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It has been said here that you spend more in retirement since you have more time. I can concur that it's true. What do you spend monthly and what is your entertainment? Is it going out for expensive meals in the city or the weekly wings and beer special at the local bar?
No expensive restaurants and bars, but we do eat out more frequently. That is still just chump change.
Serious added costs are those for travel and hobbies. I often combine travel with my photography hobby. Neither is cheap.
Medical expenses are way, way higher than when I worked and had comprehensive medical coverage with minimal costs. Of course, part of the expense is just getting older and needed more healthcare. Last year the added expenses (Medicare coverage, supplemental Plan F, LTC insurance, and donut hole drug costs) were about $20K compared with previous costs of about $5k.
I also find I have more expenses for things I can no longer do such as cutting down trees, climbing up on a ladder to clean gutters, etc.
Family expenses have not gone away. Next year the youngest daughter is finally getting married and we will be making a substantial commitment to wedding expenses. My older daughter and family are struggling to get by. We seem to always be helping with something. That is likely to be even more significant when the grandkids get older and become way more expensive.
Reading is my entertainment, I probably spend a few hundred for periodicals (yes, the paper ones) and probably fifteen hundred to two thousand for books in the course of the year. I seldom go to restaurants. I do have some collecting interests as well. The sky is the limit on those.
Last edited by Happy in Wyoming; 03-22-2016 at 09:28 AM..
My entertainment consists of hiking, fishing, snow shoeing, playing with my dogs. I would rather have a small meal on a trail overlooking mountains than sit in a stuffy over priced restaurant anytime.
...pretty much everyone "splurges" on something. We all disagree on what...oh no, it's a waste to spend on "blank" <insert restaurants, travel, electronics, cars, music, model-building, boats, etc.> But each person is willing to spend on some stuff and everyone else and anything else is dumb. So we're actually all a like in the end.
We do go out to eat often since I gave up my hobby of cooking. But I don't spend more now that I am retired.
I remember when I worked, I would hit the mall every Saturday. Why? Who knows. I enjoyed it then, but now I go maybe once a year.
Was it because it was a way to get away from it all. Now there is nothing to get away from. We had been taking some trips, but now that my mom is slowly ebbing, we stick close to home.
We spend less in retirement for entertainment. While we were working we eat out at least 3 times a week and went to movies a few times a month. Now, in retirement, we eat out once a week and never go to the movies. and the only reason to eat out now is if we have to drive the 35 miles to town for a doctor's appointment or shopping.
What we have done in retirement is to set up a movie room in the house with big screen and surround sound. Then we buy pay for view movies or watch one of are DVD's/Blue ray movies from our library. We keep about 400 movies stored.
Since we have the time we cook better and healthier meals at home and usually eat better then we can if we went out. We grill on the deck at least once or twice a week and some of that food is far better then restaurant food.
It has been said here that you spend more in retirement since you have more time. I can concur that it's true. What do you spend monthly and what is your entertainment? Is it going out for expensive meals in the city or the weekly wings and beer special at the local bar?
I spend considerably less in retirement. At the height of my commute distances, I drove 250 miles a week (25 miles each way; 50 miles a day, 5x a week). That's a lot of gas, and I don't drive that much in a month now. Much more wear and tear on the car too.
My clothing budget has been cut by 75%. (And I'm not driving to stores to buy them.)
I ate out more while working because I'd be tired after work and dinner was takeout. I bought lunch out 5x a week. Breakfast was a latte. Now I eat out about once a week. And I eat better for it.
My hobbies are mostly the same, so that's a wash.
Having moved, my utilities, property taxes, and COL are considerably less.
I pay less for my cell phone too.
And I have considerably more time to find the best bargains/deals on things I do want to purchase, as well as the time to travel off-season, which is much cheaper.
Gas, food, clothes, and general COL is way, way down for me.
We spend much less except for the medical bills and Medicare insurance premiums. I always liked to travel and still do so we spend on that. I used to eat out more but now have the leisure time to cook at home. We eat out at a nice restaurant about once a month. We don't need work clothes, just casual now. We rent now so there are no expensive surprise house bills and no expenses for yard work that we can't do anymore. We are down to one car instead of two.
We do spend more money on our dog now--we are actually home often enough to HAVE a dog. I spend much less on the garden now. With a house I was always buying new shrubs or trees, carloads of flowers. Now with a tiny yard, I keep it simple. We don't spend money on furniture or rugs--we have all that stuff already and are getting rid of a lot of it.
Mostly now we spend to replace items that have worn out and we spend to travel or, occasionally, to attend a play or other show.
We spend a lot on dining out. To me, there's no sense going out for mediocre food. Every dining experience is a memory in the making. We also enjoy taking our grandkids to dinner. We cook in far more than we go out but then it's fish from the fish market or good free range chicken, organic veggies, etc. Good food costs money. We're pickier now in retirement and we have the time to shop around. Our hamburger days are over.
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I spend much less on the garden now. With a house I was always buying new shrubs or trees, carloads of flowers. Now with a tiny yard, I keep it simple. We don't spend money on furniture or rugs--we have all that stuff already and are getting rid of a lot of it. 
