Who spends less than $30k-$40k/ income of $100k+

[Carrie]

Please contribute to my thread if this fits your situation. I feel lonely and want to know if there are other frugal families out there.

We spend $29,000 with a family of 5. Does not include healthcare since we use an HSA for that.

Edit to add:
Do you still look for ways to optimize even with a 60%++ savings rate? How have you managed to keep your expenses low?
Do you DIY most things?
Have you given up anything that you miss?

[DreamFIRE]

Please contribute to my thread if this fits your situation. I feel lonely and want to know if there are other frugal families out there.

We spend $29,000 with a family of 5. Does not include healthcare since we use an HSA for that.

A big household of "one" here.  My gross income surpassed $100K in recent years, and my yearly barebones budget is $15K/yr to cover all short term and long term necessary expenses on average, however, with additional spending outside of barebones, my actual spending is a little higher, like $16K to $18K in recent years, and I trended toward the low end of that range in the last couple years.  I'm not including healthcare premiums because they come out of my check before I get it, but my total premium cost is less than $1000/yr pre-tax, so that doesn't make a huge difference.  I do include co-pays, deductibles, and such in my numbers, though.

[Teachstache]

We spend $38k of our regular salaried income of 100k+ in a dual income, 1 kid household. This includes all healthcare costs (our kid is on the autism spectrum, so we do have expenses there) & funding a 529 plan for our kid (he's 3).

Carrie, you say that you feel lonely. What aspect of your spending makes you feel lonely?

[marty998]

A big household of "one" here.  My gross income surpassed $100K in recent years, and my yearly barebones budget is $15K/yr to cover all short term and long term necessary expenses on average, however, with additional spending outside of barebones, my actual spending is a little higher, like $16K to $18K in recent years, and I trended toward the low end of that range in the last couple years.  I'm not including healthcare premiums because they come out of my check before I get it, but my total premium cost is less than $1000/yr pre-tax, so that doesn't make a huge difference.  I do include co-pays, deductibles, and such in my numbers, though.

This sounds like me. I don't actually know how much I earn these days (well over 100k), but the spending is in the $16-$18k range (everything included). It helps not having a mortgage anymore.

Doesn't mean I save up around $100k though, because a lot of tax is paid along the way :(

Curse of the wage earner.

[Carrie]

I feel lonely on this board because the higher spenders are so vocal lately, but I feel lonely in my area too.
I think we're about median in our suburb for income, but I would guess that we spend 100% less. I am frugal by nature and creative - so I make a ton of things that we use instead of buying. I feel like other moms around me have no problem dropping $80 on a toddler dress, but that would give me palpitations. So I learned to sew adorable little dresses.  I don't want to pay for dining out, so I've become a top-notch chef. No one around me bothers to cook from scratch, or even cook at home at all. I'm still looking for my tribe.

[life_travel]

Household of two , my wages being commission based fluctuated from 60k to 115 k with last two years dropping to 75k and I'm done busting my ass , so I'm happy to stay at this level . Husband earned 50-60k consistently so our earnings are in that 130-150 k range . We spend around 40k including our mortgage , but excluding mortgage and expense on a rental house which we plan to sell .
We started out our married life coming from different cultures but both from very frugal ( by nessesity ! ) upbringings . In our 30s when we finally started making over min wage , we let loose a bit, we just wanted to experience what it's like to be able to do things that other families took for granted .
Like going out . During my childhood I don't think we ever went out to eat and my parents went to restaurant ONCE, on their wedding day :) That was 20 years ago so things are better for them now too .
We made a couple of monumental business mistakes along the way , GFC hit us hard , it took us 10 years to recover , so ironically we never managed to increase our consumerist expenses by much :)
Now we are finally paying off last pesky debts and saving towards RE.

[life_travel]

I feel lonely on this board because the higher spenders are so vocal lately, but I feel lonely in my area too.
I think we're about median in our suburb for income, but I would guess that we spend 100% less. I am frugal by nature and creative - so I make a ton of things that we use instead of buying. I feel like other moms around me have no problem dropping $80 on a toddler dress, but that would give me palpitations. So I learned to sew adorable little dresses.  I don't want to pay for dining out, so I've become a top-notch chef. No one around me bothers to cook from scratch, or even cook at home at all. I'm still looking for my tribe.

