Author Topic: Spending less staying safe at home  (Read 2583 times)

Enough

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Spending less staying safe at home
« on: August 03, 2020, 01:38:49 PM »
Canceled travel plans, entertainment events, restaurant nights out, and social gatherings had a noticeable impact on my budget in March, and I decided now is the perfect time to see what my minimum / bare-bones spending would be as a real life experiment:

Starting budget: $1,900/mo

Actual Spend:

Feb    $1,796.00
Mar    $1,504.00
Apr    $1,389.00
May    $1,334.00
Jun    $1,180.00
Jul    $1,176.00

So with my spending dropping every month, I'm taking it as a success! with some the highlights:

I haven't felt cheap or overly frugal - lack of social obligations helps here.

With the above, there is still some discretionary spending in there - $100 for a wedding gift, ~$150 of online shopping per month that could be cut back, and I'm still getting carry out ~2x per month.

Spending increased in the "home" category and in splitting an HBO/HULU account with my brother's family.

Spending of course shrunk in the auto gas, travel, and restaurants categories.

I plan on continuing the challenge for August, but will likely call it quits after that - time to treat my self to some take out tacos or sushi.


Anyone else see a big drop in spending the last few months?

I'm a red panda

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2020, 01:59:49 PM »
Great job.

Our spending has gone up.  I'm trying to use as little as possible, but working from home means our A/C bills have gone up. I'm trying to support local businesses and restaurants more, to help them not go out of business, where I rarely shopped locally and almost never ate out before.   And our medical spending seems to have gone through the roof since March. 

My gas has gone up, because my commute is double what it was- since daycare is closer to work than home, I now have to drive out and back twice a day, instead of just once. 

NotJen

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2020, 02:28:13 PM »
Oh yeah.

My spending for July was actually -$1,277.  That's when I cancelled vacations and got my deposits back.

Starting budget for the year was $2k/mo, and my average through July is $1,352.  My spending is very lumpy, so there's no actual downward trend.

Canceled vacations has a big impact.  I'm saving maybe $200/mo by not going out socially.  And maybe $20/mo on gas cause I don't have anywhere to go.  I haven't spent much at all on "leisure" this year, just entertaining myself with what I have at home.  It's just me, so it's pretty easy.  And I was planning on spending this year at home after quitting in December, so the increased electricity/water/tp costs were anticipated, though not too noticeable so far.

Enough

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2020, 10:39:29 AM »
@I'm a red panda
Sorry to hear about your medical expenses! are you in the US?

@NotJen
awesome average spend!  My spending is also very lumpy, but I split large transactions through mint and then change the dates on each split to spread large transactions out across several months.  6 month car insurance premium is a great example of this. Smoothing these things out has really helped me stick to my budget better (no excuses for months with large payments) and get an idea of what actual spending is for each category.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2020, 10:41:00 AM by Enough »

I'm a red panda

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2020, 11:06:59 AM »
@I'm a red panda
Sorry to hear about your medical expenses! are you in the US?


Yes, the US.

Some of it is related- working from home, in an office chair that was probably less than ideal, killed my back. Then I think the back pain triggered some migraines that presented as thunderclap headaches- so the primary care sent me to the ER. So I have an ER visit bill, a bunch of imaging bills, plus PT at $75 an appt to fix my back.  I was able to get my chair from work, so that should help since we are working at home until next year.   Then I had to pay for doctor's appts for covid-19 testing for our entire family when our kids were exposed at daycare and we all had fevers. Then when my son was exposed again, and had a fever, we decided to just have him tested (again, negative) rather than everyone. Kids just get a lot of colds.  I've also had a few other health issues that are likely stress related, but it's tough to say if they are or aren't.  It's just been an expensive half-year.  (Edit: And my senior dog just had her second $800 health emergency in 2 weeks... this will probably go on for awhile until she passes away; but her quality of life isn't generally suffering, so it's too soon to put her down.)

I'm just lucky to still have insurance. A number of friends who lost their job lost theirs, don't qualify to buy on the exchanges and can't afford COBRA. 
« Last Edit: August 10, 2020, 06:45:09 AM by I'm a red panda »

Just Joe

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2020, 07:57:55 AM »
We're doing a reduced version of what we do anyhow without a pandemic. Work, grocery store, home, repeat.

