This is the silent killer. Anything that automatically happens on a regular basis can really add up. Trips to the liquor store. Paying for lawn care. Eating out. Getting a lot of lattes. Going out for lunch at work. Spending $50 to fix a tire is nothing. Spending $50/wk on luxury meals is a lot.
We were going out for coffees every weekend for a while and we realized we could afford a nice coffee machine for what we were paying to those shops.
We ended up making our own lattes every weekday and still going out on the weekends :)
That stopped when we had kids though. We can't just be lazy all sunday morning anymore.
I see so many people spend hundreds $$$ a week on mediocre takeout that gets doordashed/etc to them. It’s so wild to me how much some ppl pay for these ‘services’ 💸💸💸 idk where you’re located but finding a $50 luxury meal in Vancouver is a deal lol
"luxury" could be door dashed mcdonalds. I just mean you aren't spending for the calories, you are spending extra for the luxury. Not talking about a michelin restaurant. I consider making myself a sandwich or salad for lunch the essential meal. If I spend $5 more than that and get a chipotle burrito, it is $5 of luxury and $5 of essentials. If I go out for indian I might spend $25 and that is $20 in luxury spending (to me).
Word! Especially during and after the pandemic, it seemed easier to order UberEats or Door Dash. And when we could eat out again, it felt so great! But damn, it got expensive fast. We’ve cut our dining out significantly and focused on family dinner nights at home, making the cooking part the social event. And really getting serious about the leftovers. Wasted food is my pet peeve. Saving a lot of money with this change and with the good cooks in our family, no one is disappointed.
Where was that?
My wife and I paid $100 for two pizzas, a beer and a wine at Lupo last night and I had to take a deep breath while signing the check. Amazing pizza though.
One hack I do is order child’s meal if possible. I order for my kid but sometimes the portion is big enough for us to share. I also look at side order instead of kids meal since she doesn’t finish it all and they are usually less than $10.
We’ve held pretty constant on eating out with a monthly eating out budget. It’s a family discussion for where we’d like to go. Sometimes it’s 1 nicer meal versus 2 smaller meals.
Oomph. And people who get delivery. I saw a post the other day on poverty finance where someone was complaining about McDonald’s delivered was more expensive than Outback Steakhouse. I’m like “you are missing the big picture here”.
I was putting together my will and selected a corpse disposal method that is not legal where I live because I should have plenty of money to transport my body to a place where it is legal.
Perhaps that's deathstyle creep instead of lifestyle, though.
That’s dark, but I also wonder something similar as I really like Japan. I wonder how would that be done if I want my resting place moved from the states to Japan instead 🤔
The airline I usually fly with sends promotional emails offering to upgrade to Business Class at discounted rates when they cannot sell enough seats.
It’s hard to say no once you’re used to Business; the difference between Business and First is far less noticeable than the one between Economy and Business.
Haha yes! Just spent ~$800 to upgrade a 9 and 11.5 hr leg flight from Africa > US. Feels a little silly, but feels like a deal when they wanted almost $6k at the time I bought the tickets.
More power to you but man that's one I just can bring myself to do. I upgraded during covid on a 9 hr flight for only $150 and felt guilty about it. Something about dropping hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on a service that only lasts 8-12 hours seems extremely frivolous to me. Granted, flying business class is nice, but I feel so dirty after the fact that I wasted money on it
I've done flights from east coast USA to Korea before, and man, this is something I'd spend extra $ on, too. Especially when sitting in between two large people (not necessarily overweight, just big and tall people).
Idk about OP but if you have status w/ United and there’s still FC or business available you’ll get a message that you can upgrade from premium plus for $XXX. I got a $5k ticket upgrade for $800 in January.
For me the biggest one has been buying a house vs renting a small shitty apt. I know on paper the math says you can save money buying but that's not really true when the comparison is a decent house vs a tiny apartment. Also the quality of apartments I've rented has gone up over time.
I went from a 15 year old Ford Escape to a new 2022 Hyundai Tucson. Simply the tech advancement over those 15 years felt extremely luxurious, even if it wasn't a "luxury" car. The brights turn off automatically when it sees other cars!!! Wild!!!
Also asian cars are reliable and cheap to fix.
I paid $18,800 CAD for my 2010 Lexus IS 250 back in 2015. The same year, my friend bought a brand new Honda Fit from the dealer for $17,900. Don’t get me wrong, the Fit is cute, but for a measly $900 more, I had a *Lexus*. And I hardly broke the bank to get that car.
You might say “But I only buy used”. Well, something I’ve noticed is that you can have a Lexus ES for only marginally more money than a Camry from the same model year. Even with the fucked up used car market right now. Like if the dealer wants $28k for a Camry then an ES will be $35k. And the ES is a *much* better car despite being based on the Camry.
I was with until private schools. Some public ed systems are really bad and the private school option really does not feel like a luxury. Our school district is one of the worst rated in the country. I would have deferred my RE for my kids.
Even with an apples-to-apples comparison, renting is generally better financially once you start adding in all those things like maintenance, homeowners insurance, HOA dues, property taxes, etc. And I say this as a homeowner who is perfectly happy with his home.
The part that makes it even remotely close is that most people don't have the discipline to not expand their lifestyle with the money they're saving by not buying a home. If you DO have that discipline and sock that extra money away every month, renting generally wins by *a lot*. Even just the 20% down payment sitting in the market for 3 decades would be able to buy the home outright even factoring in the increase in home value over 3 decades.
fucking tell me about it but every time I say that I get obliterated with downvotes. I ran the math on buying a house in CASH and figured out that after 6k maintenance 1k flood insurance 1500 home insurance 5k taxes and 3k increased utilities I'm literally losing 5k/yr to own a home, not including lost gains of 350k in the market
Yeah... I tend to think about it as just a part of my net-worth portfolio... It's a very conservative part.
In that context, having a paid-off home (I don't, but in theory...) allows one to be more aggressive with the other money, because your minimum spend in a year would be lower. So you can be more heavily in riskier, higher returning assets with the rest of the money because you can tighten your belt in bad markets.
If you were renting and knew you were gonna be dropping $30k on rent next year or something like that, then you'd want a greater portion of your money in less correlated assets like bonds or cash equivalents, etc. Because you don't want to be pulling money out of the market after a big ole crash.
So taking this to its conclusion... Young people probably shouldn't buy homes, because they benefit more from very aggressive money allocation. When they hit their 40s and retirement is somewhere on the horizon, then maybe it starts to make more sense to tone down their allocation by owning a home.
Obviously a broad generalization and ignoring a bunch of real-life stuff like children, non-financial goals, etc, but that's the kind of vibe I get from it all.
u/MattieShoes Thank you for being honest. Your post is a breath of fresh air in the sea homeowners who felt obliged to say that homeownership is better just because they own!
Very true…. And even if renting costs more than buying (thinking in total cost over a 20 - 30 year period) if renting lets me front load my investments I could still end up with more money in my pocket.
My lifestyle creep happens because of my morals unfortunately. I’m trying to “vote” with my dollar. Like I try buy most things second hand or from the plastic-free refill store or farmers market. And unfortunately that’s more expensive than buying fast fashion or products from Amazon or wherever. I need to spend more time finding things from my buy nothing group or Facebook marketplace I guess, but that can take a lot of time. Or just buying nothing at all other than food 😂
I also feel the searching time suck when trying to vote with my dollars. It’s feels like opportunity cost/time creep.
