Some people are ‘natural savers’. The ‘natural spenders’ are the ones that need to keep track and make sure they save and invest!
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I suspect our daily expenses will go up when we retire. Both of us have 5 min commutes. H packs his lunch every day and I come home for lunch. He works in t-shirts and shorts and I’m not much better.
But h is a teacher and our expenses go way up in the summer. Why? H loves to buy things and can’t sit still or stay home. He goes to multiple stores every day and finds something we must have or some project that needs doing. And when he runs out of stuff for us, he buys stuff for others “to be nice.” When he’s working, he doesn’t have the time to do that. He will always have to have some kind of job to keep him occupied at least part time. Summer times are a challenge for us.
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Never said it did have anything to due with pay equity. Note, my use of “if”, which was used as an example of why a boss would be concerned about staff salaries.
Saying a boss should not be in the “business” of employees’ salaries is a rather realistic, unless its a unionized job or a company with lock-step comp. Either of which could be the case, but SincereLove did not say, so I make no assumption that is the case.
On expenses… I never balanced a checkbook (!) and had accrued some credit card debt. Started faithfully using the Dave Ramsey “Every Dollar” app on phone (every dollar of income planned for/allocated, every dollar spent recorded) in Oct.
It has been so great - I’ve paid down almost all my debt while living within my means (and still traveling, buying gifts for family, etc.).
Am now a big believe (for me) in tracking it all. (also track calories lol)
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I’m good at estimating calories or $$ spent/saved, LOL. Like many here, we never balanced the checkbook but made sure every check was accounted for. Now, with online banking, it is easy to see the whole picture. I pay whatever possible with our Visa to get the cashback, and the online statement provides a nice breakdown of our expenses by category. I think our current expenses are a good estimate of what’s to come (adjusted for inflation) because in the past year, we have not spent much on work-related stuff (commute, coffee with coworkers, new work clothes, etc. )
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Nope. We look at what we are saving. That’s it. Fortunate to not need to budget at this point. Never really did. Just was “careful” earlier in life. We never had ANY debt other than our mortgage and that was paid off in 15 years.
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I have been using quicken for years. I’m self employed. So, deposits are broken down by company and person, as well as expenses. It takes about 5 minutes to put every credit card statement into quicken.
I save receipts until they appear on CC, then toss, unless the amount is large and it is work related. The receipt then gets stapled to the CC statement. Home improvement receipts for large items also kept.
This saves so much time when I prepare taxes.
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@kelsmom I so agree with your post. I finally realized if I keep waiting till the time is right financially I’m never going to retire. So I’m changing my goals. We’re hoping to move to FL next year to be closer to my son and daughter-in-law and new granddaughter (due 8/1). It’s been in our thoughts for a while but with the baby coming I really want to be part of her life on a regular basis and not just once a year like my darling Mum. I’d move today if it was feasible.
So I’m cutting my needs down drastically. I started thinking along the lines of a nice 2 bedroom condo with a balcony - hopefully on one of the canals with a water view - instead of a house (FL housing is way higher than where we live). And once I started thinking of that I realize that I really like the idea a lot - my husband’s health is really poor and only having to take care of the inside of a home actually sounds wonderful.
We have not planned well financially so a little extra money coming in once we move would be nice (could probably manage without but it would be tight). I’ve been absolutely miserable in my job the last year and am perpetually exhausted and stressed. I like the actual work but have much more if it than I can cope with and work ridiculous hours nearly all year round. I’m a tax accountant so I should be able to pick up at least seasonal work hopefully WFH. I’ve considered offering to continue working for my current employer remotely which I think they’d go for because they find it hard to find qualified staff in our small town. But I worry they are so used to just piling more work on me that they would not be able to change that habit.
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I can honestly say that retiring was the best thing I have ever done. I wasn’t quite ready to not work at all when I left my horrible, stress-filled job. I planned to find a job after a few months of decompressing, but Covid hit at that point. Then D got pregnant. I decided that the universe was telling me to slow down & enjoy my life. I am so happy to be able to be such an important part of my GD’s life. We will make it work financially because it’s worth it for us. I hope you can find a way to retire soon, @swimcatsmom .
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“I would put everything spent in one of two columns either wants or needs” - Yes, that’s a good idea. For us the major swinger is monthly Visa bill (especially around vacation time!), a combo of wants/needs. I’ve often though it could be a good idea for us to have two credit cards, where one is the “wants” segregated. But we like getting the air mile accumulation. I do like reviewing the year end statement, which chunks things by category.