A lot of times I come up with a solution that is frugal ( like sewing dresses for you ) which I can't share with many others in real life because people around me just wouldn't understand at best and will redicule me at worst . But I come up with such solutions because they are FUN to me !! And not deprivation as they think ..
Carrie , I found our local MMM meet up group is more mustachian , people share ideas, swap produce etc. it's a small group but still it helps .

[Carrie]

Exactly!! These things ARE fun for me. I love making things for my family, and the fact that it's cheaper makes me even happier.
Tonight I made a huge pot of chicken stock from a $5 chicken that we smoked on the grill for dinner, made into pot pie tonight. So thrilled that one measly chicken (on sale, 79c /lb) made 10 servings plus stock for the freezer!

[Slow2FIRE]

Just over the spending threshold.

We pay more in taxes (Soc Sec, Federal Income, State, Medicare) than we spend on ourselves.  We stay just under $50K in annual spending, but we don't own a house outright (renters).

[CoffeeAndDonuts]

Real spending for us is around $30k but that doesn't include healthcare, college savings for our kid, day care, charity, capital costs (e.g. new car, major home repair) or principal and interest on our home (it does include taxes and insurance tho).

If I include interest, we rise to about $42k. Day care so we can both work brings it to about $57k.

Healthcare is terribly complicated due to taxes and being self employed but generally healthy so building h.s.a balances.

For what it's worth, we opted to use the cheap mortgage money as investing leverage and could pay off the home.

We bike, use mass transit, drive only about 7k per year, do most home and auto maintenance ourselves, hire no lawn or cleaning svcs, bring lunch everyday, but are still at $300/mo dining tho.

Honestly, when I look at our pure consumption I feel like we fit here but when I arrive at $57k I'm not so sure but then I note that the mortgage and day care are costs of doing business to support our income.

Which is roughly 150k min, sometimes $250k.

My wife cut my hair for the first time last weekend! I was super excited about that. She did great!

[Carrie]

Right now we're one income, so no daycare costs. I barter out most of the cost of montessori preschool.
I don't count contributions to college accounts, savings accounts, or charitable contributions in our spending.

I feel like we're living really comfortably and can't think of many things I'd change. Our oldest is going into middle school this fall, so I expect an increase in kid spending since we'll add band expenses. But, preschool will be done so it'll probably be a wash.

We drive 10 yr old cars - not likely to replace any time soon since we drive very little.  (Dh has a 20 step commute).

[EngineeringFI]

32 year old single person, no dependents other than my cat. My yearly spending is $24k/year (not including healthcare) on income of >200k per year. My house is paid off and I feel like the 1.5k-2k I spend per month gives me a widely opulent and abundant life full of luxuries :-)

This year I should be able to put $150k into my taxable investments after maxing out my tax advantaged accounts.
 

[EngineeringFI]

Exactly!! These things ARE fun for me. I love making things for my family, and the fact that it's cheaper makes me even happier.
Tonight I made a huge pot of chicken stock from a $5 chicken that we smoked on the grill for dinner, made into pot pie tonight. So thrilled that one measly chicken (on sale, 79c /lb) made 10 servings plus stock for the freezer!

Agreed! I love making stock with the leftovers of a $4.99 roast chicken from costco, then that stock goes into pea soup or mashed cauliflower, or any of a million other things.

Composting is really satisfying in a similar way. I love looking at my garden and knowing that this year's vegetables are growing in last year's kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, dead leaves, junk mail, coffee grounds, etc.

[DreamFIRE]

We drive 10 yr old cars - not likely to replace any time soon since we drive very little.  (Dh has a 20 step commute).

11 1/2 year old car here.  Around 45K miles, so it's got a lot of life left in it.

When I FIRE, my barebones will probably go up to $19K/yr.  And that's not excluding anything except taxes/fees related to my stash.  But I'll likely crank up discretionary spending for more entertainment and travel when I FIRE, possibly relocating as well, so I might not satisfy the requirements of this thread in another year or so.

