If you are financially comfortable, have you started cutting back on non-essentials?

[LabraDabraDoo]

I realise that we are very fortunate to have the financial headroom to choose to cut back and at the moment we spend quite a bit on non-essentials. We did a budget last night to look at likely price increases (especially fuel) and it looks like, while our jobs are secure ( although our investments are in the doldrums) we will be cutting back on quite a few non-essentials. Anyone else also making this choice yet?

Our list includes:
Back to buying decent quality supermarket meat and reining in trips to the farm shop.
I’m not buying clothes this Spring, I have enough to clothe a hundred middle aged women. We aren’t heating unused rooms in the house. Horse riding lessons are being suspended ( kids didn’t seem too bothered so that’s an easy £200 saved). We’ve cancelled our plan to refloor downstairs (wooden floors, so that’s a big saving). I planned to raise the children to a cottage in Norfolk for a couple of weeks in summer and we’ve arranged a house swap with a friend instead. We are not going out to eat for the foreseeable, and outings will be free swimming at the gym, dog walks etc. All other home improvement plans and big spends ( I considered renewing my car) are on hold. There are some things I hope we don’t have to cut, like cancelling holidays, music lessons and our lovely cleaner. We are still saving money into pensions and investments.

Anyone else making cutbacks? Do you think it’s going to start having an impact on people who provide non-essential services or are they still enjoying a post-Covid boom?

Yes.

I’m not splashing out on the more expensive items on the weekly shop and I’m not keen to go on day trips any more. Having said that my own habits felt wasteful to me at times so I’ve not cut back on anything I don’t want to.

My DH still happily haemorrhages money on his hobbies though so I doubt it’ll make a difference to the household.

Yes. We have cancelled the cleaner, I’m going to start dying my hair myself (same dye the hairdresser uses) fewer meals out/takeaways, trying our best not to use the car and we aren’t going on the long haul holiday we were about to book. We are fortunate and I’m not complaining but the luxuries have been reined in until we know how bad this is likely to get.

What @IndigoC said!

I completely agree with you and as we don't have to make changes, I won't be making any in fact I will be more likely to increase my spending especially on charitable donations.

Reasonably okay for money (average earnings/good savings) but I’m on maternity leave right now and will have child care fees from autumn. Mine and dh’s jobs are reasonably secure but I might have a small pay cut to contend with this autumn at the same time as our outgoings are increasing. We were planning on buying a car but will hold off on that now. Cutting back on buying clothes, haircuts, etc. we have a holiday booked this summer, we will probably still keep that booking but we will need to carefully consider any additional trips. For us it will be small luxuries - nice shoes, expensive activities - heating only the rooms we need, walking/using public transport rather than purchasing a car. We won’t be cutting all spending but everything will be carefully considered.

We haven't started cutting back yet. One of our DC is currently recovering from a very serious mental health crisis and horse riding is a massive help to them. Likewise I'd protect the other DCs extra curricula stuff for as long as possible.

We are fortunate in that (unless one of us loses our incomes), we will have a choice to cut back on savings (for retirement, and hopefully help with DCs' house deposits at some point) or to cut back on spending. I guess we will probably do a bit of both though.

I am mightily relieved that we made the decision against independent education though. When we considered it, we ran the sums but felt that 3x school fees was just too tight for comfort. We would be absolutely fucked now.

Fully understand this situation. It also shows that their is a wide spectrum of folks on MN and IMO is better for it. Council Housing to Leafy suburban avenues it is an advantage. "You are all sisters under the skin." and you allow others, like me to visit.

We had hoped to be going on a good holiday or two soon. as well as Covid there have been serious health issues for me which will be with me forever. Very DW deserves a treat or two.
Also we need to change the car, had just started looking 2 years ago, before I was ill and first Lockdown.
We have decided to sell our 4 bed house and buy smaller. It will be cheaper to run.

No. I'm not wasteful with energy, fuel, or food, but that's for environmental reasons. There's nothing I'm planning to cut down on for financial reasons.

As we did during Covid, we will continue to do our level best to support the businesses we want to survive. That means continuing to eat out at our local independent restaurants and using our local taxi man who is self-employed. I am saving where we can on supermarket shops, fuel and the like.

