Pandemic reduced our spending by 30% - How about you?

[khram]

yep, let's audit everything you spent on vacation.

Come on, some people stay in $15/night hostels, others stay in $150 hotels, others stay in $600/night resorts. Each tier of vacation'goers thinks the next tier is crazy.

[Xrayman69]

I think if the pandemic reduced your spending by 30% it means that you were spending too much before the pandemic.

My spending didn't decrease much because I was already at a low level and I couldn't cut any more.

How did you spend $5k on vacation? That's $500 per day on average 10 day vacation.

I don't see it as spending too much but more related to the environment we spend our days in. We both worked in the city and would often grab lunch with coworkers or head out to happy hours, or take a starbucks break. We would also enjoy spending money on new clothing for work and went on date nights with other couples. Our 5k vacation save was a result of eliminating almost all of our typical travel, which involves 2-3 trips per year.

You should feel NO shame in spending if it is within your means.

To the OP, no change in our spending totals. Less in personal travels for our family (3 major trips that would have been taken were cancelled- spring break, summer European vacation and end of summer beach vacation, along with probably 2-3 weekends trips). Spending up for home renovations. Moved up timeline for various projects so as to be able to support some local contractors since they were available. The contractors could work on the house while we were at hunkered down at the “vacation” home.

[scifilover]

We are on track to be down 33% from last year. Half of this because of not having to take RMD's and pay tax on them. The rest is due to covid hunkering down at home.

[MikeG62]

YTD October, our spending is 28% under budget and down 33% vs. the first 10 months of last year.

For us, it's all about T&E. Our T&E spend is 72% below budget and a direct result of the pandemic. It's 95% of our variance to budget.

Other categories of spend with sizable variances to budget include:

Expenses which are higher:
Grocery Spend +25%, part due to not traveling, part due to pantry/supply loading, part due to more wine drinking at home
Restaurant Spend (non-travel related) +10% (we support local restaurants as much as we can - although this is all outdoor dining and/or takeout)
Outdoor Maintenance +70% (due partly to our being home and partly to break/fix stuff)

Expenses which are lower:
Health Club/Gym -50% (gym closed for 5+ months and have not returned since it opened, partially offset by purchases to set up gym at home)
DW's pocket money -40% (she is out and about less and therefore fewer opportunities to spend $)
Health care out-of-pocket spend -25% (due in part to lockdown)
Auto Fuel -35% (less driving)

[ClevrChico]

30% sounds accurate. Daycare costs are $0, transportation costs are way down, no vacation, reduced clothing, etc.

[Nowizard]

No decrease due to increases in home projects.

Tim

[Wricha]

Spending for the year is up 33% over last year. Bought a new house and sold two other houses. Home improvements on new house, golf cart, moving expenses and prep cost for selling houses. Take away capital improvements and transactional cost, spending is down around 8% for the year. A strong market masks most transgressions so I feel flush.

[RadAudit]

Well, the money we were going to spend on cruising was drastically reduced.

[tibbitts]

It's somewhat difficult to adjust for one-time (or at least not-regular) expenses that may have been moved forward or pushed out. In one sense I'll spend far more this year than ... ever, actually. But I'd say my ordinary-item spending is down maybe 25-30%, due mostly to not being able to travel, and that's what the thread is really about.

[sschoe2]

Not much change for me, though I don't spend on vacations and rarely ever eat out. My heating may be up slightly as I am home a bit more often (still working on site but a bit fewer hours).

[TomatoTomahto]

It's somewhat difficult to adjust for one-time (or at least not-regular) expenses that may have been moved forward or pushed out. In one sense I'll spend far more this year than ... ever, actually. But I'd say my ordinary-item spending is down maybe 25-30%, due mostly to not being able to travel, and that's what the thread is really about.

Yes, we would have renovated our house and repointed the stone (btw, first stone house and masons cost a surprising amount ) with or without a pandemic. We had scheduled most of it pre COVID, and luckily most of it took place in spite of quarantine.

Since we have not traveled at all, our ordinary-item spending is down probably a similar percentage. I am impressed with how carefully people track their expenses. I might have to look at a Quicken report or two.
Since renovations swamp food and commuting expenses, it’s hard to price the trees in the forest.