[Basenji]

Someone you consider a high-spender might actually have ethics and interests that align with yours. Maybe what you are looking for is less a budgetary number and more a lifestyle or philosophy.

I love cooking, baking, growing food, making jam from our Juneberry trees, sewing pillow covers, etc. All that crafty stuff makes me feel so satisfied, even when an experiment fails. Nothing gave me a kick like finally getting my sourdough starter to work (local yeast!).

DH and I could be considered spendy (do we include the mortgage payment in our HCOL area?), but we try to spend our money to model the world we want to see. For some categories of our budget, we prioritize choosing the environmental or local over the cheapest.

I hope you hear from people who help you feel less lonely!

[Carrie]

Exactly!! These things ARE fun for me. I love making things for my family, and the fact that it's cheaper makes me even happier.
Tonight I made a huge pot of chicken stock from a $5 chicken that we smoked on the grill for dinner, made into pot pie tonight. So thrilled that one measly chicken (on sale, 79c /lb) made 10 servings plus stock for the freezer!

Agreed! I love making stock with the leftovers of a $4.99 roast chicken from costco, then that stock goes into pea soup or mashed cauliflower, or any of a million other things.

Composting is really satisfying in a similar way. I love looking at my garden and knowing that this year's vegetables are growing in last year's kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, dead leaves, junk mail, coffee grounds, etc.

I love composting! I had such lovely compost to add to my little kitchen garden last week. I had 6" long worms in there! Best part is showing my kids how we can use waste to make something good and useful.

[Carrie]

Someone you consider a high-spender might actually have ethics and interests that align with yours. Maybe what you are looking for is less a budgetary number and more a lifestyle or philosophy.

I love cooking, baking, growing food, making jam from our Juneberry trees, sewing pillow covers, etc. All that crafty stuff makes me feel so satisfied, even when an experiment fails. Nothing gave me a kick like finally getting my sourdough starter to work (local yeast!).

DH and I could be considered spendy (do we include the mortgage payment in our HCOL area?), but we try to spend our money to model the world we want to see. For some categories of our budget, we prioritize choosing the environmental or local over the cheapest.

I hope you hear from people who help you feel less lonely!

Absolutely - it really is a philosophy.  The satisfaction from DIY and creating, making, making do - it gives me such a high. I am actively looking for my tribe, but also making new friends with those around me and accepting that differences are good! As long as they recognize that I'll never be their shopping buddy and will never be impressed by name brand anything, we should be good. At least my husband gets me 100%, and while he's skeptical that we can actually retire in 3-5 years, he fully embraces me and my frugal compulsion. :)

[Kay-Ell]

I’m a single parent of 1 soon to be adopted child. Last year was my first year making over 100k, of which I spent 44k. But that includes 10k on a new-to-me car, which I’ll hopefully amortize over 10 years. So I consider my spending last year to be about 35k. About 1/3 of that was mortgage payment and about $1500 was related to the startup costs of becoming a brand new Mom to a toddler overnight (furniture, clothing, toys, bedding, car seat, etc). Arguably the timing of the car purchase was related to her as well. I suddenly became unwilling to drive around in my 14 year old beater.

I grew up frugal, and those lessons stay with a person. But I honestly don’t feel very frugal these days. I go out to eat multiple times a week. I drive a fairly nice, almost new car. I have expensive pets. I invest in overly expensive hiking shoes to keep my feet from aching. But I do love me some chicken stock! And I understand feeling ridiculed for my spending choices. Now, especially as it pertains to parenting. I hate that it’s expected to spend hundreds of dollars on each birthday and Christmas. I hate that anything less than complaining that you spend every last penny on your child is seen as a moral failing. My kid loves helping me cook, going to the park, taking easy hikes, going to the library, going to the pool, watching movies, coloring and reading stories. With the exception of my gym membership (pool access), dollar store coloring books, and my Netflix subscription all of those things are free.

[MonkeyJenga]

No more income since I quit last year, but I made just over $100k in NYC and lived on around $15k my last year in the city. That includes all healthcare costs and rent, but not charity.