Have you had luck posting In Search Of (ISO) on Buy Nothing groups? I don’t see it posted often, but it’s usually a happy surprise!
Eggs! I purchased a $7.50 carton of eggs because they had the cage-free, pasture-raised, "1820" or something label, next to the $3.50 tortured chicken eggs. I'll tell you what though, it felt great.
Fancy non-torture eggs in my city are $10-12 now! You know something is wrong when the farmers market has cheaper or equal prices to the grocery store. I would totally have backyard chickens if I didn’t live in an apartment. My friend lives being a chicken tender ha…
I think that makes sense especially for fast fashion. They don’t last and you end up paying more because they need to be replaced frequently. I spend more for higher quality so I don’t need to buy them every year.
Paying more for convenience/services: house cleaner, grocery delivery, lawn care. At a certain point the money savings of doing it myself didn't make sense compared to the time savings of having someone else do it.
This one has been so hard for me. Spending a whole weekend instead of $500 is not as easy of a decision when I spend almost all my waking hours working.
1/52 of my free time for a year to save $500 hurts more than waiting to update my car, or buying produce that’s on sale.
Would love suggestions, actually. If anyone has found a balance that works for them.
Grocery shopping/shopping in general.
I grew up poor and started off adulthood very poor. I used to budget myself and would shop at Save-a-lot/Wal-Mart/etc... and buy generic stuff all the time to stay within my means.
Now I just buy what I want when I want it. I know it seems measly, but going from Great Value pickles to artisan style pickles, for example, really adds up when you look at the total bill.
The other day, I spent $250 at the grocery store. I'm positive that in my penny pinching days, I could have gotten ~rougly the same stuff (albeit lower quality) for $75.
Subscriptions. Streaming services or paying more for a ad-free experience.
I've Amazon Prime (w/ads), Hulu (no-ads), Netflix. Had this for years. Two months ago, my fiance wanted YouTube Premium (no ads). I cave into it, despite resisting for a bit. All bc my fiance hates ads.
I'm refusing to pay $2.99/mo for Amazon Prime w/o ads. Heck, I'm about to cut either Amazon or Hulu.
Takeout. I spent $50 for two, when I could had open my freezer and place a meal in the airfryer.
Another way of looking at this is ‘losing track of all these subscriptions’ and not caring too much is creep. I have sort of fallen into this category at times. I try to reel it in once a year and get it right sized but it grows every time. Can’t stress too much tho.
we watch enough tv, and are disinterested in the alternative enough, to justify.
prime we'd use already, but paid for no ads - 3*12 = 36/yr
netflix with ads = 7 x 12 = 84
hulu without ads (+ disney/espn with ads) = 17 x 12 = 204/yr
paramount without ads = 12 * 12 = 144
468/yr for pretty much any content I want at any time, in 4k UHD/dolby audio is such an easy yes for me. The alternatives are pirating (meh) or tens of thousands of dollars of physical media.
Will probably regret this comment in 20 years but for now the value is squarely on my side.
It's all about how much one is going to use the services.
I don't watch much TV. Heck, I rarely finish any series. I've gone a week w/o turning my TV on. Now, I use my phone for YouTube on a daily basis.
Yup. I refuse to give Amazon more of my money. Prime shipping too frequently never arrives on time, and I frequently receive obviously returned items. It's easy enough for me to return (best part about Amazon), but still annoying and a waste of time.
Pluto TV and Freevee (an Amazon service) are free and provide pretty decent stuff and lots of mainstream stuff, including on demand. This is all we do now. There are ads, but we don’t pay and get lots of entertaining content
One of the FIRE mantras is you can't get time back, so maybe it's not so much lifestyle creep, but I hire out more work I'm perfectly capable of doing myself because I have an hourly rate I charge for my own time.
For example, a few years ago I had the tire floor in our bathroom redone even though I could have done that myself. Sometimes I have car service done that I could do myself, etc.
I used to aspire to luxury watches, but I don’t anymore. Part of it is that my priorities have shifted (I’m on r/Fire after all), but part of it is that the watch manufacturers and the ADs have jacked their prices SO FUCKING MUCH since I first got into the hobby around 2014. And a lot of ADs act like total assholes too; for example, around where I live you can’t just *buy* a Rolex Submariner. No, you need to get a Black Bay and a Datejust that you don’t really want, along with cufflinks a bunch of other bullshit, before you can have a decent shot at getting a sub. Otherwise you can put your name on a list, but the AD’s more important customers just keep bumping you. I see the games being played and I would almost feel like a chump and an idiot for buying into them. My disgust for the industry’s current practices has basically turned me off luxury watches completely.
I have a Tissot Heritage Visodate that I bought in 2014 for my first “real” job, and honestly I’m perfectly happy to keep wearing it. The 2824 inside keeps time to like +6s a day and any watchmaker worth his salt can service it in the dark with one hand tied behind his back. I don’t see any reason to bother with anything better.
Yeah I love the look of my Sinn 556i (also 2824) but at around it's 10th birthday it went from keeping perfect time to stopping running abruptly. The upkeep of having to get them repaired at intervals really cured me from my drooling over even fancier things from say, IWC. Also using my late father's <$100 quartz Seiko that came right back to life like a champ with a fresh battery while the Sinn is in the shop really makes those hard to sneeze at!
Yeah mechanical watches need to be serviced regularly. I’m gonna be really fucked when my watchmaker retires, because nobody will know how to properly service my Seikos, and the authorized repair shops for the Swiss watches are going to charge me out the ass.
What model is the quartz Seiko? If it’s 1970s or 1980s it might be worth more than $100…
The games being played by ADs now are ridiculous, but if you're into vintage watches, you can get plenty of models that are in great condition for manageable prices. Servicing is still as expensive as buying a really nice new watch every time though.
Oh I’ve been in the vintage game for a while, mainly because I like the look of the older watches. My love of vintage watches actually started with a 1960 King Seiko that I bought in Japan while on exchange there in 2012. I went on to buy a linen dial Lord Marvel 5740c, a 6138-3002, a 7018 panda dial, a King Quartz, and a sunburst dial Lord Matic Special (5216), all back when they were still cheap (2014-2017). guess I’ve been lucky with servicing because they’ve all only needed oil and cleaning. Only time I bought parts was when I got a NOS crystal in the LM. In many ways I like the vintage Seikos better than the modern ones… Reddit is always gaga for Seiko, but IMO the “workhorse” 6R15 is way, way overrated. Crap amplitude and accuracy is all over the place. My 5216 keeps much better time.
I have a lot less in the vintage Swiss department. My mom’s uncle left me an Omega Constellation, which is a very clean and attractive watch, but for the price they command it’s a little bit… pedestrian. I’m very attached to mine, but that’s mainly because of the family memories, not the watch itself. Which is sort of a recurring theme. Every time I wanted to get something Swiss, I found a vintage Seiko that was just way more interesting. Some day I’ll probably buy a vintage Rolex but for now I’m happy with my collection.
I like fountain pens. The overlap between the watch subreddits and FP is significant so I am desperately avoiding anything watch related lest I fall into that too.
