if opting for BB instead of a J-O-B. But she's a 4.5 so not that shabbyAt risk of starting a new thread. When did you kick DKs off your cell plan? Its a big expense for us and DD's phone is over half of ours. She's 25.
Two of our kids are on our cell phone plan (mid 20s). They pay their share at this point.
I'm sure that many here live by frugal rules to achieve FIRE. And even though many of you have squirreled away enough for retirement and even for FAT Fire, I know that many tend to cut some cost after the paycheck stop.
I told my DW that I'm not going to spend on clothing, jackets, and shoes, because I still have brand new walking & running shoes I have not worn and we've had enough clothes bought. I still have basic cable with the fewest channels, and was thinking that could go, but I don't know yet. But we're going to spend more on travel.
Care to share what expenses you cut or downsized?