I've made a lot of real-life friends through the forum, which can help with feeling lonely. There are lots of groups that are focused on things beyond consumption - environmental groups, other sorts of volunteering or charity. I also hang with friends from work or wherever, who blow money, and try to steer them toward low-cost activities. Invite them to potlucks, walks in a park, free shows, clothing swaps, etc.

[Basenji]

However, we don’t have any issue spending if it’s worth it. I just find the vast majority of things that are marketed to me to be tedious, overpriced, and boring. There’s too much cheap/free stuff out there that’s so amazing that it takes something truly exceptional to coax me to spend significant money on it or bring it into my home.

I’m perhaps not so much frugal as I am incredibly demanding of what my money buys for me.

Amen!

[MrThatsDifferent]

If it wasn’t for our housing costs in a very HCOL, our spend would be minimal.

[doneby35]

1 income household of 2, salary of 120k. Yearly expenses everything included: 30k.
Rent is the only high cost expense, which is $1200/month for a nicer 1 bedroom apartment in a nice location, but that's ok for quality of life purposes.

[PhrugalPhan]

A big household of "one" here.  My gross income surpassed $100K in recent years, and my yearly barebones budget is $15K/yr to cover all short term and long term necessary expenses on average, however, with additional spending outside of barebones, my actual spending is a little higher, like $16K to $18K in recent years, and I trended toward the low end of that range in the last couple years.  I'm not including healthcare premiums because they come out of my check before I get it, but my total premium cost is less than $1000/yr pre-tax, so that doesn't make a huge difference.  I do include co-pays, deductibles, and such in my numbers, though.

I am another household of one, with my salary right at $100k (dividends add a good $10k though).  With a paid off house, a pre-paid cell phone & no cable I can keep my utilities under $1k for the year (phone/electric/gas).  With groceries under $1,500 for the year (thank you Aldis), and another $1,500 for insurance for car & house, taxes are easily my biggest expense.  I find pretty much anything I could ever need at yard sales for pennies on the dollar, and well... I have a hard time spending much over $12k/year.   With the tricks you learn here, everything (except medical - thank you insurance through my employer) can be very inexpensive.

Once my GF moves in after she retires at the end of the year, if I add her pension and TSP withdrawals we'll probably hit $130k (after all taxes) and I doubt our joint expenses will cross $40k.

[texxan1]

I am a high income earner  ( north of 300k) and my spend for last year was 22k living in a paid off house, with paid of truck, boats and paying all my taxes on said house, insurances etc.. However, that is being gone 5 months a year overseas ( no food bills lol) . I have no bills while at work, but you still have the montly phone, electric, water etc.

I could even reign that down a little more, but I don't think I need to at this point..

Now, my spend is 1000k a month, as ive moved to Thailand for my offtime for this year trying to experiment.... I miss home a lot, but its definatly been a kewl experiment.

[Radagast]

I am pretty sure we fall in that category. I don't keep a budget and I don't know how things like taxes should be accounted for (less income, on the spending side?). Right on or a little under the 100k category depending on taxes. Also about or a little under 40k spending inclusive of everything including DW's tuition and possibly taxes. Income will rise cleanly over 100k this year, but expenditures should stay the same or drop a little.

Are there that many high spenders here? I thought the 50k and less range was nearly everyone.

[Gin1984]

I don't spend as little as listed because we have our girls in daycare, but if we exclude daycare expenses, we are only spending $39K.  And honestly, I'd like to lower that.  I found MMM when I was a college student trying to live on my own and needing to cut my budget even lower than the msn money group thought I could.

[DreamFIRE]

A big household of "one" here.  My gross income surpassed $100K in recent years, and my yearly barebones budget is $15K/yr to cover all short term and long term necessary expenses on average, however, with additional spending outside of barebones, my actual spending is a little higher, like $16K to $18K in recent years, and I trended toward the low end of that range in the last couple years.  I'm not including healthcare premiums because they come out of my check before I get it, but my total premium cost is less than $1000/yr pre-tax, so that doesn't make a huge difference.  I do include co-pays, deductibles, and such in my numbers, though.

