Unexpected changes in post-retirement expenses

[USGrant1962]

My clothes budget went way up since I wore scrubs to work and now I need gym clothes , regular day clothes and social life clothes.

Wow, that's unusual. I think most of us spend much less on clothes than when working full time.

 

[Moemg]

Wow, that's unusual. I think most of us spend much less on clothes than when working full time.

My scrubs were paid for by the hospital so except for shoes I had no working clothes to buy .

 

[Finance Dave]

Our utility bills have gone down overall, because we're on vacation more! But the travel bills have sure increased.

 

[Walt34]

My scrubs were paid for by the hospital so except for shoes I had no working clothes to buy .

Same thing here when I was working. The only clothes I had to buy specifically for work were black socks.

Back in the 1970's when every work-related purchase was deductible, buying $12 worth of black socks just barely put me into a lower tax bracket, thus saving a lot more than the mere $12.

 

[DogGone]

My winter water bill went up in Nov Dec until I found a bad flapper in the Bessemer toilet was staying open half the time. Fixed that now all is well.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Hookers,Blow,Whiskey all went up! When I worked on WS I had a unlimited expense account, When I went out on my own ,Uncle Sam picked up the tab for most of my vices. After 15 years of retirement, I realized it was way cheaper to move to a third world country, marry a pretty young thing and give up the rest of the foolishness. I do still like my Whiskey though.

 

[2177V]

My utilities have gone up faster than the federal COLA. My county property taxes have sky rocketed because the local government are tax happy. Clothes and food are about the same. Entertainment costs have gone up which is expected. The only thing that went down is my commute costs. This explain why I am anti-government because they are an evil entity who is out to tax you to death.

 

[schellem]

Some people say 'If it's yellow let it mellow and if it's brown flush it down' :>)

 

[tenant13]

I've been in a rent controlled apartment for the last 25 years with all the utilities, water, heat and central AC included in the monthly rent - so low, that if I were to buy a place, a maintenance or taxes would have been higher (that info is here, in case anyone would like to know why I never bought any property). Being RE hasn't changed anything in that department. My health costs actually went DOWN because I somehow ended up on Medicaid - my monthly income (dividends and interest) qualified me for it and my yearly projected income disqualified me for ACA (I live off savings). I'm healthy so I basically get the same free yearly checkup I used to get except that this time it actually IS free because I don't pay any premiums (or deductibles, or actually anything).

My discretionary spending seems to be the same - or at least not higher than projected - I've never been a "consumer" so I just keep buying stuff that I actually need (or enjoy - if it's a hobby), being RE hasn't changed my attitude. Same thing with traveling - I've already been traveling a lot before I RE so this kind of stayed the same. Also: I'm a fairly frugal traveler and I tend to enjoy inexpensive destinations so 3 months abroad actually saves me money in living expenses.

In other words: I seemed to have prepared well for my FIRE and I gotta say that I enjoy every day of it.

 

[Rambler]

I was just going through the process of reconciling our bills this month and noticed that our quarterly water bill was up from last year, with about 25% more water used since October. I was little perplexed, because it is not lawn watering season (when our bills can and have varied considerably depending on how dry the summer is), nor has there been a rate increase. So I wondered whether we might have a leak.

It was the young wife who figured it out - since we're now home everyday, we flush the toilets a lot more than we did when we were both working last year. I expect that if I dig into the bill details, our electric and gas usage will also be higher, since we keep the house warmer when we are home (we have had set-back thermostats for years) and have more lights on during the day.

These are small bills, but I had not really thought about the fact that they would inevitably go up after we retired. For me, an interesting lesson in the limits of my abilities as a planner.

Have you found that some of your expenses changed in ways you did not expect?

Back when we lived in Cali during the most recent and quite bad drought, we were forced into a new mantra: “if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” We did have our own well, so it wasn’t a cost thing for us, just wanted to do our part to save a bit.