All these are really good. It is really going to impact businesses isn't it. If people are not buying coffees a d takeaways then these businesses will struggle! I know it's nothing compared to the Ukraine but it is still shit for those going through it!

@tentative3 take issue away. I raised it as a point for discussion, so I’d like to hear it. The comma remark was intended as lighthearted humour, but I appreciate tone isn't always easy to gauge online.

I’m genuinely not here to have a dig at comfortable people. Two years ago, I was one. I expect to be one again. And I got ribbed by a few people who (quite fairly) took issue with some of my overt self-indulgence and comfort. Now, I’m broke by anyone’s standards although there are certainly people worse off. I have a foot in both camps. (even now. I’m asset rich and income poor!).

Even so, its very hard to raise any points without people getting very defensive. I will keep trying!

@ReadyToMoveIt

And you might say ‘oh diddums, you have to drop horse riding lessons, poor you’ but imagine the effect on the horse riding lessons provider when half their customers have to cancel?

This!

I feel fortunate that we're in a position that we can cut back, but it's still hard to do.
Sky sports for example, is apparently 'essential'. I'm aware it's not, but I've pre-warned him that if it comes to it it'll have to come out of our personal spending money, and by 'our' I don't mean mine...I have no interest in watching it!
I earn reasonably good money, but we moved out of London two years ago and the budget was carefully planned to make sure we could afford the travel back in for work. I'm now struggling to afford that, and struggling to see it as 'essential' when I don't need to be in the office very often to do my job. I've had no payrise in 3 years but the cost of living has risen significantly. Just the energy bill alone - was £90/month, now £320/month.
That money has to come from somewhere, and unless we make cutbacks then it'll mean we don't save any money each month. I know we're lucky to be able to afford to save. But honestly, on a combined income of just over £80k we shouldn't have to be worrying about paying the gas bill.

My phone contract runs out soon so might go sim only. Not really cutting back on anything but will probably do some extra hours at work.

Yes, especially where I realised we were paying more for convenience (eg going to a closer petrol station). I tend to pay more attention to when our usual buys are on special offer and stock up. It's nothing major, just paying more attention to costs.

@TammyOne

Yeah I think that’s what was bugging me HellorHighWater It’s one thing actually needing to cut back, but if you are actually quite wealthy and secure- don’t! It’s not a fun game, it’s just a hobby to see how much more you can stash away. There are some posts on here saying “ mortgage is tiny, we are very comfortable, here is what we are cutting back on..” it’s not going to help the economy for wealthy people to stop buying goods and services. And I say this as someone directly affected by the economic devastation of the pandemic. For the love of god, if you can afford it, go out to eat! Buy from farm shops! Don’t sit in your virtuously cold houses counting your money. NOT aimed at people who genuinely need to cut back ( that would be us, as people don’t spend money in restaurants anymore!)

The impact on others of 'not spending' is a fair point but suggesting being prudent is just a hobby is not. Very, very few people are feeling secure right now. For those who are currently financially comfortable due to a safety net of savings, investments or property, these are volatile and being eroded too. If you are comfortable but have a mortgage, a property slump may mean crippling negative equity. There is so much economic uncertainty. So while it is fair to exhort those who can to keep spending money, its also reasonable for everyone to be rightly cautious about budgeting and expenditure and not take that comfort for granted.

And yes some 'cost-cutting' ideas might be merely superficial or downright counterproductive but I would think enabling a polite discussion around this is far more constructive than condemnation.

We're very comfortably off but I've always been fairly frugal because we married very young so I had to be careful with money then and have never really got over that. However, for environmental concerns, I long ago decided only to go to the supermarket in our local town when I needed other things from town - so one trip to do two things rather than two trips. Our heating is set to 18 until we sit down in the evening and I wear a cami, fleece and gilet to keep warm. I do use my tumble dryer though - got fed up with the local pigeons pooing on my washing!

@Meatshake

Tone deaf maybe, but I think it's actually a really important indication of "how things are going" when the comfortable and affluent are starting to go "oh, shit".