I am another household of one, with my salary right at $100k (dividends add a good $10k though).  With a paid off house, a pre-paid cell phone & no cable I can keep my utilities under $1k for the year (phone/electric/gas).  With groceries under $1,500 for the year (thank you Aldis), and another $1,500 for insurance for car & house, taxes are easily my biggest expense.  I find pretty much anything I could ever need at yard sales for pennies on the dollar, and well... I have a hard time spending much over $12k/year.   With the tricks you learn here, everything (except medical - thank you insurance through my employer) can be very inexpensive.

$12K/yr, well done!  $1K for gas/electric/phone is great.  My phone is essentially free, but gas/electric is more than double that, another $450 for water/sewage/garbage .  Part of my electric bill is $540 per year just for having it connected.  I would have to relocate to cheaper housing (and lower property tax) to get my barebones much lower than $15K/yr.

[gerardc]

Yep. Around $40k expenses (HCOL) $350k income.

I find it incredibly hard to fit in. I see everyone seemingly trying to impress others by going out to fancy restaurants, bars, getting nice clothes/jackets, nice cars... what's the point? I'm all for trying to impress other people, but I find those standards stupid. I'd prefer if the game/competition was around other things than wasting money (maybe sports or skills), which is just not prudent. I can't understand why not everyone can see that.

[Loren Ver]

DH and I are in the 100+ income (FINALLY!) but spend right around 40k per year, only excluding insurance costs but this comes right out of the paychecks.  It does include charity, mortgage, student loans, and all other spending.   Once we retire it will grow a little to include insurance but stay pretty similar.

Sometimes I feel like I am in a different world than my coworkers.  I get stares when I talk about DH and I building something or fixing something ourselves.  Like modifying a van to be a camper and taking it on trips.  Yes we know they sell campers and RVs, but part of the fun is building it yourself and then tweaking it as you find out what you want to change.  DH even learned to tie knots and sewed together hammocks for us :D.   Sometimes the discussion with coworkers can be pretty entertaining.  We speak the same language, but can't really communicate.

I also drive a 17 year old car that doesn't have AC and leaks water if it rains a lot.  I am really hoping it holds out until I retire.  It is a stick shift convertible and I really like to drive it.  Who needs AC when the top comes down!  Where i work there are lots of BMWs and Mercedes and even a few Teslas showing up. So I fit right in :).   

DH and I choose to spend our money differently than those around us.  Luckily we have each other.  We also live in a much lower class section of town so people around here know about making do.  No one bats an eye at us hauling random junk it to our house or that part of our lawn mower is held together with a bungee tie.  If we were living in a nicer part of town, I think we would feel more self conscious about our choices and feel more isolated from people.  We don't do so well with conformity. 

LV

[PhrugalPhan]

I am another household of one, with my salary right at $100k (dividends add a good $10k though).  With a paid off house, a pre-paid cell phone & no cable I can keep my utilities under $1k for the year (phone/electric/gas).  With groceries under $1,500 for the year (thank you Aldis), and another $1,500 for insurance for car & house, taxes are easily my biggest expense.  I find pretty much anything I could ever need at yard sales for pennies on the dollar, and well... I have a hard time spending much over $12k/year.   With the tricks you learn here, everything (except medical - thank you insurance through my employer) can be very inexpensive.

$12K/yr, well done!  $1K for gas/electric/phone is great.  My phone is essentially free, but gas/electric is more than double that, another $450 for water/sewage/garbage .  Part of my electric bill is $540 per year just for having it connected.  I would have to relocate to cheaper housing (and lower property tax) to get my barebones much lower than $15K/yr.

Oh, I forgot my water/sewage bill.  I just got one for the last quarter - just over $50, and that's mostly the base fee for having it connected.  I shower at the gym at work, so that helps tremendously with that bill.

[living small]

yep, this is us too.

I agree that it is very tough to find your tribe! For one, all of the folks that I know who are in the same profession and make as much or more than I do have expanded their lifestyle to fit the salary.

We live on $35k-40k for a family of three, one income currently and have had to find an insurance plan outside of my employment. Even within this spending, we are still fixing up the modest house in a working class neighborhood that we live in. 

We take a lot of joy in making all of the things too! thats awesome!

In order to find our tribe, I am thinking of starting/getting involved with a "buy nothing.org" group. Its a community based thing and a lot of folks have said that they have found kindred spirits there.