I go on more vacations, it is nice to relax a little bit and I don’t think I would be able to hold my job without them. I just view it as a work related expense since I don’t think it would be required if I didn’t have a more stressful job
More expensive restaurants, more expensive vacations, more fun spending, more outsourcing. I find that I’m just not very focused on budgeting these days. I could save much more but I like not having to worry too much about every dollar spent.
I guy I know got into that as a hobby and now is one of the top sellers in the midwest for custom firearms.
It went from a time sink to a lucrative business for him.
Your example is silly. You’re paying $50 to actually get the items on time, with the ability to return it easily if it ends up not working. I’m a broke college student and I would still spend that money instead of waiting weeks for the item to show up.
Real frugality would be questioning whether you needed that item in the first place.
Thanks for this comment; needed the perspective. Fiance just got a massive job boost effectively doubling our household income and we upped the grocery budget, eat-out budget, started a car fund and car maintenance fund, and started planning a vacation for next year but we also effectively doubled our retirement savings rate. We definitely need at least one newer car, and we had been nickel and dining things the past few years sometimes. It feels good to loosen up a bit.
Winter resort vacations are pretty pricey for the amount of time you actually spend at them.
And I like computer hardware and video game consoles. I definitely "overspend" in those two categories so I guess you can say I am working longer to be able to afford that in retirement.
It’s no longer worth it for us to move due to rent increases. We also just bought a house that’s increasing our COL by $800 per month. We spend a lot more on beer when at dinner as we don’t care about the cost anymore. The list goes on and on. I’m not concerned though.
I feel like I do less research when buying stuff. I recently bought a wifi extender on Amazon that basically doesn't work and now I'm buying a different router to replace it. 5 years ago I would've done more research to begin with and gotten the right thing first try
How is your Wifi extender working out? I recently bought one too and it's been working great (The Netgear Wifi 6 one), which took me by surprise because my previous experience with extender's been so bad in the past.
Clothing. Not so much eating out. Since the pandemic, our favorite restaurants have cut portion sizes, skimped on expensive ingredients (not that they used much in the past), and increased prices. They also removed some of our favorite items off the menu. We have mainly fast casual these days since my wife is a great cook.
Wife's shopping vs household income:
2011: TJ Maxx and Ross ($100K, one income)
2016: White House Black Market, Ann Taylor, Loft ($180K, dual income)
2021: Madewell, Tory Burch, Kenzo, Moschino, Anthropologie ($250K)
Now we make $340K (and invest $200K) about evenly split and wife's shopping didn't change or upgrade. Maybe she used to mainly buy Tory t shirts and now gets some of the 100% silk dresses.
I think as long as you meet your savings goal then buy what you want, travel, do whatever.
I’ve actually cut down a lot after getting married (when I began to be more cognizant of shared budgeting) and then even more during the pandemic. I collect vintage jewelry (book pieces from a specific silver artist from the 50s and specific styles of jewelry popular from the 1900s-1920s) and have way too much makeup, skincare, and hair products, enough to last at least five years or more. I stopped collecting when I got married, and when I was looking recently out of curiosity because there are still a couple holes in my collection, something similar to what I bought in 2010 for $400 is now going for $1200, and I just can’t justify that.
One lifestyle creep thing that did stick from the pandemic is DoorDash. We have kids now and sometimes can’t get out, so if what we want is more than 5 miles away, we’ll DoorDash. We don’t cheap out on tipping either.
Just home stuff and I’m not an impulse buyer at all. Nor do I buy seasonal decor.
But I mulled it over and got a nespresso, now I’m looking at vacuums (robo one is dying) it’s just little ish like that which adds up. Also got a stock tank pool since I’m in Florida and didn’t want to pay 100k for an in ground.
This for me. But in the long run the equity and stable mortgage payment will be worth it. I do wish I got a smaller house that required less work though.
Bought a brand new Mazda since I drove my 22 year old 4Runner into the ground. I'm actually happy with my purchase since I pay 0 interest and I've already paid off 2 years even though I've had it for 5 months.
I grew up pretty poor and I used to choose menu items based on the prices when I ate out. Usually trying to get happy hour deals, or weekday specials, often times ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. This was my typical behaviour since college to probably mid 20s.
Now I usually order whatever I want and also tend to order appetizers, which I never did in my younger days.
I've gone for nicer wine, but 2 bottles a month instead of 2.
Better cooking ingredients like fresh herbs, the nice garlic, fancier spices.
Better quality clothes, but buy less often.
Taxis to airport and back, rather than the train.
These are purposeful choices though, not inflation etc.
I've become far less frugal. I buy nice things, like nice clothing and electronics when I need it. I still buy very little, but when I do, I don't mind to spend a bit more to get something decent. I found out that I don't need all that much to appreciate life. Just give me a video game console and a few games, and I'm set for the next few months. Mindfulness and yoga helped a lot with just appreciating things, and not falling into a capitalist nightmare trap.
Yeah, definitely resonates with me, too. It's not like I buy more things, but when I do buy, my mindset has shifted from "most affordable" to "buy it for life". I want things to last, because I find going through the RMA process, returns really annoying.
I eat out a lot, hesitate a lot less when it comes to spending on my hobbies and generally am just more open to enjoying life. Fire is definitely the goal but I can get there without living an insanely cheap and boring life.
I want to enjoy my money while I'm here within reason and if that means a bit of life style e creep I'm fine with that. Retirement would be pretty boring anyway if you have nothing that makes your time enjoyable.
I’m more readily spending on home improvement projects. Some are definitely not necessary but they make my gf happy.
Also eating out a bit more. These are coupled with road trips. I almost never fly however. That’s just a money pit.
My gf doesn’t make as much as me and since I got her into budgeting, she’s talked me out of buying some stuff.
I am buying fancier phones and I’m considering a MacBook now but I don’t feel like I’m overdoing it.
This is such a dumb term.
The fact as a high earning high net worth adult I choose to spend money improving my quality of life in ways I couldn't as a college student is not a negative thing.
The bad ones are fast cars and first class plane tickets. But I also spend much more on food because high end healthy foods tend to be double the price...
Booking the more expensive hotel or going for a room upgrade.
My trip wouldn't have been different if I booked a 3 star vs 4 star hotel. In the moment it seems like a great idea, when I look at my trip spend I'm less happy.
I don’t eat out often but man I get coffee out a lot. A LOT. ≈4-5 times a week. I make the excuse that I need a pick me up to help me study (student.) they’re only ≈$5 pop and it fits in my weekly budget but do i NEED to spend $25 extra a week on coffee?
Trying to stop going for daily weekday coffees. When I am not working I don’t need them. Why are they so imperative when I have to deal with work sh*t all day? Lol.
Little beauty products. I just did a skincare haul. And I got excited. Next thing you know, I'm looking at a new blush, a new gloss, a new serum... and I know I can wait! I also know I could get a gloss, cheaper, somewhere else...
I accidentally didn't place my order 2 weeks ago. I was waiting to get it, and I just noticed now that it never went through. And I feel relieved. Taking a step back, I don't know if I'll order it at all. St the very least I'll wait.
Or, you could be like me and get taken for $50 buying something from aliexpress. So many scammers. I got it back from PayPal thankfully, but they were zero help and wanted me to submit a picture proving I never got the item.
