Added a 3rd player to our family game of Life, managed to navigate the early years with relatively lower childcare costs thanks to one part-time job, one WFH parent, and the pandemic that (ironically) saved us from a few years more of preschool costs. As a result our kid got a lot more time with parents and is excelling in school.

Had one major dental piece of work done (an implant) in our fam and it's was seven fucking thousand dollars.

We bought two cars, both cash. Both used ~1-1.5 years old. Both required for commuting, one part-time. 4 years ago one of us adults went FT WFH and we have been weighing ditching the second car. For how horrible new cars are between subscription services and the ever present slow slide into cutting corners, the thought of hovering having to buy one in a few years if circumstances change make us want to have it, even when it mostly sits. I looked into car insurance that was pay-per-mile ~5 years ago and it was stupidly expensive, maybe $25/mp cheaper than full unlimited coverage. Even driving like 3 days per week, 100iles round trip was more expensive than unlimited traditional coverage. Convinced me the market was t mature yet. But if more sane PPM insurance comes to the fore it might change 2nd vehicle criteria.

Traveled hardly at all for 5 years and right as we were going to start traveling with our youngin COVID hit. COVID saved us a bunch of money for sure between activities we didn't get guilted into, trips, etc.

Health insurance costs are so wild. One of us has great insurance with low premiums but doesn't cover dependents. The other has decent health insurance but just annual premiums are $5,000 even without going to the doctor. That is fucking insane, which we all know the US system is.

Alcohol consumption has dropped a lot in the last few years in our house where it had been quite heavy. Probably 80% drop, save I'd guess $3-4k per year. Was honestly one of the only discretionary things I personally spent money on with any regularity.

Went from early to mid-careers, we can max out savings and just squeak by in life. Most others seem to be living for now and cutting savings rates. The older I get the less I'm sure that saving and giving up life moments and experiences when young is the wisest approach. Maybe crazy to say in this forum, but smwjth how fast inflation has and with all likelihood in the future eat up savings, I worry "the now" I'm giving up might actually be the only time I had to experience that thing as later it will be so much more expensive, relative to what it was in earlier years.

Oh boy. A ton has changed over the past decade for me. Ten years ago, I was in grad school and living in my parents basement. I had some small internship income and basically no expenses. My spreadsheet for Jan 2016 shows I spent $160 that month and earned $230. I'd started investing the previous year and had a net worth of roughly $40k.

Now I'm married with dual tech income, have a dog, own my house. My spending for last month was roughly $3000. I have expensive hobbies, go on big exotic trips once a year, spoil my dog endlessly,etc. My life is so much fuller than it was back then. My net worth nowadays has crossed the 2 commas club.

Thanks for keeping these going. Just joined and hope more people coming from Reddit can make this more active.

A decade is a long time. I've always been frugal, but I'd say that I've relaxed a bit in some spending as I've approached FI, mostly as it relates to things that make life easier (tools, software, etc.). I'm willing to pay more to make things happen a little faster. But, although spending as gone up more than normal for me, it is still less than my wage has increased.

We went from DINKs renting a place cheaply from family to SI2K owning a home. Spending is up at least 50%.