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Our spending has been dramatically less, but interestingly our quality of life has remained constant.
Our groceries have gone up ..being home more has led to eating more ...
We are out at least in the mornings doing our photography....but the bad thing is we are always passing such good places to take out from , so we spend a lot per week taking out stuff .
Being we have not been traveling we spent a lot on new lenses ...
We made a distribution to the 3 sets of kids since we had a good market year too .
So we are pretty much on par with just a normal year .
If we don’t spend it one way we spend it another way
Last edited by mathjak107; 08-15-2020 at 03:04 PM..
I'm spending less money on gas (working from home, not traveling to see family), on carryout food. I'm spending more on groceries because I'm not going to 3-4 different stores to save money; I'm going to one store and buying what I need regardless of cost, and am throwing in some comfort food, too. My electric bill is up with the AC on all day instead of just in the evening.
Spending has gone up. I have worked from home for the last 15 years, lunch/breakfast was always a bit exotic and the house at 76/65 during the day. Now SO gets hot breakfast from quiche to grits, insists on us having lunch together, keeping it at 72, scooby snacks at 10 and 3, happy hour when we get done.
Hobbies tapered off for about 5 weeks and are back in full swing including long week ends out of state. Club and entry fees have not changed.
Instead of one laptop and IPad we run five and five 27 inch screens.
Less in work clothes for SO but he broke (yes!) the sole of a favorite Western boot and messed up a Stetson in the process. That was the equivalent to our summer clothes average of the last couple of years. I will be a shoe maker in my next life!!!
His commute is 12 miles/day so not much of a savings considering that he did a lot of shopping/picking up on his way home.
Less company and house guests. Better quality and quantity of wine.
Lawn service went up 20%, water/power went up and please let's not discuss groceries be it prices or package sizes.
Thank God none of us in our household got fired this pandemic and before this thing happened we would always go out and go shopping but this pandemic really opened our eyes to be frugal. Our savings drastically went up because we now do home cooked meals instead of buying outside. Plus it's been a while since I bought things I do not really need.
My savings is about the same, but I used the pandemic to rearrange my finances and I went in headfirst to pay off a few of my big loans, and refinance my house before things went back to normal. It was a three month long plan, and is now all wrapped up, and the plan is to build up my savings with all the extra cash flow that I now have.
I just threw another $2K into my grandson's 529 account. Have contributed $13K for the 3 kids combined YTD.
Well, my travel budget is minimal now- BF and I are going on a road trip to Sioux City, IA for loose meat sandwiches at a place he remembers from childhood (Tastee Inn and Out) and the hotel is gonna run us $94 for the night!
Other $$ I'm not spending is earmarked for work on the house I want to do next year- exterior painting and rebuilding a deck.
I save the same during the pandemic. Roughly 20% of pretax income. I got furloughed for 2 weeks in April and May. However, my son not going to Preschool saved me a lot of money.
401K: 11% (company suspended matching from March until October)
IRA: $500/month
3 College Fund Accounts: $700/month total
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