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Question for those already retired - how did your holiday and entertainment expenses evolve...?

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  • newatc
    newatc Posts: 892 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 500 Posts Name Dropper
    Retired (early) in 2003. For the first 15 years our expenditure on holidays and eating out definitely increased , particularly holidays. For the last few years illness and the pandemic has forced a reduction in holidays (making the earlier holidays now seem a greater idea). Looking back the only economy we made on retirement was a reduction in cars from 2 to 1.
  • strawb_shortcake
    strawb_shortcake Posts: 3,436 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I'm a long way from retirement (at least 20 years) and this is my concern that leisure activities are going to be hampered due to retirement funds. This is purely based from having time off work and seeming to spend a fortune, I go back to work to give my debit card a rest.

    But, I guess I'll have no dependent children, no mortgage (currently £6k a year) so hoping it does balance out.
     
    Retiring at 65 I think my forecast (DB) is £42k a year, plus my eventual SP and my OH who is currently not working or receiving benefits will also have a full SP, back of a fag packet calculations it does seem we'll be better off in retirement than we are now?
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  • westv
    westv Posts: 6,454 Forumite
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    We like to eat out but we try to choose places that don't have mediocre food, cramped seating or kids running around.  :D
  • Sarahspangles
    Sarahspangles Posts: 3,239 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 4 June 2023 at 8:50AM
    westv said:
    We like to eat out but we try to choose places that don't have mediocre food, cramped seating or kids running around.  :D
    By this measure I can only think of two places we go where the eating out itself is a treat - a garden centre that does a beautiful and healthy brunch and a family-run Indian restaurant which is a bit of a drive away. They’re busier at weekends so these are for my days off.

    Most of the other times that we have eaten out recently the ‘treat’ has been not shopping/ preparing/ cooking. As I like cooking, I think when I’m also retired we’ll eat out even less but possibly spend a bit more with local butchers/ farm shops.
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  • Albermarle
    Albermarle Posts: 27,896 Forumite
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    I'm a long way from retirement (at least 20 years) and this is my concern that leisure activities are going to be hampered due to retirement funds. This is purely based from having time off work and seeming to spend a fortune, I go back to work to give my debit card a rest.

    But, I guess I'll have no dependent children, no mortgage (currently £6k a year) so hoping it does balance out.
     
    Retiring at 65 I think my forecast (DB) is £42k a year, plus my eventual SP and my OH who is currently not working or receiving benefits will also have a full SP, back of a fag packet calculations it does seem we'll be better off in retirement than we are now?
    Maybe the comment in bold shows that some curb on spending might be the answer to your worries about retirement income.

    With a £40K DB income + two SP's you would be firmly in the 'affluent retiree' category, but only if you are not spending it too freely.
  • atush
    atush Posts: 18,731 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    We have recently retired, and are looking more carefully to where we eat out, re/expense.  We do have foreign holidays, one to france where we have a gite, and two to USA (where i m from and we own a house.  The two will reduce to one in future, but our kids still want to come home for christmas, so we have to come back for that.

    Out kids are getting older and all live in mainland UK (we dont) .  So they now sometimes put us up for the night, so we save on hotels, and pay for the odd meal out.  When in the Mainland uk, we otherwise use an Air bnb with some kitchen facilities so we only have one meal out per day.

    This is helping with spends, but we are doing a spreadsheet to see what we re spending.  
    i am in receipt of a small USA So Sec pension, and other half gets a Jersey and IOM pension.  

    I have a Jersey pension to come, small again, and the OH hasnt yet claimed his UK state pension.

    But expenses high in the IOM, so we need more income than many do.

    So we dont k now for sure, but i know we ar more careful with spending.

    The OH has a season ticket for Fottbsll, so goes over on occasion.  Many times he takes the car as isnt much more, or any more than flying.  So he stops at Lidl and Aldi to buy cheap wine/food/other items.  This helps our grocery bill.
  • Brie
    Brie Posts: 14,733 Ambassador
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    I'm semi retired and the OH stopped working some time back.  The biggest change to us was motivated by illness & death.  MiL being ill and in hospital meant that we could go somewhere by ourselves for the first time in a long time.  Her eventual death meant the OH had a lump of money that he decided we should spend and he's been doing that rather well.  Add him being very ill has meant that he wants to do things sooner rather than later (or never) and I think that's the right approach.  

    As for eating out - we're in the better to cook at home camp although we have gone out twice so far this year with friends.  But also we've stopped going out for breakfasts which we use to do about once a week.  Time constraints and our favourite place gone into a right decline has changed that immensely.
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  • JGB1955
    JGB1955 Posts: 3,851 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    For the past 14 years our holidays were confined to the UK because of dog ownership - we never considered putting him into kennels, but have travelled the width and breadth of the country from Isles of Scilly to Shetland.  Our options are now wider.  Will have spent close to £15K on 10 weeks holidays this year - furthest point away from home being Singapore.  Just spent 3 weeks in Scotland.  Only ate out 7 times (budget £100 per meal) but EVERY meal was amazing.  I'm sick of the mediocre pub meals that end up costing £50 before you've had a drink.  Next year's costs?  Only £5,000 at the moment....   I'm working on US spending ALL of the interest on MY cash savings each year on holidays.... my husband is far more cautious than me!
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