What is different is that we aren't going out and haven't socialized in person since February.

We did attend a wedding but the guests were being stupid (no mask, crowded room) and we decided best to return home after the vows.

We waved at the bide and groom and hit the road.

I need to track our spending since January. It would be interesting.

We completed a slow-reno and sold it during this period so that likely represents several thousand dollars of details.

blue_green_sparks

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #6 on: August 09, 2020, 06:18:33 AM »
We went from around $2,400 to $1,900 per month spend. I think this lower value will be closer to our new norm. We are staying home, mostly. Florida is very unsafe right now. I am disappointed in many of our "citizens". We could knock this down with just a few months of austerity as many areas have done. Being already FIRED has been such a relief for us with the luxury of choices that many do not have.

Enough

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #7 on: September 01, 2020, 10:10:37 AM »
Canceled travel plans, entertainment events, restaurant nights out, and social gatherings had a noticeable impact on my budget in March, and I decided now is the perfect time to see what my minimum / bare-bones spending would be as a real life experiment:

Starting budget: $1,900/mo

Actual Spend:

Feb    $1,796.00
Mar    $1,504.00
Apr    $1,389.00
May    $1,334.00
Jun    $1,180.00
Jul    $1,176.00

So with my spending dropping every month, I'm taking it as a success! with some the highlights:

I haven't felt cheap or overly frugal - lack of social obligations helps here.

With the above, there is still some discretionary spending in there - $100 for a wedding gift, ~$150 of online shopping per month that could be cut back, and I'm still getting carry out ~2x per month.

Spending increased in the "home" category and in splitting an HBO/HULU account with my brother's family.

Spending of course shrunk in the auto gas, travel, and restaurants categories.

I plan on continuing the challenge for August, but will likely call it quits after that - time to treat my self to some take out tacos or sushi.

August spending is in at $1,067 - but only if I exclude a $2000 LFSA payment for invisilign.

MyAlterEgoIsTaller

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2020, 05:33:05 PM »
$198.03 is the overall amount less in spending that I've averaged per month since starting to work at home in late March.

Things on which I've been spending a little more: electricity, heat (from March through early May), groceries, and a few small furniture items and other household purchases related to working at home. 
Things on which I've been spending less: gas, dining out, car maintenance/repairs, and miscellaneous entertainment like movies and concerts.

Villanelle

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2020, 06:03:28 PM »
We don't actually track spending (works for us!) but it's definitely down, based on how much is leftover at the end of each month.  Gas is up (husband is driving to work instead of taking the metro, which was free; it's only 5 miles though).  Travel down.  (We should currently be struggling with jetlag after returning from a trip to Ireland, I'd likely have flown within the US to visit my parents, and we'd have probably done at least one larger trip this fall--10-14 days taking a train around Canada for fall foliage was the front runner in mid-February when we were planning) and restaurant spending is down.  Groceries are up, as an offset to some of that restaurant spending, but not nearly enough to offset all of it.  Then things like museum admissions, metro to travel to the city, etc. are down.

I've lost a fair amount of weight and had to buy some new clothes, but only a few items as I'm not going anywhere and wearing pants rolled up at the waist is okay, but eventually, I'll need to look presentable.  Once I'm actually presenting myself to anyone.  lol


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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2020, 06:31:46 AM »
What we learned during lockdown is that our 'normal' homebody lives is what everyone else considers 'extreme lockdown'... which might go a long way towards explaining why our spending (or lack thereof) is such an outlier during non-pandemic times.

The shock and amazement when grocery stores ran out of flour and sugar and yeast because everyone else started to take up baking? "Apparently this is what happens when everyone turns into us," the SO said with exasperation.

Our auto/transport expenses are down by a lot because the SO has been WFH since March, and my commute modified downwards as well, but that was the biggest drop. Utilities and groceries are up slightly due to increased usage time at home, and having to be more aggressive about stocking up and not going to a bunch of different stores to hunt for sales/deals.

Other than that... this is what our life was already like. :)

cooking

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Re: Spending less staying safe at home
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2020, 05:24:52 PM »
Spending more on Netflix, HBO, etc.