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@swimcatsmom you can give your current employer a trial period and see if it works. If they keep piling stuff on you, you know your fallback position. 
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Good idea. Our “needs” are HD and Costco purchases and utilities - easy to sort out of the rest on cc statements. The wineries, restaurants, and an occasional pair of shoes are “wants.” Those can be cut or pared down, especially the shoes.
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I track all cash in/out monthly and have been doing so for the past 21 years. Needs are above-the-line obligations, wants are below-the-line discretionary. The buckets change as our life changes. For example, I no longer need to track pet or education expenses and, eventually, I’ll add SS and portfolio disbursements, which I’ve added here for example purposes:
Now that everything is online, this is a trivial exercise, and enables me to easily track and compare buckets across time. It also made retirement planning incredibly clear and simple.
ETA: Household repairs/maintenance belong above the line, of course, but I never seem to get around to making that change.
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@BunsenBurner That is a good plan. That way I can see how it works out with them and I will be able to figure out how easy it will be to find something else.
I pretty much know how I think it will go with them 
. Partly my fault I guess because I’ve allowed it to get to this stage because it’s my nature to work the extra hours to get the job done and now they just expect it. But it has gotten really out if hand thus year since our remote employee quit right before tax season. There are maybe 6 weekends this year I have not worked and I rarely go home on time.
But worth a try.
You know, you just made me realize something when it comes to taxes and I do not know why I did not think of it sooner as far as efficiently, so thank you for the below as far as what you said.
I don’t use quicken, but for our business we used quickbooks but for personal stuff I never liked it. I do however like you save all my receipts for my CC, making sure there are no errors, no one trying to add a wrong tip (has happened more often than I want to admit), double charges, or anything else, and then unlike you, I staple all the receipts to the credit card and write on the top of the bill if it’s a tax or no tax bill so when I go back at year end I know if I need to look at it again. After 3 years (past audit date) I throw them away. But, you just made me realize that there is absolutely no reason I need to keep a restaurant (non tax related) or any other receipt for something that an item can’t be returned or is relevant. Like seriously, why am I keeping grocery receipts for 3 years? That would really make my life so much more efficient and my file drawer less full! And, tax time even more efficient. Over the years I’ve reduced our credit cards significantly because it was becoming such a time suck, but this will help too. Thank you!
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Oy Costco. I can go in there literally for one thing, or like last week went in there to buy my brother 2 of the Woo Zoo fans for his step kid for college dorm since apparently a lot of Costcos don’t have them anymore. The kid is also going to UM but they live in CA and we are within driving distance, so it looks like we will be bringing 4 fans to school, lol.
Anyway, I cleaned some stuff out of my pantry today. No one in my house seems to know how to put an empty box in the recycling bin right outside the kitchen door in the garage. They either leave it in the pantry, or on our island. So, in organizing the pantry, I realized I will no longer be constantly buying those huge boxes of goldfish, cheeze its, gardetto pretzels, pirate’s booty, and so much more that really adds up whether at Costco or Target or whatever, so it is probably my food bills that will go down substantially once my youngest is gone and we are true empty nesters. This is why I can never do a list of every thing we spend day to day but I do just give us what I call a “nut” of what we live on each month and we try to keep within that amount as much as possible.
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Food quantity goes down when kids leave the house. But I’m not sure if food expenses went down. (My tracking method is not that granular, would have to dig out Visa summaries.) That’s because we ate food we parents like which tends to be pricier… and wine, lots more wine 
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@kelsmom I’m so glad you are enjoying retirement. I think sometimes the universe does try and give us a hint. I had a couple if wonderful long weekend getaways this year - one to FL for d-i-l’s baby shower and one to Galveston to spend July 4 weekend with my closest friend. Both journeys home were nightmares (A nearly 12 hour flight delay in FL because of storms in TX and it took us 10 hours to drive part of the journey home from Galveston that normally takes 5).
My conclusion was the universe was telling me something about getaways - stop coming back!!
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Oh the good news there is we’re not drinkers so no wine and I hate cooking, so we already eat out a lot. This kiddo at home enjoys a good steak, so that’s another place I forgot that we will be saving a lot of $. No more 16oz expensive steaks for him courtesy of us when we order in lol. My other kids eat like birds, unless sushi is on the menu, then forget it. With covid it’s also now impossible to be spontaneous and just go out to a decent restaurant at the last second without having a reservation. Normally I’m a planner, but lately when it comes to food, not so much and we really tend to decide at the last minute. I will have to go back to my old ways, but again, with just the two of us, much easier!
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I like how you put “alcohol” above the line.
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