It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

DairyQueen

Sea_Shell wrote: »

The scores on the doors are in…

In 2019 we spent the grand sum of …..£11,087

Good Lord.... I don't know how you do this. Admittedly, we run two homes and that seriously increases our costs, but my expenses (inc expenses on one house) alone are almost double this. We have taken only one UK 10-day hol this year and the house maintenance costs on one house were £3k.

Looking back, I think my expenses in 2011 were about this and that was a very tight budget year.

Our budget is around £4k per month. I admit that OH isn't great at managing costs and he has a habit of spending excessively on food, but I can't imagine us ever being able to have a budget at that level. I commend you.

fred246

To get to that level of spending I'd have to get divorced. If I got divorced I'd probably lose so much I'd have to go back to work. I remember the day before I got married someone coming up to me at work "You getting married tomorrow Fred?" "My advice - never divorce her just kill her. OK you'll go away for a few years but you'll be fine after that. Divorce her and you'll be poor for ever." Happy new year everyone.

Sea_Shell

Anonymous101 wrote: »

Fantastic information there Sea Shell, thanks very much. It’s very inspirational in the sense that you’re budget is robust and you’ve not found any unexpected expense since retirement.

Out of interest how are you recording your spending? I know you’ve mentioned you’re an excel fan in the past. Is it a case of recording what you’ve spent on a month by month basis or are you looking back once a quarter or year even?
I budget up to 12 months in advance but I’m not quite so diligent about recording the actual experience so long as I’m able to cash flow month by month and I’m investing a decent amount. 2020 might be the year I start recording what our actual spend is.

My spends spreadsheet accounts for everything, and is categorised, so I can see at a glance what our spending is for each month, as we go. I use SUMIF formulas to add up all the, say, "Groceries" amounts in a given month, and give me a sub total. It then adds up all the categories to give me the total monthly spend, and then the current annual spend to date.

I've had this system since mid-2016

Like I've said, we don't really have a "Budget" as such, just a finger in the air that we'll be OK, financially, if we spend £15-20K pa, based on our pot.

In 20 years time when all DB and SP's are in play, we'll have c.£22k in todays money coming in, so our pot only HAS to last that long.

Sea_Shell

DairyQueen wrote: »

Good Lord.... I don't know how you do this. Admittedly, we run two homes and that seriously increases our costs, but my expenses (inc expenses on one house) alone are almost double this. We have taken only one UK 10-day hol this year and the house maintenance costs on one house were £3k.

Looking back, I think my expenses in 2011 were about this and that was a very tight budget year.

Our budget is around £4k per month. I admit that OH isn't great at managing costs and he has a habit of spending excessively on food, but I can't imagine us ever being able to have a budget at that level. I commend you.

And that's without trying!!! If our backs were really against the wall, we could probably shave £2K off that figure. But luckily we don't have to...….yet!

Anyway, this year has been so cheap for 3 main reasons. We sold my car early in the year, so all the costs of running that have gone. Our mileage/fuel use has reduced too and we didn't have a foreign holiday this year.

Back in 2017, our spends were £13,350, when we did.

Luckily we haven't needed to buy anything unexpected (other than a WM), and we've had no need to buy much stuff, generally.

Maybe 2020 will be the "Year of the Spend"!! :beer:

Sea_Shell

fred246 wrote: »

To get to that level of spending I'd have to get divorced. If I got divorced I'd probably lose so much I'd have to go back to work. I remember the day before I got married someone coming up to me at work "You getting married tomorrow Fred?" "My advice - never divorce her just kill her. OK you'll go away for a few years but you'll be fine after that. Divorce her and you'll be poor for ever." Happy new year everyone.

My DH is very cheap to run!!! No expensive hobbies, not a big drinker, no need for a flash/new car, and is quite handy on the DIY front. He's a keeper!!!;)

Anonymous101

Sea_Shell wrote: »

My spends spreadsheet accounts for everything, and is categorised, so I can see at a glance what our spending is for each month, as we go. I use SUMIF formulas to add up all the, say, "Groceries" amounts in a given month, and give me a sub total. It then adds up all the categories to give me the total monthly spend, and then the current annual spend to date.

I've had this system since mid-2016

Like I've said, we don't really have a "Budget" as such, just a finger in the air that we'll be OK, financially, if we spend £15-20K pa, based on our pot.

In 20 years time when all DB and SP's are in play, we'll have c.£22k in todays money coming in, so our pot only HAS to last that long.

Sorry Sea Shell I think you’ve slightly missed my question there? It was more to do with the method you use to capture you’re spending.
For example are you going through bank statements categorising each transaction? Or are you using an export or app of some sorts. How do account for cash spends?

You’ve inspired me to start tracking our spending a in little more detail.

Sea_Shell

Anonymous101 wrote: »

Sorry Sea Shell I think you’ve slightly missed my question there? It was more to do with the method you use to capture you’re spending.
For example are you going through bank statements categorising each transaction? Or are you using an export or app of some sorts. How do account for cash spends?

You’ve inspired me to start tracking our spending a in little more detail.

Oh I see. Basically daily, as soon as the spend is made!! Receipts get put on the desk and uploaded. They stay black, until cleared and then I show then as red (credits I turn green).

Cash spends are categorised in the same way, as I have a column for payment method too. We don't have a miscellaneous cash category...it can all go somewhere!

The only thing I don't show are "loose change" spends, as these are negligible, we always use contactless where available. So I might be £10 out at most, over a whole year.

Sea_Shell

To add, I have a separate sheet with account balances, so my spends spreadsheet doesn't directly balance WITH anything, IYSWIM.

Anonymous101

That’s great thanks.
I was thinking of doing something similar although I’m trying to limit the time it might take. I’m pretty handy on excel so I can think of various ways to manipulate the data once it’s in there. Just a case of how it’s entered.

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations on getting your spends to such a relatively low level and considering you are still quite young it is probably one of the main reasons you were able to retire so early. That plus you did not have children I seem to recall? Our spends are higher than yours but we retired in our late 50s whereas I think you went in your early 50s? If we had not had to support our kids through university and helped them with buying houses/weddings etc we could probably have gone earlier but we were happy to work a bit longer in order to do that. Now we help them out with time instead in childcare but do still gift them money at birthdays and Christmas.

Our personal spends alone account for £4800 a year so no way could we get our spends as low as yours (£200 a month each which would cover health and beauty (me) and clothes and hobbies). Our gifts/donations are also considerably larger (around £2500 per year - we gift money to our daughters and grandchildren) and we have a £1000 gym/leisure club membership which is well used and two cars to maintain which cost roughly £2500 over the year including diesel. Our bills are around £6k per year. Food is roughly the same as yours though £2.5k - £3k per year) but we also have a fairly high eating out/ entertainment (£3k per year) and holiday budget (£6k per year)and we have put in a new kitchen with appliances, 2 new bathrooms and a new gas fire over the last couple of years which has set us back a lot but we used part of DHs and my lump sums to pay for that. The rest has been invested or kept aside for replacement cars, home improvements, long haul holidays. We have around £35k per annum in DB pensions though so that is all certainly affordable and we have not touched our investments bar paying for the home improvements and 2 e bikes. We could obviously economise but feel we do not yet want to drop to 1 car as I use mine a lot for walking groups and visiting my mum and family/friends etc and DH travels around to model railway exhibitions and preserved railways as that is his hobby.

If you don't feel deprived living on less than £12k per year then all credit to you. At least you know you have the option to spend more should you wish to as you have a substantial savings/investment buffer although yours has to last longer than ours as you are younger. Do you not spend on entertainment (cinema, theatre, concerts etc) or eat out or is that all included in the holidays category?