Virus = Low Spending

[malacca]

I am sure many of you have experienced the same phenomenon. There just is no place to spend your money!

I am FUREd and I do have money to spend. We usually travel a lot - mainly overseas. But that is all squashed.

Restaurants - near zero.

Wine - switched to box.

Car - don't drive much anymore. Sold one off.

Food - eat at home mostly so cost is low.

Shopping - What is that? Haven't been to a damn mall since February.

My new house is free as one side pays the mortgage.

We are paying utilities, insurance, food, wine - not much else. For a family of four I think we are well under $1500 a month.

How is everyone else doing?

[Just Joe]

We're still working, eating some carryout, basically haven't gone anywhere but the store and work since February. We went through a WFH period and our spending was even lower.

I have bought ~$200 worth of hobby supplies from the internet. Will get that back some day.

Doing chores, riding bikes, spending time together as a family, did some home renovation stuff for a house we sold. We had two.

We could continue on like this indefinitely honestly but eventually we'll want to go see a baseball game, eat out somewhere, and perhaps go away for the weekend so a vaccine/end of COVID would be nice.

[YttriumNitrate]

With little kids in the house, we weren't doing that much other than the necessities even before the pandemic, so our spending hasn't really changed much.

My parents, on the other hand, were spending thousands per month on eating out, travel, movies, etc. They commented about how their bank accounts have skyrocketed since March and their plans to do some big spending once things get back to normal.

[Car Jack]

So from a household standpoint, our total income has risen dramatically.  Total mileage of cars has gone up.  My son bought a "fun" car yesterday (2004 Honda S2000).  We do eat out less.  My wife got a full time job, increasing pay dramatically over her per diem job.  She's working from home.  DS#1 started his engineering job in July.  DS#2 got a part time job at Amazon in the warehouse.

I get to pay less out of pocket.  Despite getting a 10% pay cut (whole company), DW's job, and both sons working has really helped.  From the stupid little things like kids buying energy drinks every day that I used to be paying for (when they had no job) to them paying out of their own pocket to gas for the cars, my outgo is much less.  This has more to do with our stage of life than anything else.  Kids are working steadily for the first time, so get some spending money and they get to spend it instead of taking withdrawals from the Bank of Dad.

Totally unrelated, but my tradeline sales are doing way better than in the past.  I was pretty shocked by the payment made the end of July.  I'm sure my tax bill will be unhappy.....but I tend to with hold way too much ($14k refund last year).  I'm easily FI and could stop working anytime, but I am pretty happy to be doing some work and being paid pretty well for it.  With Covid, there's not much I'd be doing anyways.

[kei te pai]

Personally, I had very low spending during lockdown. Mainly as even internet shopping was limited by government to essentials, and only supermarkets open. I havent made up for it but have returned to pre covid spending.
Nationally there have been some interesting stats showing a big post-covid surge in retail sales , large payments on credit card debt and mortgages and increased local  tourism spends.
The real shakedown will be when wage subsidies finish in september and all summer tourism based on international visitors is no more.

[dcheesi]

For me it's hard to judge, since I spent the first 4 months of the pandemic caring for my elderly father. That took me away from my household, and I wound up spending money on his food and supplies (despite his attempts to pay for things).

During that time, I shifted a lot of my discretionary spending from dining out to ordering delivery, and my grocery bills also increased (also partly due to delivery fees, to limit contact). I also spent more money on games & other media. So overall, my food & entertainment budget were a wash.

However, my transit & travel budget dropped a lot, despite occasional longer trips home on weekends. So overall it's been a net positive.

It'll be interesting to see how things stack up now that I'm back at home with my SO. I suspect that it'll be even cheaper, since we're cooking more and sharing the grocery bills more evenly, etc.

[CNM]

Nope!  While we haven't been eating at restaurants, other larger expenditures have been needed.  Specifically, increased child care costs (we had a nanny before the pandemic, we have now expanded her hours that would have otherwise been covered by grandparents) and increased grocery costs (everyone is eating at home for all three meals, rather than a school breakfast/lunch during the week).  Starting in a few weeks we will have even *more* childcare costs to cover a few hours of tutoring our 3rd grader who is now doing 100% remote learning (no complaints, but it's a reality).

[Jack0Life]

So from a household standpoint, our total income has risen dramatically.  Total mileage of cars has gone up.  My son bought a "fun" car yesterday (2004 Honda S2000).  We do eat out less.  My wife got a full time job, increasing pay dramatically over her per diem job.  She's working from home.  DS#1 started his engineering job in July.  DS#2 got a part time job at Amazon in the warehouse.

I get to pay less out of pocket.  Despite getting a 10% pay cut (whole company), DW's job, and both sons working has really helped.  From the stupid little things like kids buying energy drinks every day that I used to be paying for (when they had no job) to them paying out of their own pocket to gas for the cars, my outgo is much less.  This has more to do with our stage of life than anything else.  Kids are working steadily for the first time, so get some spending money and they get to spend it instead of taking withdrawals from the Bank of Dad.

Totally unrelated, but my tradeline sales are doing way better than in the past.  I was pretty shocked by the payment made the end of July.  I'm sure my tax bill will be unhappy.....but I tend to with hold way too much ($14k refund last year).  I'm easily FI and could stop working anytime, but I am pretty happy to be doing some work and being paid pretty well for it.  With Covid, there's not much I'd be doing anyways.

Curious as to how much did you son paid for the S2000 ?? How many miles ??
I have a 2001 S2000(only 107k) since 2005 and my wife is nagging me to sell it.