The Austerity Budget Challenge

As retired persons, we’re not as vulnerable to our loss of income as many are these days. We still get our Social Security checks (for the time being, at least). Social Security is not, and was never meant to be however, the sole source of one’s income in retirement. We have other investments and sources of income that we still rely on each month to live our fairly comfortable life.

Though I think we’re prudent, we’ve also been very fortunate. We saved throughout our working lives and were careful with our money. Nowadays, though still relatively careful, we don’t watch every nickel and dime as closely as we used to. As college students and in our early marriage years and when the kids were young, we sometimes had to skimp and scrape to make ends meet. We went without sometimes; we made careful decisions on how our money was spent. When we first moved aboard Nine of Cups in 2000, we were retired but not old enough to collect a monthly Social Security check, so we were extremely parsimonious. We kept to a strict budget which wasn’t always easy, but which made sound economic sense.

So here we are in the midst of the coronavirus plague with reduced income and a stock market gone south, a situation, though not dire at this point, that could possibly worsen over the next few months. Though we’re optimists, the near future is looking a bit bleak economically. We were wondering if it was maybe time to review our expenses and decide if we needed to revert to an austerity budget once again. After much contemplation, the answer is yes. Maybe it’s not a necessity at the moment, but it is a challenge and Lord knows, we love challenges. Plus, we want to make sure we can still actually stick to a budget. It’s been awhile.

First, we did some math. What is our reasonably expected income and what are our necessary expenses each month? What can we do without? The basics are a given… the mortgage, utilities, food. New flowers and shrubs for the garden? We can live without them for this season. Give up wine? NO WAY! Though I guess we can drink less wine and make the bottles last a little longer. We need food, of course, but we know lots of ways to stretch the food budget and still enjoy our meals. What else? Well, we don’t need as much fuel because we’re not going anywhere lately. New camping gear and trekking clothes aren’t necessary. Sadly, there’s no travel in our immediate future. I’m not going to Savers every week, so that’s a significant savings in itself.

We figured out that we can tighten our belts a bit and we will… and perhaps have a few bucks left over to share with those not as fortunate as we are. We can do this!

What about you? Are you tightening your belts at all? What things would you be willing to do without if you had to? Are you worried about the economy in the coming months? We’d love to get your input.