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.