We'll probably nix trampoline lessons (£100/term) and we've banned the tumble dryer. Swimming lessons are staying for now. We're holding off booking the big holiday (~£10k) we were planning for husband's 40th next year.

If life gets more expensive we will SORN our second car as it's a luxury not a necessity. Can't get rid of it as it's a classic and a hand-me-down and FIL would never forgive us!

We're being strict-ish on our food shop (Aldi and sticking to food planning). Aiming for £150/week for the four of us (Inc cleaning stuff, the odd takeaway)

Hot water and heating no longer go on in the morning.

Normally I raid the sales and start building the kids a clothes stash 1-2 years ahead but now I'm going to just replace things as they're worn out. I've just paid off my next store card and closed the account to stop me being tempted by the sales!

Otherwise we're throwing some money at the problem- boiler, solar panels, new fridge freezer, new oven. All things that were due in the next 5 years or so anyway (current oven is 30 years old, boiler is 40 years old, fridge freezer is probably 15 or so and in a bad way) but we'll dump some money out of savings and up our monthly payments back into savings to replenish them. We will be putting foil down the back of the radiators, and we are putting in draught excluders.

We're waiting for BT fibre optic cables to come to our street then we're sacking off the virgin package (£50/month) in favour of a broadband only option. We'll keep our Netflix/Disney+/prime video subs instead.

The main thing is that my sibling and I have started to discuss an emergency survival plan in case either of our families lose income- mainly them moving in and taking a floor in our house and renting their house. That should cover both our mortgages at least.

be careful. My BT fibre optic package is really blooming expensive but I am on contract till november :(

I've recently been thinking about cutting down on my riding lessons, even thought they are the best hour of my week. The school really struggled during covid like a lot of businesses, and most of ours locally have closed, so I'll keep on going to try and ensure they are still there. The staff work so hard often in miserable conditions for not great pay.

I'll cut down elsewhere on costs (clothes, hairdresser etc)

We make a few charitable donations via direct debit and don't plan to cut back on those, all to animal rehoming charities who are already drowning in unwanted lockdown pets and in desperate need of funds. Will definitely be walking more, will just take the car when absolutely necessary, maybe do more online grocery shopping if I can get a saver slot for £2 delivery fee, but get really fed up with all the substitutions. DSD will be coming to stay EOW when she and her mum relocate here from up north, there'll be extra food and activity / fun money needed then as DH ex hasn't said anything about reducing child maintenance when the new arrangement starts, so we've discussed dropping DH sky sports subscription and my Prime subscription. Will buy Prosecco instead of Champagne for my and DH's birthdays!

I'm not a big shopper, don't spend a lot on clothes, don't wear makeup or buy magazines, so not really sure where else to cut, having turned the thermostat down obviously, and lined the curtains with cheap Ikea fleeces.

We are ok at the moment, but I'm in a line of work where I'm likely to be affected by people in the OP's position cutting back - I'm a sports massage therapist. So it's definitely on my mind. We have cancelled Netflix, and I'm investing in my business to try and give a better service to my existing clients (through CPD courses), and am trying find more new ones, so investing in advertising.

It's hard to know where we could cut back tbh - I mean we could cancel Disney+, but that's all of about £5. We don't have any other subscription services, we shop at Aldi, we are frugal with clothing and so on. DS's only activity is swimming, which I'd be loath to drop. It's difficult.

I've just bought a new house.
It need work doing. Carpets, decorating the lot.

But instead we'll just have to do the essentials

I wouldn't say I was comfortable, but I consider myself fortunate that I can pay my bills and mortgage and still have a bit left over for luxuries.

But to answer the question, yes I have started cutting back. I'm not using the tumble dryer unles absolutely necessary, I've made a decision to buy only 2nd hand clothes and to make a conscious decision to pay off any debt (outside of my mortgage) , so I'm in a better place financially

@Bringsexyback

This will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, The more you panic and cut back more businesses will go down the drain, unemployment will rise which will then downward pressure on wages, honestly people just need to hold their nerve.

that's fine to say but energy WILL go up. My energy supplier has just advised me that i will need to double my monthly direct debit to cover my usage which is not excessive.

I've let the butler have Saturday off to visit his old ma