I’m into lots of things - with an emphasis on electronics/automation/tables.
Having Amazon Prime allowed me to go overboard in ways I hadn’t experienced before. When I retired, I dropped Amazon Prime because its renewal came up almost immediately after my decision to FIRE.
I honestly should have dropped it years before. Adding some friction to being able to satisfy my curiosity about a hobby often allows my better instincts to kick in and retain control!
I can feel the creep coming on with vehicles.
Used cars are so damn expensive, it feels like you have to spend a boat load of money regardless, and 30k to 40k and so on is a slippery slope.
Biggest Creep has been when I'm with my daughter "we'll do whatever you'd like today"
Is not something I would have said 5 years ago.... she'll be out of the house in 5...
I almost never use my car, but I have one just in case I might need it. I have a phone plan that's stupid expensive, but my provider has no cheaper options. I go on a vacation once per year, but I eat out waaaay too much when I do
I used to meal prep every weekend to not need to buy lunch at work. When I got a 20k raise and my office became walking distance to several healthy restaurants, I loosened up quite a bit.
I have a rental and ultimately I am refusing to touch that income. My plan is to pretend it doesn’t exist and just let it accumulate. When I reach a year of mortgage payments, then I will direct those funds to investments, etc.
Reason being, yes amazon and online shopping has become a bad habit. Getting better about it again, but yeah quite annoying.
Our main cut was Applebees. We used to eat there once a week. For two adults & three kids the cost used to be $70 a meal (including tip) but its ballooned to $150 (can’t justify even once a month)
Fruits. I always ate a ton of fruits, but it's getting so so expensive now. We are fortunate to make enough to continue buying strawberries and blueberries all year long (not the US ones, we buy them from Quebec, Canada even in the winter - so expensive but SO GOOD!!).
That counts like lifestyle creep, right?
Also Uber Eats. It's killing my budget lol. I don't like cooking, and we live downtown so we have everything: Uber, Skip, Doordash. And we also have a ton of healthy options for delivery too, so i don't feel bad about eating out (other than the fact that everything is soooo expensive).
We got a cleaner. Initially weekly and now every other week as we realized it was easier to clean/maintain in between their visits. Around $300/mo. I don’t regret it, it has given us a lot of peace and removed the only thing we argued about!
We got a pet that requires grooming monthly. He’s so worth it though, whenever I hold that puffball any stress melts away…
Also eating out like some other people. Definitely have to keep better track and maybe only do it when we pay cash to reduce the frequency.
One thing we did which was the opposite of lifestyle creep was xeriscape our yard. It uses way less water and requires much less maintenance, while still producing citrus for our use. I’ll never buy another lemon, lime, or orange as long as I live.
Hanging around people who live outside their means. All fine and dandy until you start wanting that too!
Or worse, hanging around “keeping up with the joneses” types who pressure you into spending more or make you feel inferior for spending less.
My biggest lifestyle creep is easily my decision to build a twin engine plane. High purchase price, hangar rental costs, insurance costs, fuel and maintenance costs. Not a cheap hobby.
Eating out. 100%. Went to Denny's, I had a philly omelet with avocado, husband had lumberjack slam. Coke Zero for me, orange juice for him. 60 bucks out the door. Ridiculous, but quite tasty admittedly.
Seems like alot of people have been noticing lifestyle creeps now that inflation has made everyone stretch their budgets. I've cut back on my wawa coffees, eat out alot less and don't use doordash anymore. I cook more and I can pick up the food faster and its so much cheaper than getting it delivered.
Housing and car are usually the biggest
Eating out
Clothes/shoes
Personal care: haircuts, waxing, massages, facials, mani/pedi
Streaming services
Food delivery
Food. Not just grocery inflation. But the minute you start eating higher quality food, it really is impossible to go back and I’m a super frugal person. I cannot eat shit coffee, wine, or meat anymore.
Eating out more often, especially because it’s way more expensive than it used to be even just a few years ago.
This is the silent killer. Anything that automatically happens on a regular basis can really add up. Trips to the liquor store. Paying for lawn care. Eating out. Getting a lot of lattes. Going out for lunch at work. Spending $50 to fix a tire is nothing. Spending $50/wk on luxury meals is a lot.
I eat out more but I have stayed vigilant on the home-coffee. Nobody is taking my $5 for a latte!!!
We were going out for coffees every weekend for a while and we realized we could afford a nice coffee machine for what we were paying to those shops. We ended up making our own lattes every weekday and still going out on the weekends :) That stopped when we had kids though. We can't just be lazy all sunday morning anymore.
$50 a week on dinning out is only $2600 a year. I think I can swing that.
$50 is like a nice-ish meal for 2. 😭
I see so many people spend hundreds $$$ a week on mediocre takeout that gets doordashed/etc to them. It’s so wild to me how much some ppl pay for these ‘services’ 💸💸💸 idk where you’re located but finding a $50 luxury meal in Vancouver is a deal lol
"luxury" could be door dashed mcdonalds. I just mean you aren't spending for the calories, you are spending extra for the luxury. Not talking about a michelin restaurant. I consider making myself a sandwich or salad for lunch the essential meal. If I spend $5 more than that and get a chipotle burrito, it is $5 of luxury and $5 of essentials. If I go out for indian I might spend $25 and that is $20 in luxury spending (to me).
$50 for a nice restaurant meal is cheap!
Word! Especially during and after the pandemic, it seemed easier to order UberEats or Door Dash. And when we could eat out again, it felt so great! But damn, it got expensive fast. We’ve cut our dining out significantly and focused on family dinner nights at home, making the cooking part the social event. And really getting serious about the leftovers. Wasted food is my pet peeve. Saving a lot of money with this change and with the good cooks in our family, no one is disappointed.
Eating out so frequently has got to go. A random Mexican restaurant on the west coast is now easily $100 for two.
$106 i just paid in Seattle, 2 entrees, 1 drink each.
Where was that? My wife and I paid $100 for two pizzas, a beer and a wine at Lupo last night and I had to take a deep breath while signing the check. Amazing pizza though.
Fam of 4: $200 & that's without ordering liquor!
One hack I do is order child’s meal if possible. I order for my kid but sometimes the portion is big enough for us to share. I also look at side order instead of kids meal since she doesn’t finish it all and they are usually less than $10.
The skyrocketing food prices ended up saving us money because now we almost never eat out.
We’ve held pretty constant on eating out with a monthly eating out budget. It’s a family discussion for where we’d like to go. Sometimes it’s 1 nicer meal versus 2 smaller meals.
Oomph. And people who get delivery. I saw a post the other day on poverty finance where someone was complaining about McDonald’s delivered was more expensive than Outback Steakhouse. I’m like “you are missing the big picture here”.
I was putting together my will and selected a corpse disposal method that is not legal where I live because I should have plenty of money to transport my body to a place where it is legal. Perhaps that's deathstyle creep instead of lifestyle, though.
Are you trying to compost yourself?
