How do you make the most out of your fat spending?
How do people here handle budgeting / expense tracking once they’re well past the point of needing a strict budget?
I assume most people in fatFIRE aren’t doing detailed monthly budgeting in the traditional sense. Probably a mix of naturally spending below their means, having a rough annual target, and occasionally checking they’re not drifting into wasteful spending.
But if you still want to optimise spending a bit, not necessarily spend less, but spend better, there has to be some kind of feedback loop.
What does that actually look like for you in practice?
Also interested in how people handle this with spouses/partners. Do you tend to align on an overall spending philosophy, have explicit discussions/limits, separate discretionary budgets, or mostly avoid thinking about it?
Here’s what we’re currently trying:
- Categorise expenses retroactively.
- Use that for some light feedback, e.g. we enjoy eating out and fancy groceries but not spending much on those. So try to spend a bit more.
- Pick some specific categories where we could be more thoughtful, for example holidays. Set a rough annual target. This helps to decide whether an expensive holiday is a good idea or too much this year.
- All other categories that seem, we just continue as we are without worrying about it.
My partner seems to be happy to have a budget for a very small number of categories.