Officially we have no inflation but looking at a few bits and bobs, there seems to have been some downsizing going on in recent years (Yazoo milkshake still £1 but 400ml instead of 500ml = 20% effective price increase.

In 2008 I bought a 3-year old Ford Focus for £3.5k, equivalent now is c £7 or 8k

So I’m slightly dubious about official figures – you may find even if you’re buying the same stuff in the weekly shop, downsizing would mean you go through it more quickly and have to replace it more quickly = higher overall monthly cost.

I was self-employed last year and cut my spending right down as a result as I didn’t know how long the money would keep coming in for. Now I’m back in a perm role, earning much less, I spend more – basically up to my salary (after savings)… we spend what we earn. Very difficult not to.

Recently started to ride to work most days and take my own lunch in. That’s saving me over £200/month, which is pretty significant…

We’ve got used to a very high level of material wealth and I reckon if we really challenged ourselves we could all easily live on 20% less by cutting out a lot of stuff that we don’t really need…

Horse2
Mortgage
Horse1

In that order.

I have a camper conversion to do this year but I’ve saved for that.

The rest is frittered away on lunches/impulsing ebay purchases.
My bike related spend is actually very low (all my bikes are over 10 years old) probably the biggest spend is clothing. (for cycling, I only go shopping for normal clothes once a year!)

This is a pretty interesting article about REALLY saving money – made me think about what we need to spend to get by (look also at the referenced blogs)

http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2015/nov/26/black-friday-buy-nothing-day

We’ve got used to a very high level of material wealth and I reckon if we really challenged ourselves we could all easily live on 20% less by cutting out a lot of stuff that we don’t really need…

This x 100. I think if most people really tried we could halve our food bill alone, never mind other non essential things. I guess it depends a bit on where you are in your life and what your goals are. Its all very very well to scrimp and save to pay for something that you will enjoy but we also work hard so it is nice to enjoy some of the benefits of this.

Where does it go?
Beer. I love it, and can’t get enough of the stuff.

About 10 years ago I began taking a more structured approach to personal budgeting, soon reduces your spending on fast food, forgotten direct debits and pointless car journeys.

Now my biggest outgoings are (in order) retirement planning, mortgage, family food/clothes etc, holidays, contigency saving, utilities/insurance, buying stuff, alcohol.