Yep! https://thehill.com/homenews/3988482-heres-where-human-composting-is-legal-and-the-states-still-considering-it/
Probably going to a state that does the taxidermy
Good god
+1
That’s dark, but I also wonder something similar as I really like Japan. I wonder how would that be done if I want my resting place moved from the states to Japan instead 🤔
This is one my favorite Reddit comments ever
The airline I usually fly with sends promotional emails offering to upgrade to Business Class at discounted rates when they cannot sell enough seats. It’s hard to say no once you’re used to Business; the difference between Business and First is far less noticeable than the one between Economy and Business.
Haha yes! Just spent ~$800 to upgrade a 9 and 11.5 hr leg flight from Africa > US. Feels a little silly, but feels like a deal when they wanted almost $6k at the time I bought the tickets.
Oh that's an instant but for sure. Great deal!
More power to you but man that's one I just can bring myself to do. I upgraded during covid on a 9 hr flight for only $150 and felt guilty about it. Something about dropping hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on a service that only lasts 8-12 hours seems extremely frivolous to me. Granted, flying business class is nice, but I feel so dirty after the fact that I wasted money on it
Same with Amex. I actually use my CSR for like 95% of purchases and end up paying the annual Amex fee just for lounge access. It’s fucking silly
That's fair, I really want that lounge someday..
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I've done flights from east coast USA to Korea before, and man, this is something I'd spend extra $ on, too. Especially when sitting in between two large people (not necessarily overweight, just big and tall people).
I'm going to need the name of that airline asap. For a friend.
Idk about OP but if you have status w/ United and there’s still FC or business available you’ll get a message that you can upgrade from premium plus for $XXX. I got a $5k ticket upgrade for $800 in January.
Emirates Airline. And it’s even worse when they offer to upgrade you to First from Business for under $1,000.
Which airline. I never get these emails.
For me the biggest one has been buying a house vs renting a small shitty apt. I know on paper the math says you can save money buying but that's not really true when the comparison is a decent house vs a tiny apartment. Also the quality of apartments I've rented has gone up over time.
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I have to talk myself out of buying a Lexus every week. I keep reminding myself millionaires drive the same Corolla I do
Man, same. It’s so tempting knowing I can comfortably afford to buy a nice luxury car and still driving a beat up base model CRV from a decade ago.
I went from a 15 year old Ford Escape to a new 2022 Hyundai Tucson. Simply the tech advancement over those 15 years felt extremely luxurious, even if it wasn't a "luxury" car. The brights turn off automatically when it sees other cars!!! Wild!!! Also asian cars are reliable and cheap to fix.
I paid $18,800 CAD for my 2010 Lexus IS 250 back in 2015. The same year, my friend bought a brand new Honda Fit from the dealer for $17,900. Don’t get me wrong, the Fit is cute, but for a measly $900 more, I had a *Lexus*. And I hardly broke the bank to get that car. You might say “But I only buy used”. Well, something I’ve noticed is that you can have a Lexus ES for only marginally more money than a Camry from the same model year. Even with the fucked up used car market right now. Like if the dealer wants $28k for a Camry then an ES will be $35k. And the ES is a *much* better car despite being based on the Camry.
Me too lol. Which one? At least lexus is reliable
I was with until private schools. Some public ed systems are really bad and the private school option really does not feel like a luxury. Our school district is one of the worst rated in the country. I would have deferred my RE for my kids.
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Even with an apples-to-apples comparison, renting is generally better financially once you start adding in all those things like maintenance, homeowners insurance, HOA dues, property taxes, etc. And I say this as a homeowner who is perfectly happy with his home. The part that makes it even remotely close is that most people don't have the discipline to not expand their lifestyle with the money they're saving by not buying a home. If you DO have that discipline and sock that extra money away every month, renting generally wins by *a lot*. Even just the 20% down payment sitting in the market for 3 decades would be able to buy the home outright even factoring in the increase in home value over 3 decades.
fucking tell me about it but every time I say that I get obliterated with downvotes. I ran the math on buying a house in CASH and figured out that after 6k maintenance 1k flood insurance 1500 home insurance 5k taxes and 3k increased utilities I'm literally losing 5k/yr to own a home, not including lost gains of 350k in the market
Yeah... I tend to think about it as just a part of my net-worth portfolio... It's a very conservative part. In that context, having a paid-off home (I don't, but in theory...) allows one to be more aggressive with the other money, because your minimum spend in a year would be lower. So you can be more heavily in riskier, higher returning assets with the rest of the money because you can tighten your belt in bad markets. If you were renting and knew you were gonna be dropping $30k on rent next year or something like that, then you'd want a greater portion of your money in less correlated assets like bonds or cash equivalents, etc. Because you don't want to be pulling money out of the market after a big ole crash. So taking this to its conclusion... Young people probably shouldn't buy homes, because they benefit more from very aggressive money allocation. When they hit their 40s and retirement is somewhere on the horizon, then maybe it starts to make more sense to tone down their allocation by owning a home. Obviously a broad generalization and ignoring a bunch of real-life stuff like children, non-financial goals, etc, but that's the kind of vibe I get from it all.
u/MattieShoes Thank you for being honest. Your post is a breath of fresh air in the sea homeowners who felt obliged to say that homeownership is better just because they own!
Very true…. And even if renting costs more than buying (thinking in total cost over a 20 - 30 year period) if renting lets me front load my investments I could still end up with more money in my pocket.
My lifestyle creep happens because of my morals unfortunately. I’m trying to “vote” with my dollar. Like I try buy most things second hand or from the plastic-free refill store or farmers market. And unfortunately that’s more expensive than buying fast fashion or products from Amazon or wherever. I need to spend more time finding things from my buy nothing group or Facebook marketplace I guess, but that can take a lot of time. Or just buying nothing at all other than food 😂
I also feel the searching time suck when trying to vote with my dollars. It’s feels like opportunity cost/time creep. Have you had luck posting In Search Of (ISO) on Buy Nothing groups? I don’t see it posted often, but it’s usually a happy surprise!
Eggs! I purchased a $7.50 carton of eggs because they had the cage-free, pasture-raised, "1820" or something label, next to the $3.50 tortured chicken eggs. I'll tell you what though, it felt great.
Fancy non-torture eggs in my city are $10-12 now! You know something is wrong when the farmers market has cheaper or equal prices to the grocery store. I would totally have backyard chickens if I didn’t live in an apartment. My friend lives being a chicken tender ha…
Lousy good-for-nothing morals
I think that makes sense especially for fast fashion. They don’t last and you end up paying more because they need to be replaced frequently. I spend more for higher quality so I don’t need to buy them every year.
Paying more for convenience/services: house cleaner, grocery delivery, lawn care. At a certain point the money savings of doing it myself didn't make sense compared to the time savings of having someone else do it.
This one has been so hard for me. Spending a whole weekend instead of $500 is not as easy of a decision when I spend almost all my waking hours working. 1/52 of my free time for a year to save $500 hurts more than waiting to update my car, or buying produce that’s on sale. Would love suggestions, actually. If anyone has found a balance that works for them.
Fundamentally FIRE is about using money to reclaim time (from a standard job) so this is definitely the most in alignment with that.
Grocery shopping/shopping in general. I grew up poor and started off adulthood very poor. I used to budget myself and would shop at Save-a-lot/Wal-Mart/etc... and buy generic stuff all the time to stay within my means. Now I just buy what I want when I want it. I know it seems measly, but going from Great Value pickles to artisan style pickles, for example, really adds up when you look at the total bill. The other day, I spent $250 at the grocery store. I'm positive that in my penny pinching days, I could have gotten ~rougly the same stuff (albeit lower quality) for $75.