[JoeRetire]

I am not quite sure how to feel about this as I imagine our reduced spend is similar to millions of others and it cant be a good thing for the economy.

Curious if others are trending in the same direction for 2020?

Reduced spending isn't a good thing for the economy, given that the US economy is primarily driven by consumption.

I'm sure we are spending a bit less that we would have otherwise. But I don't think it's 30%.

[PhoebeCoco]

My spending for the year is down 15%, mostly because I haven't been able to travel.

I am making a big push, now that we are near the end of the year, to spend more and get a bunch of household maintenance done. I've also noticed how difficult it is to schedule plumbers, handymen, etc. I'm happy for them that their business is booming.

I haven't spent cash since February. I have a big wad of it stuck in a drawer, looking lost. Will we ever go back to cash again?

[JDCarpenter]

Travel down about 50% due to only one international trip since March, and it usually is 50% of our spending (retired). But, both groceries and restaurants are up significantly--we've increased eating out at expensive restaurants to once a week, given the revenue hit they are taking. All in all, pending on how much we spend in the next month for next year's anticipated travel (and maybe gifts to kids?), we are looking at 20% below 2020 budget.

[SQRT]

Lots of moving pieces, but our spending will be about 20% under budget because of the pandemic. Travel (both for vacations and between our homes), and eating out, are the biggest variances. Offset somewhat by higher giving.

Edit to add: this thread got me thinking. I am now planning on buying a new expensive auto. Hopefully I can do so in the next few weeks to balance this “underspending”. Need some fun to offset this pandemic stuff.

[Sandtrap]

Huge spending on home and property renovations and additions this year but it had been alloted and parsed as part of a 8 year long range plan anyway.
Still, spending a lot can get pretty uncomfortable

Pandemic disregarded effects.
j

[stan1]

we've increased eating out at expensive restaurants to once a week, given the revenue hit they are taking.

We may be getting into semantics of what expensive is, but takeout from steak houses, high quality sushi, and fine dining establishments where we'd typically spend $75-100 per person before COVID just isn't the same. We aren't doing that.

We do pick up takeout twice per week from restaurants where a typical dish is $12-15 such as Thai, Chinese, Lebanese, etc. We don't consider that to be expensive, though.

I can tell the difference between $15 lasagna and $25 lasagna at two local restaurants and prefer the $25 lasagna for dine in, but after travel and reheating we prefer the $15 lasagna. Unfortunately I think others felt the same way as the restaurant with the $25 lasagna has closed. We spent a number of evenings there with friends and a couple bottles of wine. It will be missed and I hope the owners and their family (most of the staff were extended family) are able to recover their livelihood at some point. The restaurant with the $15 lasagna often has a line of pickup customers waiting and seems to have most of their employees still working.

[Ice-9]

Interesting exercise.

I actually have a spreadsheet that contains my credit card totals per month. I try to do most of my spending via credit card to take advantage of rewards, so this is probably pretty close to accurate.

I took the 2020 totals through October, divided by ten, and multiplied by twelve to project 2020. Amazingly, this puts me at identical to the OP at a 30% decrease from 2019 total. (-30.159%)

[vitaflo]

I don't know about %, but I do know we will spend $10k less this year by working from home. When I added up the cost of commuting (gas, car maintenance, parking, etc) and being in the office (lunch, coffees, work clothes, etc) it comes to about $10k, which was fairly eye opening. I didn't realize we spent so much just *going* to work.

This has been a blessing in disguise because it gives us a better handle on our actual spending when we retire (and remove work altogether). In many ways this helped move up our retirement date, which was a nice surprise.

[unclescrooge]

Pretty sure my expenses are the same.

Any reduction in frequency of eating out had been replaced by better quality of take out, and buying better quality of whiskey to enjoy at home.

I'm also about to drop $500 on four 12oz wagyu steaks from Costco to make up for the lack of steak house meals this year.

We also took advantage of covid sales and spent money on home improvements, furnishings and art. These were going to happen anyway, but got accelerated due to being at home all the time.

I've always worked from home, and my wife's job cannot work remotely, but our outdoor activities have been curtailed.

[JDCarpenter]

we've increased eating out at expensive restaurants to once a week, given the revenue hit they are taking.

