(takes out pan, puts oil in pan, drops in popcorn)
Smart man, on a $1,500/month budget that trumps buying the microwavable bags ;) What are your preferred seasonings?
Given the choice between living off $1,500 retirement income in the US, basically in a cardboard box eating food out of the dumpster, and living a "normal" life in India, the Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam, I would choose the latter.
@Bernard, two things before I attempt to explain my response. Luxury is relative, and not all HCOL areas are created equal. While your bubble of SOCAL might be a special place in terms of extremely HCOL area, from your first few posts on these forums I gather that you at one pointed rented a home with your wife for $1,500 a month. I posit that not everyone needs an entire SFH (even a smaller one) to be happy, and most of the space in a typical home gets unused 90% of the time. The $1,500/month figure I'm describing here is per person, in a two person household.
So personally......
$550 - 1/2 of the rent on a ~400 sq/ft apartment, with additional storage and a large backyard. Since this is part of a larger SFH that's been divided into 3 dwellings, it includes all utilities and internet.
$150 - groceries - shopping almost exclusively at Aldi/Trader Joes. We cook a lot from scratch, do eat meat/dairy almost daily. Do NOT buy organic everything, but do focus on fresh wholesome food.
$200 - insurance, this breaks down to $100 for health/dental, $75 for car, and the rest for renters. If we downsized to one car the cost would drop here. The health is subsidized by employer but at this income/spending level an ACA plan would cost about the same in NY.
$20 - gym membership
$50 - Cell phone - includes the amortization cost of replacing phone every 2-3 years.
$30 - house hold misc - think cleaning supplies, light bulbs, and other household consumables
~$500 - entertainment, travel, eating out, hobbies, gifts, fuel
Some comments on the last spending category - creativity and optimization go a looooooong way.
Travel hacking - game changer for us, we haven't paid for a flight/hotel in years, and travel quite a bit (5 weeks in Europe this summer + numerous shorter weekend trips all over the USA)
Bank Account Churning - 30 minutes of work per month to generate several hundred dollars in income which offsets some hobby purchases.
Hobbies that focus on being outside and in nature, which indeed may have some startup costs but otherwise cost very little....mine are;
Weight lifting
Running
Cycling
XC mountain biking
Reading - library
audio books - library
movies - library
gardening
cooking
entertaining - our backyard is awesome for bonfires/bbq's/potlucks/hosting family/friends.
For electronics and other durable goods, we tend to buy used and resell to make room for a new item. Most recent example is my triathlon watch. I purchased an open box Garmin 920xt in 2015 for $300, used it daily for 4 years, and resold last week for $125. Rolled that money into an open box (new condition) Garmin 935 for $300 and will once again resell when it's time to upgrade.
The past few years I've spent a lot more time on hobbies and much less time on work. The hobbies I enjoy involve training/participating in groups, which has led to some incredible friendships and social connections. This has led to the ability of bartering some of my time and skills for other things that are valuable to me. I taught someone to MTB, they take me out on their $250k boat. I coached someone through professional landmines, and they regularly want to take me out to lunch to shoot the breeze and ask for advice. I volunteer at local triathlons and foot races, earn credits to race for free whilst helping the athletic community I am a part of.
Now that I am semi-FIRING at 32, I plan to extend this to Habitat for Humanity, and donate my time and in return learn some valuable skills that could be used in the future to househack/fix and flip a live in project, built out a camper van, etc......while meeting other like-minded people who may open other doors down the road.
By your own admission you've read every MMM blog post, so you know that it sometimes takes out of the box thinking to achieve this. It also takes a little bit of introspection and mindset shift to figure out what is truly important to you, but living an incredible life on a relatively shoestring budget isn't that hard with some practice. It's not for everyone though..... but I can tell you as someone living in one of the HCOL areas in the USA, on exactly $1,500/month, I don't live in a cardboard box, nor eat out of a dumpster. I've detailed my expenses for 5 years now (old journal should not be hard to find and ran from 2014 - July of this year). I also encourage you to take a peek over at the ERE boards. Many there have found creative ways to slash costs in very HCOL areas by using some social capital.
