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

tigerspill

Oir living expenses are now around 50% higher than when we were working (returned 4 yers ago).
Obviously some of this is down to inflation, but most is holidays.  This was what we planned for.

Time4T_Accounts

A couple of years before we retired, a then recently-retired former colleague advised ‘plan to do something every month’. Wise words, I think;  we’ve budgeted in retirement to ‘do things’, ranging from very simple, 30-quid days out to rather pricier Michelin-starred breaks. This is in addition to a couple of ‘holidays’ each year. Yesterday we had a wonderful (and extravagant) day out on the Northern Belle.  Distilled, the message is to plan to enjoy (if you are able) your retirement.

Beddie

Sarahspangles said:

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. 

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.

I agree - most pub lunches are very average, but the treat, as you say, is not having to do it yourself! And like you, I value a wonderful Indian restaurant as it's something I'll never be able to emulate at home.

GrubbyGirl_2

Not sure it's relevant what other people spend on holidays, entertainment and eating out in retirement as we all have different retirement income.  Only you can decide what you can afford to spend on those things when you retire according to what your pension income is.

So, what is your retirement income likely to be?

scottiescott

No idea. Take half dozen or so Med (or Tenerife) holidays a year. Eat out occasionally. Pension comes in each month, investments (generally) grow and interest on savings is added. I do a financial health check every quarter and I always seem to have the same amount, give or take. Obviously big ticket purchases make a dent in savings/assets but otherwise I don't get stressed about it. Life's for living!

Prism

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. 

I agree. Some of these comments about eating mediocre food puzzle me a bit. Maybe we are lucky where we live but there are multiple lovely non chain pubs and restaurants within walking distance (5k) or a 10 min drive. They serve amazing food that I couldn't easily make myself. The only type we don't bother is are Indian restaurants, as I can make those dishes better mysef

Pat38493

coyrls said:

I'm not going to be much help as you've chosen categories where our spending has varied wildly both pre- and post-retirement (to say nothing of the wildcard COVID years).  For planning purposes, I wouldn't factor in much of a change as the ability to save money is offset by the increased opportunities to spend money.  You can take comfort from the fact that these are discretionary categories and so you can adjust your spend as necessary.

Thank you for the replies everyone this is very useful.

The above comment actually illustrates the reason for my original question - we are often told to calculate our "essential spending" and "nice to have spending" for retirement.  Logically holidays and days out and suchlike are "nice to have".  However, for some people life might become a bit depressing if you could not afford anything so I am loathe to categories all holiday spend as non essential.

I was wondering whether I could maybe split these kind of costs into an "essential for wellbeing" part (one holiday per year or whatever) and then "nice to have".

Although I didn't mention it in some ways the home food shop is a similar thing.  Food is obviously essential, but I'm pretty sure we could cut our food bill significantly if we really had to.

To answer the question above about what is my retirement income - it's not fully decided yet but we are looking at various scenarios in the range of 60-72K net income as a couple - my wife already retired early on NHS pension.  I could stop work next summer (2024) but depending on investment performance, there would be a small risk of having to reduce spending at some point.  If I work another couple of years we would be pretty sure to be able to spend at least what we are spending today on these categories without running out of money (at least according to historical modelling and sense checking).  We also have the intention to downsize our house in a few years (not only for pension reasons but just because it will be too big for the two of us), but if I worked another 2 years we would have the remaining option to not downsize the house even in worst case scenarios.

Has anyone been forced to cut back on these categories for a few years due to pension investment performance and if so, did it impact a lot on your sense of wellbeing?

Sarahspangles

Prism said:

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. 

I agree. Some of these comments about eating mediocre food puzzle me a bit. Maybe we are lucky where we live but there are multiple lovely non chain pubs and restaurants within walking distance (5k) or a 10 min drive. They serve amazing food that I couldn't easily make myself. The only type we don't bother is are Indian restaurants, as I can make those dishes better mysef

We have those nice restaurants, and if I rank the most recommended on TripAdvisor (‘Be a tourist in your home town’) we’ve eaten at most.  But based on those experiences they wouldn’t be my first choice for relaxed dining, and some of them don’t cater at all for healthy eating. Maybe we need to try some of them for a weekday lunch, or an early evening. Some of our local pubs that don’t serve food have ‘street food’ pop-ups, they’re more interesting than standard pub fare.

MallyGirl

We aren't retired yet as OH won't go until we have enough in the pot to support eating out without thinking about it (nice restaurants not pub food), significant holidays, plus several other things that are a non-negotiable part of the sort of retirement we want to enjoy.

Linton

MallyGirl said:

We aren't retired yet as OH won't go until we have enough in the pot to support eating out without thinking about it (nice restaurants not pub food), significant holidays, plus several other things that are a non-negotiable part of the sort of retirement we want to enjoy.

Yes, we planned on maintaining our current expenditure level which included occasional nice retaurants and long haul holidays.  The danger though is that if you include all expenditure you may want and also make very prudent assumptions on investment growth and inflation there is the danger that you retire much later than would otherwise have been the case.  I think it may be sensible to leave some things to chance.