We may be getting into semantics of what expensive is, but takeout from steak houses, high quality sushi, and fine dining establishments where we'd typically spend $75-100 per person before COVID just isn't the same. We aren't doing that.

....

Agree that if you are spending $200-$500 for a couple, takeout doesn't cut it. I mean that, if we aren't traveling, we are committed to going out for sit down meals in those type of restaurants once every week until things get back to normal.

[sailaway]

we've increased eating out at expensive restaurants to once a week, given the revenue hit they are taking.

We may be getting into semantics of what expensive is, but takeout from steak houses, high quality sushi, and fine dining establishments where we'd typically spend $75-100 per person before COVID just isn't the same. We aren't doing that.

....

Agree that if you are spending $200-$500 for a couple, takeout doesn't cut it. I mean that, if we aren't traveling, we are committed to going out for sit down meals in those type of restaurants once every week until things get back to normal.

Interesting...I have found at the yacht club that I like some things packed to go better than chef plated. They have a poke on wonton squares appetizer that is to die for, but when you crunch into the wonton, the poke and seaweed fall all over the place. To go, the seaweed and poke are in a separate container and the wonton squares can be broken apart and either used as scoops or crushed on top.

[White Coat Investor]

I was rather shocked to see our spend this year is trending towards a 30% reduction, mostly attributed to the pandemic.
I had a feeling we were spending less, but figured it was more a reallocation to other areas with a much smaller net reduction.

Some of the notable items missing from this years spend, travel (~5k), clothing (~1.5K), gasoline (~1k), dining out (3k), Starbucks and spontaneous work lunches and happy hours (2k).

In addition to the lower spend, we have more or less avoided the city wage tax (~3.5%), and eliminated our public transit spend (3k which leads to an even lower spend (~35%).

I am not quite sure how to feel about this as I imagine our reduced spend is similar to millions of others and it cant be a good thing for the economy.

Curious if others are trending in the same direction for 2020?

Taxes up. Charitable giving way up. Travel down. Everything else about the same.

[AllMostThere]

Excluding taxes, our expenses are down 25% vs last year. The biggest drop is travel and ATM/Cash. The last time we went to the ATM was in August.

Your statement about not seeing ATM since August got me thinking about my reduced banking as of recent. DW and I realized we needed some cash as we have been milking the same bundles in our wallets since September, so yes, our spending is greatly reduced. We received an Insurance Reimbursement check in the mail the other day, so I figured I would just cash it and replenish our wallet cash. So, I went to our B&M bank to cash it, but it was closed - Weird. No worries, I' just go another day, right? I went again yesterday and it was still closed. I finally got out of the car and read the notice on the door "Temporarily Closed" with no return date specified. No problem, I'll just go to another branch ~ 3 miles away. So, I get there and it is closed also - note on the door indicates that it has been closed since August! Ended up going to my local Credit Union I use mostly as conduit for DS & DD transfers, and went thru the drive thru for first time ever and cashed the check. Our spending habits have really changed in this crazy year. Can't wait for CY2021 to get here.

[jebmke]

ur statement about not seeing ATM since August got me thinking about my reduced banking as of recent.

Same here. Last ATM pull was early March, right after returning from Florida. All that cash is still sitting on my dresser top. Nobody around here will not take CC or send a bill. Even the local gas station/mini mart (Royal Farms) has replaced all but one of the register stations with a self-checkout station.

[CalPoppy]

Over 30%. Mostly travel related expenses.

An amazing real life example of much we can reduce our discretionary spending.

[Ramjet]

Don't have hard numbers but it seems to be around 15-20 percent

[SmileyFace]

Still took a vacation - but not international so was a bit cheaper.
Before the pandemic, I was traveling on business about 50% of the time so my company was paying for about 25% of my meals and about 50% of my red-wine habbit - so in the food/libations department I am definitely spending more.
I am a few percent negative thanks to the pandemic.

[jharkin]

I'd say its a wash...

Telecummuting saves me about $50 a month in gas and wear and tar on the car, but my home utilities are up a bit as we are all home all day using more electricity, etc. Also used to get some free meals and lots of personal services deeply discounted if not free. Overal probably wash or net increase

Free gym at office replaced with buying an exercise bike for home to get us though winter. net increase.