[2Birds1Stone]

My income over the past 3 years has averaged ~$125k/yr gross, and spending has averaged $22k/yr.

Is this thread meant to be actionable? Is there another questions besides asking to contribute to the thread?

[Carrie]

Added some questions to the original post to get more discussion going.

[2Birds1Stone]

Please contribute to my thread if this fits your situation. I feel lonely and want to know if there are other frugal families out there.

We spend $29,000 with a family of 5. Does not include healthcare since we use an HSA for that.

Edit to add:
Do you still look for ways to optimize even with a 60%++ savings rate? How have you managed to keep your expenses low?
Do you DIY most things?
Have you given up anything that you miss?

Good questions!

Yes we certainly do, the time to freedom between a 60% and an 80% savings rate is HUGE! Maybe not when comparing against a 40+ year career but optimizing from 60% to 80% can cut your time to FI from 12.5 to 5.5 years.

We continue living like we did when we made $50k combined. A nice 1 bedroom apartment while our friends all purchased houses or rent higher end condos for 3-5X our expense. We drive older vehicles, my SO took my beater car when I had to upgrade for work and drives a $1,000 car! I drive an older (2008) sports luxury car that's already depreciated 70% of its original value. We use the library for books and movies. We've never paid for cable or other subscriptions, besides a gym membership. We reuse, recycle, and reduce waste.

I will still take online studies for a few bucks, or churn bank account bonuses, and travel hack so our vacations cost much less than our peers.

Everything is a choice based on values and we don't feel like we have given up a single thing that we miss. If we really want to spend money on something or experience we do it if we feel it's worth it to us.

We still eat out quite a bit, but will use a groupon, or hunt for a happy hour deal. Sometimes we will go out for a drink and split an app or entree.

Having conditioned our closer circle of friends to BBQ more, do potlucks, have people over for a game night and cook them dinner, then let the reciprocate, which ends up being way more fun than paying $200 for a meal out, that feels rushed because the restaurant wants to keep making money from the space we are occupying.

We are doing more DIY.

Mending clothing
Gardening
Cooking ~90% of our meals
Brown bagging lunch
DIY basic car maintenance (sometimes with help of a friend)
Fixing appliances. I ordered a new motor for my microwave, which drives the plate and I replaced it after a quick youtube search.
Fixed an old cell phone and kept using for an additional year.
Ditto with my 2010 Macbook Pro......

This is our biggest area for improvement. I would like to learn more about bicycle and car repair. As well as  learning how to make more things like dressings and sauces from scratch. DIY detergents would be cool.

It's a game to us. Our new thing will be trying to whittle our combined spending to $36k/yr all in. Our combined income has dropped significantly over the past two years, from $230k down to $120k for 2018. We should still be able to maintain a high enough savings rate to be FI in a few years, and practicing frugality without letting it feel in any way "painful" or inducing FOMO, will serve us very well when we no longer collect a paycheck.

Then again, I feel like we are on the more extreme end of the MMM spectrum these days.

Plenty of folks making our income are driving new cars, hiring a house cleaner, and outsourcing most of their home work while saving 40-50% and still on track to retire in their 40's.

[Abe]

We spend around $40k on non-housing costs (Southern California...) with around $300k salary. There's just not that much stuff to buy that's interesting. It'd be a full time job to spend that much, unless you love super expensive shiny things or eat out every day. Luckily most of my friends are also naturally frugal so it's not as isolating. You may need to find a new group of people in your town.

We don't specifically do anything to try to keep spending down, other than cook at home as much as possible. We haven't given up anything to save money since our hobbies are cheap. Having a <1000 sqft house and a tiny yard keeps maintenance easy. I learned how to make furniture and repair things, but don't really have anything we need to DIY.

[Freedomin5]

We belong here as well. Now that DD is in a private preschool, annual spend is probably around $36k per year (1/3 of which is her tuition).

We keep expenses low through geographic arbitrage (living in China). We also have a small place in a local neighborhood (rather than an expat neighborhood), and take public transportation.