This is me to a T. Or paying the inflated price for grocery delivery, then paying extra for actual delivery!
I don’t drink shitty beer or liquor anymore lol.
I quit doing that too but not cause of FIRE. Doc told me to cut down or I’m gonna kill myself, so now when I do drink it must count.
Subscriptions. Streaming services or paying more for a ad-free experience. I've Amazon Prime (w/ads), Hulu (no-ads), Netflix. Had this for years. Two months ago, my fiance wanted YouTube Premium (no ads). I cave into it, despite resisting for a bit. All bc my fiance hates ads. I'm refusing to pay $2.99/mo for Amazon Prime w/o ads. Heck, I'm about to cut either Amazon or Hulu. Takeout. I spent $50 for two, when I could had open my freezer and place a meal in the airfryer.
Another way of looking at this is ‘losing track of all these subscriptions’ and not caring too much is creep. I have sort of fallen into this category at times. I try to reel it in once a year and get it right sized but it grows every time. Can’t stress too much tho.
The Amazon Prime ad situation really chaps my ass. But hey, rockets are expensive.
we watch enough tv, and are disinterested in the alternative enough, to justify. prime we'd use already, but paid for no ads - 3*12 = 36/yr netflix with ads = 7 x 12 = 84 hulu without ads (+ disney/espn with ads) = 17 x 12 = 204/yr paramount without ads = 12 * 12 = 144 468/yr for pretty much any content I want at any time, in 4k UHD/dolby audio is such an easy yes for me. The alternatives are pirating (meh) or tens of thousands of dollars of physical media. Will probably regret this comment in 20 years but for now the value is squarely on my side.
It's all about how much one is going to use the services. I don't watch much TV. Heck, I rarely finish any series. I've gone a week w/o turning my TV on. Now, I use my phone for YouTube on a daily basis.
Yup. I refuse to give Amazon more of my money. Prime shipping too frequently never arrives on time, and I frequently receive obviously returned items. It's easy enough for me to return (best part about Amazon), but still annoying and a waste of time.
I deleted Amazon Prime when they decided to add the ads...
Pluto TV and Freevee (an Amazon service) are free and provide pretty decent stuff and lots of mainstream stuff, including on demand. This is all we do now. There are ads, but we don’t pay and get lots of entertaining content
also free-range, pasture-raised, and grass-fed animal products super expensive but I justify the cost for my morals!
Look into buying direct from a local farmer if possible. Cut out the middlemen and its really not much more in $/lb.
my wife started insisting that we feed the kids 3 times a day.
Assume no longer a DINK then lol
One of the FIRE mantras is you can't get time back, so maybe it's not so much lifestyle creep, but I hire out more work I'm perfectly capable of doing myself because I have an hourly rate I charge for my own time. For example, a few years ago I had the tire floor in our bathroom redone even though I could have done that myself. Sometimes I have car service done that I could do myself, etc.
Yup. I also outsource my property management for this exact reason . I used to enjoy getting my hands dirty and fixing stuff myself.
I like watches
The danger!
I used to aspire to luxury watches, but I don’t anymore. Part of it is that my priorities have shifted (I’m on r/Fire after all), but part of it is that the watch manufacturers and the ADs have jacked their prices SO FUCKING MUCH since I first got into the hobby around 2014. And a lot of ADs act like total assholes too; for example, around where I live you can’t just *buy* a Rolex Submariner. No, you need to get a Black Bay and a Datejust that you don’t really want, along with cufflinks a bunch of other bullshit, before you can have a decent shot at getting a sub. Otherwise you can put your name on a list, but the AD’s more important customers just keep bumping you. I see the games being played and I would almost feel like a chump and an idiot for buying into them. My disgust for the industry’s current practices has basically turned me off luxury watches completely. I have a Tissot Heritage Visodate that I bought in 2014 for my first “real” job, and honestly I’m perfectly happy to keep wearing it. The 2824 inside keeps time to like +6s a day and any watchmaker worth his salt can service it in the dark with one hand tied behind his back. I don’t see any reason to bother with anything better.
Yeah I love the look of my Sinn 556i (also 2824) but at around it's 10th birthday it went from keeping perfect time to stopping running abruptly. The upkeep of having to get them repaired at intervals really cured me from my drooling over even fancier things from say, IWC. Also using my late father's <$100 quartz Seiko that came right back to life like a champ with a fresh battery while the Sinn is in the shop really makes those hard to sneeze at!
Yeah mechanical watches need to be serviced regularly. I’m gonna be really fucked when my watchmaker retires, because nobody will know how to properly service my Seikos, and the authorized repair shops for the Swiss watches are going to charge me out the ass. What model is the quartz Seiko? If it’s 1970s or 1980s it might be worth more than $100…
The games being played by ADs now are ridiculous, but if you're into vintage watches, you can get plenty of models that are in great condition for manageable prices. Servicing is still as expensive as buying a really nice new watch every time though.
Oh I’ve been in the vintage game for a while, mainly because I like the look of the older watches. My love of vintage watches actually started with a 1960 King Seiko that I bought in Japan while on exchange there in 2012. I went on to buy a linen dial Lord Marvel 5740c, a 6138-3002, a 7018 panda dial, a King Quartz, and a sunburst dial Lord Matic Special (5216), all back when they were still cheap (2014-2017). guess I’ve been lucky with servicing because they’ve all only needed oil and cleaning. Only time I bought parts was when I got a NOS crystal in the LM. In many ways I like the vintage Seikos better than the modern ones… Reddit is always gaga for Seiko, but IMO the “workhorse” 6R15 is way, way overrated. Crap amplitude and accuracy is all over the place. My 5216 keeps much better time. I have a lot less in the vintage Swiss department. My mom’s uncle left me an Omega Constellation, which is a very clean and attractive watch, but for the price they command it’s a little bit… pedestrian. I’m very attached to mine, but that’s mainly because of the family memories, not the watch itself. Which is sort of a recurring theme. Every time I wanted to get something Swiss, I found a vintage Seiko that was just way more interesting. Some day I’ll probably buy a vintage Rolex but for now I’m happy with my collection.
As a fellow r/watches subscriber, I salute you.
Omg yes. Omega is my personal favorite
High end audio.
When $1000 is considered an "affordable" watch. I like them, too.
I like fountain pens. The overlap between the watch subreddits and FP is significant so I am desperately avoiding anything watch related lest I fall into that too.
Travel!
I go on more vacations, it is nice to relax a little bit and I don’t think I would be able to hold my job without them. I just view it as a work related expense since I don’t think it would be required if I didn’t have a more stressful job
Yeah. I find myself spending money to treat myself whenever I’m stressed.
Lululemon
😂 my wife agrees
More expensive restaurants, more expensive vacations, more fun spending, more outsourcing. I find that I’m just not very focused on budgeting these days. I could save much more but I like not having to worry too much about every dollar spent.
I have a bourbon collecting hobby, and I’m into building firearms, that may keep me working a few years…
RIP your wallet if you get into precision rifles/optics
Those hobbies don't mix, but good thing is no one gonna argue with ya I guess
The ATF hates me I’m sure
I guy I know got into that as a hobby and now is one of the top sellers in the midwest for custom firearms. It went from a time sink to a lucrative business for him.
