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Question for those already retired - how did your holiday and entertainment expenses evolve...?
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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 1.3
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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?Make £2023 in 2023 (#36) £3479.30/£2023
Make £2024 in 2024...2 -
We like to eat out but we try to choose places that don't have mediocre food, cramped seating or kids running around.3
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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.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.Fashion on the Ration
2024 - 43/66 coupons used, carry forward 23
2025 - 62/892 -
annabanana82 said: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?
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.1 -
newatc said: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.
Covid of course stopped all this, and we were just beginning to pick up again with UK breaks when my husband became ill.
I'm now over 80 and widowed, so package holidays are needed if I'm going to continue to travel, but it's not the same. One of my greatest pleasures and comforts is to look back on the photos we took in the many different fabulous places we visited in early retirement. Money well spent!16 -
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.3 -
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.I’m a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on Debt Free Wannabe, Old Style Money Saving and Pensions boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.
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⭐️🏅😇3 -
I retired at 59, 8 years ago now and my husband was just working a few days a week. Apart from during covid of course we have averaged about 7 weeks a year on holiday in the UK, mainly self catering. About half the time we share with friends and we always book nice accommodation.
We have averaged spend of £4 to 5k per year so far.
Our dream when we retired was always to spend about 12 weeks a year away, mainly in Scotland which we love. Now post covid and because we are receiving 2 state pensions on top of my decent occupational pension we hope to start making that happen, because as others have pointed out we aren’t getting any younger or fitter and are very aware we need to do it while we can.
As far as eating out goes we try to get out about 5 days a week. Sometimes for breakfast, lunch or sometimes just coffee and we enjoy finding nice independent cafes.
We eat out “properly” maybe Italian or gastro pub about twice a month. Experience has taught us that although fine dining is not for us, chain pubs with fast food type meals are not for us either.
The food is not normally nearly as good as we can prepare ourselves quickly at home and although cheap on the face of it, a waste of money if you don’t enjoy it.
We spend about £300 to £400 a month eating out and that amount makes me wince to be honest.
Still we enjoy it and feel the time we might not be able/want to get out so much will come soon enough.
Retirement is great so far and we feel very lucky to be able to do this.8 -
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!#2 Saving for Christmas 2024 - £1 a day challenge. £325 of £3663
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