We don’t really look for ways to optimize, though I obviously won’t say no if an opportunity to save money smacks me in the face. We do not DIY most things, and the only thing we’ve given up is our home country, which I miss quite a bit. But we go back every year and stay for 1-2 months, so it’s not that bad.

[Rcc]

We’re in this camp. Family of 3, all in spending with “tiny vacations”: 35k/yr. we’ve been north of 100k income, scratching head, for 15 yrs or so.

We still make an effort to optimize expenses, but we’re hitting diminishing returns.

We’ve also prevented a lot of lifestyle creep my peers succumb to. DW and I have never enjoyed shopping as well.

We DIY within our comfort levels, but with our house no job/task/project is very big. 1850 sq ft is easier to maintain than 3-4000 😁

Do we miss anything? In general no, as we still have everything we want. DW briefly missed her iPhone, but going from 85/mo to 5$ quickly fixed that.

We both are of the mindset that if we could, we’d quit our jobs tomorrow. That has also helped us focus on our priorities. Our DS starts college this summer, so that’s our only “big” spend on the radar (cash in hand of course).

[herbgeek]

We spend 36-40K per year, and I think I live an incredibly luxurious life.  House is paid off, husband is retired.  I don't feel like I've ever really given anything up of importance.  We don't go out to eat much, because the food is not as good as I cook at home and not as healthy.  We are generous with family, take regular adventures and vacations.  My work wardrobe is mostly Ann Taylor/Talbots but I got those items at a consignment shop.  We have 2 reliable vehicles, most of our hobbies are cheapish (gardening, reading and visiting craft breweries).   I have a few things that I spend a lot of money on, but those are rare purchases.  There really isn't anything I'd like more of except time away from work.

Finding your tribe is hard.  In addition to being frugal, we also didn't have kids, so that's left us out of a lot of our small town life.

[Loren Ver]

Edit to add:
Do you still look for ways to optimize even with a 60%++ savings rate? How have you managed to keep your expenses low?
Do you DIY most things?
Have you given up anything that you miss?

Good Questions. Thank you for adding them.

Do you still look for ways to optimize even with a 60%++ savings rate?
-- Always, but only in ways we value.  Sometimes we optimize just so we can spend more on what we value.  A lot of what we value, though, is giving our future selves time without work :).

How have you managed to keep your expenses low?
-- Avoiding as much of the hedonic cycle as possible.  When it hits we label it as such so we know it is totally a luxury that we chose not a necessity.  We also invest first, everything else comes next.  I have an amount I think we need to put it, and it goes in.  Life then happens.  The left overs also go in, or go towards something we really value.
 
Do you DIY most things?
-- Many things.  Even things we probably shouldn't.  Falling through the ceiling is never fun, oops.  I would like to do more thing, but with work, I am tried and don't always want to be go go go.  Luckily DH is a good sport and also good with a youtube video and tools. Relatedly, if we ever sell the house, some things will not pass inspection.  It might have to go "as is" since we fix things given the skills we have at the time.

Have you given up anything that you miss?
-- We don't give us things we value, so not really.   Sometimes I miss the people associated with the thing I don't value, but that is part of growing older and moving on.  We use to go to an event every year.  We would see an old buddy at said event.  The event stopped being worth the time, energy and money, so we don't see that friend as often.  We try to do other things with her, but her focus is on the events so that is how it is.

LV


Edit- apparently I messed up my post....

[lifejoy]

I would like to spend less! Our high income has definitely caused us to spend more :/

[mathlete]

I don’t faithfully track my spending, so it’s hard to know.

My projection model budgets about $54K in spending a year; however, this includes things like $300 a month for cars even though our cars are paid off. The idea here is to have an expense accrual for unexpected things like car repairs (or needing to buy a new car).

In other words, I don’t want to model my spending based off of years in which I don’t need to buy new stuff and have zero medical costs.

It’s possible that I fall under $40k in some years. Especially if you count Mortgage P&I as savings as some do.

[Carrie]

Thank you all for the great replies. I love reading how others are doing this stuff.

We haven't had our high savings rate until the past two years or so. Before that, salary was lower and we had a mortgage.  I haven't felt any desire to increase our base spemding, but I am making sinking funds for future purchases - like eventual car replacement, home maintenance, and a nice vacation or two.  As far as optimizing, this year I reduced preschool tuition by $3000 by bartering! I'm super proud of that.