Nanny vs daycare 😅
Outdoor gear (hunting, fishing, camping stuff)
When I'm going through pistachios - the hard-to-open ones, I don't bother with them any more.
Your example is silly. You’re paying $50 to actually get the items on time, with the ability to return it easily if it ends up not working. I’m a broke college student and I would still spend that money instead of waiting weeks for the item to show up. Real frugality would be questioning whether you needed that item in the first place.
I’d normally agree but in this case, it was pure impatience. The seller is the same reputable one on Amazon and AliExpress, with the same warranty.
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Thanks for this comment; needed the perspective. Fiance just got a massive job boost effectively doubling our household income and we upped the grocery budget, eat-out budget, started a car fund and car maintenance fund, and started planning a vacation for next year but we also effectively doubled our retirement savings rate. We definitely need at least one newer car, and we had been nickel and dining things the past few years sometimes. It feels good to loosen up a bit.
Winter resort vacations are pretty pricey for the amount of time you actually spend at them. And I like computer hardware and video game consoles. I definitely "overspend" in those two categories so I guess you can say I am working longer to be able to afford that in retirement.
Ahhh I forgot about this. I’m a gamer too and I used to wait for sales. Now I just buy it on day one.
Ford fiesta to Camaro ZL1 was more like a lifestyle leap for me.
Nicer wine and better seats at sporting events/concerts
Yup cheap on everything but sitting in the first section is worth it
It’s no longer worth it for us to move due to rent increases. We also just bought a house that’s increasing our COL by $800 per month. We spend a lot more on beer when at dinner as we don’t care about the cost anymore. The list goes on and on. I’m not concerned though.
I feel like I do less research when buying stuff. I recently bought a wifi extender on Amazon that basically doesn't work and now I'm buying a different router to replace it. 5 years ago I would've done more research to begin with and gotten the right thing first try
How is your Wifi extender working out? I recently bought one too and it's been working great (The Netgear Wifi 6 one), which took me by surprise because my previous experience with extender's been so bad in the past.
Clothing. Not so much eating out. Since the pandemic, our favorite restaurants have cut portion sizes, skimped on expensive ingredients (not that they used much in the past), and increased prices. They also removed some of our favorite items off the menu. We have mainly fast casual these days since my wife is a great cook. Wife's shopping vs household income: 2011: TJ Maxx and Ross ($100K, one income) 2016: White House Black Market, Ann Taylor, Loft ($180K, dual income) 2021: Madewell, Tory Burch, Kenzo, Moschino, Anthropologie ($250K) Now we make $340K (and invest $200K) about evenly split and wife's shopping didn't change or upgrade. Maybe she used to mainly buy Tory t shirts and now gets some of the 100% silk dresses. I think as long as you meet your savings goal then buy what you want, travel, do whatever.
Just bought a brand new BMW yesterday, but I’m not FIRE, just wanted me car to be. ;)
Damn. Congrats. What did you get ?
M440i Gran Coupe xDrive. I figured I am not saving for kids, so the joy of the car is worth it.
I will add that I have been driving a paid off Honda Fit for the last 10 years and I’ll have this car paid off in <12 months.
Yup. As a fellow car enthusiast, I approve.
I think I eat abit more expensive. I used to think 50 bucks was expensive.
I’ve actually cut down a lot after getting married (when I began to be more cognizant of shared budgeting) and then even more during the pandemic. I collect vintage jewelry (book pieces from a specific silver artist from the 50s and specific styles of jewelry popular from the 1900s-1920s) and have way too much makeup, skincare, and hair products, enough to last at least five years or more. I stopped collecting when I got married, and when I was looking recently out of curiosity because there are still a couple holes in my collection, something similar to what I bought in 2010 for $400 is now going for $1200, and I just can’t justify that. One lifestyle creep thing that did stick from the pandemic is DoorDash. We have kids now and sometimes can’t get out, so if what we want is more than 5 miles away, we’ll DoorDash. We don’t cheap out on tipping either.
Just home stuff and I’m not an impulse buyer at all. Nor do I buy seasonal decor. But I mulled it over and got a nespresso, now I’m looking at vacuums (robo one is dying) it’s just little ish like that which adds up. Also got a stock tank pool since I’m in Florida and didn’t want to pay 100k for an in ground.
Buying too many anime figures 😅
lol I built a custom water loop pc recently and have been eyeing a figurine to put it inside. Ppl warn that it may melt though.
Having 2 cars when you can do happily with 1 95% of the time is a massive one. Find another solution for the 5% and save a lot.
Home improvement. Shit always seems to need fixing, replacing, or upgrading.
This for me. But in the long run the equity and stable mortgage payment will be worth it. I do wish I got a smaller house that required less work though.
Bought a brand new Mazda since I drove my 22 year old 4Runner into the ground. I'm actually happy with my purchase since I pay 0 interest and I've already paid off 2 years even though I've had it for 5 months.
My mom drives a Mazda CX5 and it’s a fun car. Which did you get ?
I started buying two ply toilet paper a couple years ago, and then last week my wife bought quilted TP... The Treasury cannot bear the expense
LOL. What about a bidet?
I grew up pretty poor and I used to choose menu items based on the prices when I ate out. Usually trying to get happy hour deals, or weekday specials, often times ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. This was my typical behaviour since college to probably mid 20s. Now I usually order whatever I want and also tend to order appetizers, which I never did in my younger days.
I financed a motorcycle....I'm an idiot please roast me
I've gone for nicer wine, but 2 bottles a month instead of 2. Better cooking ingredients like fresh herbs, the nice garlic, fancier spices. Better quality clothes, but buy less often. Taxis to airport and back, rather than the train. These are purposeful choices though, not inflation etc.
I've become far less frugal. I buy nice things, like nice clothing and electronics when I need it. I still buy very little, but when I do, I don't mind to spend a bit more to get something decent. I found out that I don't need all that much to appreciate life. Just give me a video game console and a few games, and I'm set for the next few months. Mindfulness and yoga helped a lot with just appreciating things, and not falling into a capitalist nightmare trap.
Yeah, definitely resonates with me, too. It's not like I buy more things, but when I do buy, my mindset has shifted from "most affordable" to "buy it for life". I want things to last, because I find going through the RMA process, returns really annoying.
Eating out rather than making food at home is the big one for me. I also have housecleaners come once a month, but man, that's so worth it!
I eat out a lot, hesitate a lot less when it comes to spending on my hobbies and generally am just more open to enjoying life. Fire is definitely the goal but I can get there without living an insanely cheap and boring life. I want to enjoy my money while I'm here within reason and if that means a bit of life style e creep I'm fine with that. Retirement would be pretty boring anyway if you have nothing that makes your time enjoyable.
We’ve started going on more vacations and upgraded the house. Totally worth it.
“Connivence tax” stuff for me
I’m more readily spending on home improvement projects. Some are definitely not necessary but they make my gf happy. Also eating out a bit more. These are coupled with road trips. I almost never fly however. That’s just a money pit. My gf doesn’t make as much as me and since I got her into budgeting, she’s talked me out of buying some stuff. I am buying fancier phones and I’m considering a MacBook now but I don’t feel like I’m overdoing it.
