Yes, lifestyle creep makes living below a shrinking income very tough! It is much easier (and more fun) to spend funds than paring back when there is less income.
Actually some of the categories in the WSJ budget are fairly modest while others seem quite high, to me. The important thing is to track one’s own spending now and projected post-retirement. How others spend may be quite different.
Read the R subforum discussion of the article while commuting to work. Hilarious! Highly recommend if you need to kill some time. 
Just google the title of the article, and the R forum will be one of the top links.
That’s exactly right. But to me, the risk of running out of money – and becoming a ward of the kids – emotionally outweighs the ability to be able to leave them a slightly larger inheritance. (Assuming typical life expectancy of a healthy couple at FRA.)
Easy, if you include bottles of wine, coffee pods and shop at Whole Foods. But I guess we can subtract that from our lack of country club dues, horseback riding and apparently we have no friends, because we rarely give presents except for housewarming or Christmas parties. Maybe they are considering things for grown children as presents.
Now I want to see the original article but don’t feel like digging in the pile of unread newspapers. WSJ online is more of a hassle to navigate than NYT. Can someone provide the title? Thanks!
I was interested to note that there’s no line for Cable TV. It seems even WSJ readers just stream Netflix nowadays.
Thank you @BunsenBurner! Now if I can only figure out why the WSJ logs me out and NYT does not.
One big category missing from the spending is taxes, which in our budget accounts for a big chunk of funds. Of course, YMMV.
I believe this is income taken on the after-tax basis, and housing payments include any RE taxes (ditto car expenses which include registration fees).
OK, so the funds in the categories are NET of income taxes, etc.?
It is much easier to do the math this way.
That’s a very interesting spreadsheet. Allegedly DH and I spend almost nothing, so I obviously didn’t fill it out correctly. I need to go back into it and be more generous.
$36,000 annually for health care (presumably beyond Medicare coverage) seems like way above typical. Of course, there are also the $8,000 country club membership and the horse riding costs – are these that common even among very high income and wealth people?
I haven’t done the math, but here is an article, based on research from a reputable source, about health care costs in retirement: http://time.com/money/5246882/heres-how-much-the-average-couple-will-spend-on-health-care-costs-in-retirement/
@ucbalumnus – I agree that $36K seems way too high for medical, at least for anyone who is Medicare-eligible. Not out of line for premium and OOP costs for a couple purchasing individual coverage these days.
Country club annual dues + required dining minimum would run much higher than $8K in the NYC metro area (NY, NJ, CT). Horseback riding is an odd one. I have no idea what percentage of the population rides, but I am guessing it is tiny.
I have only glanced at the sheet quickly, but the item that caught my eye was utilities. Water, sewer, electric, heating & cooling, and garbage would cost more than twice that locally.
Are these figures supposed to be real or was the idea just to provide the template?
That horseriding is just a placeholder in the spreadsheet, IMO. Replace with “pole vaulting,” “marathon running,” “kite surfing,” etc. - whatever your hobby/activity is. As far as the numbers go, the author must have put theirs in!
There was no specific mention in that spreadsheet of property taxes - very high for many of us. One can just include it in the housing line but I thought it interesting that insurance is included in the description of the car line but not the housing line.
Anyway you slice it, personal residence property tax is a housing expense.
Here is the explanation for out of state car fees in Fairfax county:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/taxes/vehicles/out-of-state-plates