I optimized piano lessons by finding a teacher who does group lessons and charges $40/mo less than the going rate. There are still things we haven't given up, but could/should: cell phone plan & bundled basic cable. But at this point it's difficult to be tough on ourselves  (and part of why I need to keep pushing myself).
We always eat at home, we drive very little (just morning school carpool & grocery 1x week, piano/library 1x week).  We live in a great family neighborhood so kids have friends to play with right here, and it's a great neighborhood for walking/jogging, so I don't need a gym membership.

Diy: I'm learning. DH is pretty handy, but we hire out the big jobs - like new hvac and roof. But we do our own yard work, housework (bleh), simple things. I make clothing and do other sewing but that's not always the frugal thing. I saved some big money doing our own landscaping work this spring, and we build things in the woodshop for our house and for gifts.

I love our simple, frugal life and have no regrets. Partly because if we truly want something, we save and get it. We just don't want many things.

[AM43]

Spending around 50K-60K yearly on $280K income, but constantly under pressure from the wife and kids to spend more.
I am holding up as of today, but its harder and harder as they get older and their needs and wants change.

[JLee]

I'm somewhere around there. Lately I'm living on around $2500/mo in a HCOL area.

[TwoWorlds]

We are not there yet.  HCOL with a house payment and college savings.  Right now we are saving 34% of a combined $150k salary.  Hope to get that up to 50% in the near future.

This does not include my 401k savings or my wife's pension contributions.  Only take home pay.  So we are saving $51,000 of the $150,000 net we take home.  Figure in the retirement and we are doing a little better.

[netskyblue]

A family with two earners making a combined total of 100k, if they're maxing out two 401ks, two IRAs, and two HSAs are only netting $45100 before taxes.  I'd imagine MOST spend less than 30-40k/year.

[Carrie]

A family with two earners making a combined total of 100k, if they're maxing out two 401ks, two IRAs, and two HSAs are only netting $45100 before taxes.  I'd imagine MOST spend less than 30-40k/year.

I doubt most two earner families who make right at 100k max out both 401ks and IRAs.  But if they exist, this would be the right forum!

We're just one earner right now, so we max 1 401k, two IRAs and one family hsa. Then we throw some at college funds. If I start back up with consulting when youngest starts school (1.5 years away), I'll start back up  with a solo 401k.

[YoungGranny]

We spend right around $38k per year and as DINKS it can be hard to not give in and spend more. Most of our friends/family around us spend quite a bit more so we find ourselves often turning down day trips or nights out. We typically instead invite people over for dinner which is my favorite thing! I love to host people and make a delicious meal - however it seems like people get sick of that. So we're still looking for our tribe too but I'm definitely happy with where we are in life. We know we have a great life and actually tend to cut our spending further year after year so we've learned spending is not the secret to happiness; someday we'll find more frugal minds around us :)

[bryan995]

We strive for this, but just cannot come close.

For us, rent and daycare total $4,400/mo = $52,800/yr.  Then we have food + utilities + insurance + etc
$2600/mo rent (2bed/2bed rental HCOL) + $1800 (daycare)

Closer to $75k spend now on dual income of ~250k salary

[DreamFIRE]

A family with two earners making a combined total of 100k, if they're maxing out two 401ks, two IRAs, and two HSAs are only netting $45100 before taxes.  I'd imagine MOST spend less than 30-40k/year.

I doubt most two earner families who make right at 100k max out both 401ks and IRAs.  But if they exist, this would be the right forum!

We're just one earner right now, so we max 1 401k, two IRAs and one family hsa. Then we throw some at college funds. If I start back up with consulting when youngest starts school (1.5 years away), I'll start back up  with a solo 401k.

Probably very few in the 100K range do that.  As a single person earning >100K, I only recently maxed out my 457B and am now putting $47,000 total into 457B, 401a, & Roth IRA combined.  I don't qualify for HSA with health insurance through work.

I suspect most people are putting 15% or less of their income into retirement funds and are living from paycheck to paycheck.  People tend to increase their spending along with their income.