Eating out eliminated, but more takeout. So probably replaced a $100 weekly family dinner out with a $60 weekly takeout bill.

Travel scaled back... We used to do one big summer trip plus some weekends. This year we only did one 4-day trip to a private beach condo. Figure $5-7k reduced to about $2k.

But we did a LOT more home improvement projects this year to take advantage of home time.... and as others noticed prices of building materials are up across the board so that probably ate all the saving of less travel.

[illumination]

My credit card bills are about 40% less. One huge cost driver that I have been railing about for a long time (but rarely listened to) was how much our family spent on eating out. Corona really curtailed a lot of that, and we just prepare more meals at home.

It really is just about the dumbest thing you can throw money on, and most of it was not a high end dining experience. I feel like other financial topics get all the ink (like car leasing, etc) but eating out a lot is way more expensive and probably has more to do with debt than a lot of other things.

[mnnice]

We are trending to be down about 25%. Less travel, less eating out, limited appealing takeout options, less fuel.

We currently pay the rent of our young adult offspring from a 529. I have not counted that as it doesn’t cycle through my checking account.

[dru808]

20% reduction, no vacations, going out a lot less, purposely buying very little in the way of discretionary spending. The home food budget has climbed a bit though.

[Katietsu]

Average spending per month has been about the same, though we will probably save on depreciation and maintenance on the vehicles over time. Fuel costs down. Definitely spending more on food and beverages. More takeout with bigger tips to support local businesses. Grocery bills up because I just get what I want when I want and no longer care about prices and what is on sale. Entertainment spending transferred to buying movies to stream and sound systems to improve the experience. Christmas gift spending will likely be up, especially on tech. Hard enough to tell people to stay home, got to give them improved ways to interact.

[Stumptowngal]

We don’t do precise budgeting or tracking so can’t give a percentage but we’ve definitely spent a lot less than planned.

At age 68 and 2020 being the first year of retirement, we anticipated spending much more than usual on travel. We had put off extensive travel until now and wanted to make the most of whatever healthy years we have left as seniors. With most of that money recouped, we are noticeably down from our usual spending pre-retirement and pre-pandemic.

In addition to traveling curtailed, we saved money by eliminating or vastly reducing expenses on:
Haircuts
Dining out
Gym membership
Gas
Clothing
Entertainment (concerts and the like)

Spent a bit more on quality wine and larger tips for carry-out and other services provided. And I’m finding myself with the urge to spend more on the grandkids this Christmas ; so we’ll see where that ends up.

[jeffreys]

I track all our expenses in Quicken. This is a comparison of the last 12 months (so it would include some pre-COVID time) and the previous 12 months of some of the major categories we are discussing.

Down
Overall: 12%
Fuel: 62%
Restaurant: 45%
Vacation: 76%

Up
Groceries: 68%
Utilities: 16%

[Harry Livermore]

It's probably down, but since my budgeting is forensic, after year-end, I won't know for sure until January or February.
We skipped some small home improvements and deferred some things on the two rental properties. I skipped some basic lawn care items, and have postponed replacing some homeowner equipment. Normally, I skimp a little in the clothing department, but this year I bet I have not spent a cent.
I would say groceries, utilities, and take-out will be way up as a result of stay-at-home in the spring, and two college kids who will finish this semester from home. I have been staying away from mass transit so train/ subway will be way down, but I bet gas and tolls will be flat or maybe even up.
Capital investment, travel, and operating expenses for my LLC have been cut to the bone. My business income is on track to be about 30% of a normal year due to COVID (70% less than a normal year) I would guess SE tax with be minimal as a result.
All in all, it will be interesting to see where it lands...
Cheers

[anoop]

Hasn’t changed much for me. Because of a low immune system and back issues I was already living a pretty restricted life. The only expense clearly lower (gone) is house help but it wasn’t significant to begin with.

[Normchad]

We are spending less, probably around 15% on a monthly basis. On the other hand, Mrs. Chad also quit her job rather than risk her health.....

