What have you cut

[CompulsiveGardener]

Always lived frugally, so there wasn't much to cut.

I do change the groceries that I buy week to week based on prices; I always shopped sales, store brands, and Aldi, but it's different now, in which some things are just ridiculously exhorbitant. We rarely ate out pre-pandemic, and now we almost never do, because restaurant prices here are absolutely insane.

Natural gas prices in our state have been very high the past couple of years. At one point I compared the bill to the prior year and the change in cost for the same number of therms (looking at cost for the actual usage plus all the fees) was close to a 50% increase. We dropped the thermostat a couple more degrees and wore heavier sweaters. Max settings: 58 at night, 65 daytime.

Made some changes to our homeowners and auto insurance policies, but then the rates still climbed over what they had been before the changes.

We do travel some. Roadtrips around the midwest to visit family, flights to visit family and sometimes friends on either coast. Looks like I will be flying to visit my parents regularly in the coming months due to health issues, whereas I was visiting them twice/year in recent years. That's going to add up...

[iris lilies]

Our cats would protest at 58 degrees! They would turn us in for cat abuse.

[Tybee]

We've had to turn up the lowest heat setting due to husband's COPD, but its still low to mid 60's. At 58 I swear we both start getting hypothermia.

Travel to family is so expensive! One year when we were dealing with parents' health issues we spent seven thousand dollars on travel to family. I haven't had a real vacation in I don't know how long, as we have been doing family travel only for at least 10 years now.