4. Life Insurance Premiums
For many retirees, life insurance isn’t an essential expense. The most important reason to have life insurance is to replace one’s income in the event of an untimely death. You want to know that if you die, your family will be able to cope and will not face excessive hardship.
By the time they retire, the majority of adults have no dependents in their household. This means that paying for premiums isn’t really necessary. If you pass away, your spouse will not be affected by a sudden change in income because you’re living off of your retirement assets and investments.
Of course, continuing to pay for a small policy that can cover things like funeral fees is not unreasonable. Even if you keep smaller insurance, ending the term on a larger coverage can save you a lot of money in monthly or annual rates.
Bottom line… it comes down to what one plans for. If you have the financial resources in retirement for those things in the “list of things your don’t need in retirement”, and you enjoy those things… no harm done. There are things in that list that would perhaps help a person who is struggling financially in retirement. Retirement is so incredibly “INDIVIDUAL”!!! How well you’ve planned & saved, financial resources, personal preferences & personal needs.
Well, You are talking to a different type of living than some of us. There is no public transportation where I live ( even in most suburbs). We never make enough income for the luxury of extra insurance. Our insurance was for cars and house! Going out to eat… seldom even fast food.. sometimes if we had a coupon. Going to a sit down place is a special treat! Buying groceries can be discouraging! We do eat less as we get older, so I take that as a saving! Unfortunately the cost of medication has increased! Could you resend out another list to save money as we could not relate to your list as they didn’t exist.
Funny, my “restaurant” expense has likely gone up since I stopped working….especially “Happy Hour” deals.
We definitely need a vehicle. We don’t live in a city. in fact, we have 2, a car and a truck. The truck is for hauling things like firewood, coal, furniture, etc.
We already pre-planned our funeral and used our small life insurance policies to pay for them. This should have been on your list. Pre-planning is a good idea. It takes the hassle away from family members and keeps them from fighting over what to do. My mom pre-planned hers and it was a big relief off my shoulders. I have no siblings but she still had 4 and I didn’t need them butting in and fighting over what to do.
None of the other items on your list applied to us. We stopped going to restaurants 30 years ago because it was an expense we didn’t need. We were only in our 50s.
When you do these “Frugal” thingies, you need to take into account that not everyone lives in a city.