[michaeljc70]

I just ran a report in Quicken and our spending is down around 20% YTD compared to same period last year. That is mostly due to vacations. We don't eat out a ton but that is also down. I've been spending more on groceries (probably) to make up for less eating out. Most of our expenses are fairly fixed/regular. Utilities, housing, groceries , household items, healthcare, etc. are probably 75% of our spending. All that excludes taxes.

[Lazareth]

Yes. Postponed the vacation. Gas and restaurant way down. Grocery up a little bit, but enjoying home-cooked meals and smoothies, eating healthier... more gluten-free, less dairy. Took up beginner-yoga in May (thank you Youtube)... no equipment expense but $20 mat, no gym fees, no overworked muscles and joints, and feel stronger, more flexible, than in 30 years.
Namaste.

[abuss368]

I am not sure overall but it probably declined. Eating out is down but grocery up with some drive they and curbside. A lot of other entertainment things down.

[MrBobcat]

Normal spending slightly down as we didn't eat out or travel that much before pandemic so maybe down $1-2K overall.

[knowledge]

Since March compared to the same period last year, our expenses are down 31% ex-mortgage. I've been pre-paying the mortgage so all in my spending is down only 4% YoY.

[placeholder]

I don't track spending so I don't know the exact numbers but with no hockey games to go to and a reduction in restaurant dining it's down somewhat.

[BogleFan510]

Six months on a river cruise then travelling in Europe became hikes and home cooking. Mucho savings..yay!

[vested1]

Down at least 30%:
- Relocated and eliminated mortgage.
- Gas about $1 cheaper, (CA to SC)
- Travel expenses, about 10k to zero
- Leasing a car and was exceeding the 12k yearly mileage limit, this year gave us a cushion of about 7k miles from being over by 5k last year.
- Dining out, from about $400 a month to about $50, takeout only
- Wife's hair appointments, from about $100/month to zero, my barber appointments, from about $20/month averaged to zero (I cut my own hair and my wife is letting hers grow. Look for her on the cover of Neanderthal Monthly and me on American Skinhead).

Increased cost:
- Home maintenance. Went from 1,300 sq ft and .13 acres to 3,077 sq ft and 1.6 acres. Lost 17 trees this year that had to be removed.
- Higher insurance cost for all types.
- Higher property taxes by 2k.
- Groceries from about $500/month to about $700/month.

[bltn]

Don t really budget too closely any more. But I have noticed that our expenses may be just a bit lower. We ve had some home maintenance costs that have made up for some of our isolation savings.

Any annual savings now will probably be determined by how much is spent on Christmas. We re already spending quite a bit gifting my daughter and her husband a period of child care for a new baby. And my wife s Christmas gifts are yet to be determined. We ll probably end up with around the same expenses.

[Bungo]

I haven't tracked my spending carefully, but my food budget is way up due to using delivery services for both groceries and restaurants several times a week. On the other hand, I haven't bought gasoline since February.

[nguy44]

Our spending is down over 35%. We normally allocate 20-25K for vacation and travel, but that has been practically zero this year. Auto, recreation, and entertainment expenses are also much lower than last year.

We will spend more for Christmas and Holiday gifts, and continue to give more to charities and friends in need, but it will still keep our spending down by at least 25% for the year.

[rich126]

I've never tracked this stuff so I don't have any details but just random guesses:

1. No hair cuts since late March (not that I have a lot of hair anyhow!) so a couple hundred saved.
2. Almost no alcohol consumed. I never was a drink at home person. Maybe 1 drink a month now.
3. Restaurant spending would be interesting if I knew the numbers. Obviously not going out but still doing a lot of drive thru and curbside plus being generous with tips. I'm guessing it is down some.
4. Delivery fees would be up since I get most things delivered now and enjoy not going into stores.
5. No travel in nearly a year. Hard to put a number on it since it varies a lot. At a minimum would have visited home a few times so an easy $1500 saved (although I would have preferred to spend that and visited family).

I recently sold my house and am staying with my GF so my expenses now should be low. Other than insurance, gas, medical, streaming and what I help my GF with there aren't many expenses and her place is paid off.

Unfortunately I will have a huge tax bill due to the house previously being used as a rental for a long time but not much you can do about that. I had planned to use it as my retirement home but decided it would be too maintenance heavy for my needs (large pool, aging A/C units, roof, etc.).