I was asked quite a bit about how my spending habits changed when I resumed working. I figured the best way to answer the question was to keep track of the changes so that I could eventually respond by presenting the basic facts instead of my intuition and guesswork.
Here are the notable results:
-More likely to go to a bar and watch soccer games
-More likely to use the ‘T’ on a cold or wet day
Those changes all unambiguously raised my daily costs. But in terms of the dollar amounts, the impact isn't very relevant:
-Soccer games mean maybe two to three beers once or twice a month ($20-$40 total)
-The ‘T’ is kind of hard to say ($20 total)
So in terms of total spending, I’m looking at around a $50 increase per month. I'm not going to sneeze at that but it wasn't like NOT spending those $50 per month was critical to staying solvent while I was unemployed.
Here were a few things I thought might happen when I started working again:
-More likely to spend money on takeout
-More likely to buy pre-prepared grocery store items
-More likely to buy wine
-More likely to arrive early at a bar or restaurant and have a beer on my own
And here were my projections for how those could change spending:
-Takeout means maybe three to four times a month ($60 total)
-Grocery store items means maybe three to four times a month ($20 total)
-Wine means maybe two to three times a month ($30 total)
-Early beer means maybe once or twice a month ($20 total)
However, these haven’t really happened since I started working again. Going back to work was a big change but it wasn’t really a big deal and I think for the most part my frugal habits remained unaffected. The broader story here is that since I didn’t really change my spending habits at all while I was out of work, I should never have expected to change those habits when I did return to work.