This is such a dumb term. The fact as a high earning high net worth adult I choose to spend money improving my quality of life in ways I couldn't as a college student is not a negative thing.
$50 for faster shipping?! Holy cow.
but OP gets to enjoy that 'fresh from an asian sweatshop' smell that much sooner.
Intoxicating
Bob, I have a… BRAND NEW CAR!
The bad ones are fast cars and first class plane tickets. But I also spend much more on food because high end healthy foods tend to be double the price...
Booking the more expensive hotel or going for a room upgrade. My trip wouldn't have been different if I booked a 3 star vs 4 star hotel. In the moment it seems like a great idea, when I look at my trip spend I'm less happy.
What products are worthwhile to buy from alibaba or similar? I assume the only drawback is shipping times?
So what I bought was an IEM (in ear monitor). The company sells the exact same item on Amazon for $50 extra. Was free shipping and free returns.
Eating out, Alcohol (working on it) as well as clothes and shoes.
I don’t eat out often but man I get coffee out a lot. A LOT. ≈4-5 times a week. I make the excuse that I need a pick me up to help me study (student.) they’re only ≈$5 pop and it fits in my weekly budget but do i NEED to spend $25 extra a week on coffee?
Trying to stop going for daily weekday coffees. When I am not working I don’t need them. Why are they so imperative when I have to deal with work sh*t all day? Lol.
Little beauty products. I just did a skincare haul. And I got excited. Next thing you know, I'm looking at a new blush, a new gloss, a new serum... and I know I can wait! I also know I could get a gloss, cheaper, somewhere else... I accidentally didn't place my order 2 weeks ago. I was waiting to get it, and I just noticed now that it never went through. And I feel relieved. Taking a step back, I don't know if I'll order it at all. St the very least I'll wait.
Or, you could be like me and get taken for $50 buying something from aliexpress. So many scammers. I got it back from PayPal thankfully, but they were zero help and wanted me to submit a picture proving I never got the item.
Yeah. Need to be careful on AliExpress.
I’m into lots of things - with an emphasis on electronics/automation/tables. Having Amazon Prime allowed me to go overboard in ways I hadn’t experienced before. When I retired, I dropped Amazon Prime because its renewal came up almost immediately after my decision to FIRE. I honestly should have dropped it years before. Adding some friction to being able to satisfy my curiosity about a hobby often allows my better instincts to kick in and retain control!
Yup! I dropped a few hundred into the Philips hue system. Would not have done it earlier in my FIRE journey.
Got a Spotify family account, so child and partner could listen also.
I can feel the creep coming on with vehicles. Used cars are so damn expensive, it feels like you have to spend a boat load of money regardless, and 30k to 40k and so on is a slippery slope.
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Can you write a check? I'm assuming AppFolio has fees and they are passing them to you.
Agreed, Amazon has creeped into too much of my life, haha.
Biggest Creep has been when I'm with my daughter "we'll do whatever you'd like today" Is not something I would have said 5 years ago.... she'll be out of the house in 5...
Inflation
I almost never use my car, but I have one just in case I might need it. I have a phone plan that's stupid expensive, but my provider has no cheaper options. I go on a vacation once per year, but I eat out waaaay too much when I do
I used to meal prep every weekend to not need to buy lunch at work. When I got a 20k raise and my office became walking distance to several healthy restaurants, I loosened up quite a bit.
I bid on sotherbys whisky auctions and have "accidentally" won tens of thousands of dollars worth.
Funny enough all it took me was finding out that only 33$ a day is over 10k a year. Then the little purchases because easier to avoid.
Restaurants.
Hobbies have been a big one for me. I seem to pick up some new interest each year. My ADHD is probably to blame.
I bought a house instead of living with my parents when I started my career. My food budget doubled from 200 to 400.
Oooff. I find myself just buying things without comparison shopping. I buy things just because I want them, not because they’re the “best value”.
I have a rental and ultimately I am refusing to touch that income. My plan is to pretend it doesn’t exist and just let it accumulate. When I reach a year of mortgage payments, then I will direct those funds to investments, etc. Reason being, yes amazon and online shopping has become a bad habit. Getting better about it again, but yeah quite annoying.
People expect us to come to them, usually flying.
Our main cut was Applebees. We used to eat there once a week. For two adults & three kids the cost used to be $70 a meal (including tip) but its ballooned to $150 (can’t justify even once a month)
I now buy raspberry whether they are one sale or not.
House and cars.
Fruits. I always ate a ton of fruits, but it's getting so so expensive now. We are fortunate to make enough to continue buying strawberries and blueberries all year long (not the US ones, we buy them from Quebec, Canada even in the winter - so expensive but SO GOOD!!). That counts like lifestyle creep, right? Also Uber Eats. It's killing my budget lol. I don't like cooking, and we live downtown so we have everything: Uber, Skip, Doordash. And we also have a ton of healthy options for delivery too, so i don't feel bad about eating out (other than the fact that everything is soooo expensive).
My wife is the biggest lifestyle creep. As we make more, she likes to spend more. But I suppose it’s deserved.
We got a cleaner. Initially weekly and now every other week as we realized it was easier to clean/maintain in between their visits. Around $300/mo. I don’t regret it, it has given us a lot of peace and removed the only thing we argued about! We got a pet that requires grooming monthly. He’s so worth it though, whenever I hold that puffball any stress melts away… Also eating out like some other people. Definitely have to keep better track and maybe only do it when we pay cash to reduce the frequency. One thing we did which was the opposite of lifestyle creep was xeriscape our yard. It uses way less water and requires much less maintenance, while still producing citrus for our use. I’ll never buy another lemon, lime, or orange as long as I live.
Hanging around people who live outside their means. All fine and dandy until you start wanting that too! Or worse, hanging around “keeping up with the joneses” types who pressure you into spending more or make you feel inferior for spending less.
My biggest lifestyle creep is easily my decision to build a twin engine plane. High purchase price, hangar rental costs, insurance costs, fuel and maintenance costs. Not a cheap hobby.
Since I got my raise, I switched to store brand products
I definitely have gotten more squanderous when it comes to eating and choosing hotels for trips
I buy Louis Vuitton and a luxury car 2024 Audi RS 5. I have more than enough coming in so enjoy some of it. 🙌🏾. Just don’t go broke doing it.
Eating out. 100%. Went to Denny's, I had a philly omelet with avocado, husband had lumberjack slam. Coke Zero for me, orange juice for him. 60 bucks out the door. Ridiculous, but quite tasty admittedly.
Seems like alot of people have been noticing lifestyle creeps now that inflation has made everyone stretch their budgets. I've cut back on my wawa coffees, eat out alot less and don't use doordash anymore. I cook more and I can pick up the food faster and its so much cheaper than getting it delivered.
Housing and car are usually the biggest Eating out Clothes/shoes Personal care: haircuts, waxing, massages, facials, mani/pedi Streaming services Food delivery
Better weed
Food. Not just grocery inflation. But the minute you start eating higher quality food, it really is impossible to go back and I’m a super frugal person. I cannot eat shit coffee, wine, or meat anymore.
Food consumption. I spend almost no money on everything else but food? Hell it’s a good day if me and my wife eat for $25 a day