Did you significantly downsize or simplify?

Yea, I had to. After leaving the military I went from making 50k a year to 20k hahahaha…

Oh god I hate my life

I was laid off from a great job in 2009, smack dab in the worst job market in decades. My income is still lower than before.

I cook at home for almost every meal and carry my lunch to work. Not a huge change but now restaurants are more of a treat I save for occasions with close friends.

The huge benefit for me has been immunity to advertising and desires for unnecessary crap. Before I buy anything, I always ask, “When I wake up tomorrow, would I rather have this thing? Or would I rather have the cash?”

What would I do differently? I wish I had immediately cut my spending. It took a while to realize the pay-cut was long term.

We are working on downsizing. I am repainting the house and after that will install a wood floor on the majority of the first floor.
I have rooms that, if I force myself, I go into once a week, maybe. We want something smaller, more compact, more efficient, less expensive to maintain, less taxes and less insurance.
Both kids are on their own now, my grandkids will be devastated that they no longer have a pool to play in but they will get over it and if I never had to backflush again it would not break my heart.
I am semi-retired and within the next couple of years my wife will be. We want to travel and have a place to come back to, not to spend our life maintaining and paying for.
I am open to any and all suggestions along these lines; @JLeslie thanks for asking this question.

@rojo I know a few people who moved to condos once the kids were out of the house. Let somebody else deal with the maintenance.

Like you mention, they spend the money on traveling instead of a new roof or furnace.

There’s a somewhat common progression in my area – young adults have urban apartments, they move to the suburbs to raise kids, then they get a condo in the city.

Most people with a suburban home like to stay put. But a good number make the move back into town.

Well, having our net household income drop from ~$3k/month to just over $1k/month has caused a few problems, not least of which being that rent is just over $900/month. Fortunately, we are used to living lean, and live in an area with assistance for people in my situation, so we’re managing to scrape by.

@jaytkay Yeah, 2009 was when I wound up jobless for 13 months. Barely crawled out of that hole before being right back in it again.

Only recently we hired dwarf cleaners, the butler still complains we’re short staffed.

@jerv @jaytkay 2010 was my year to be laid off. I was laid off a year before finding a job making 20K less and it was a part time job. Fortunately, I lived pretty frugally and owned my car, had no credit card debt and only owed on my house. But I still was scared that I would have to downsize that. In 2012 I got another job making 10K more than part time job, but still below my original salary.
So I am looking to downsize my house now. I’m getting older, it’s a lot of upkeep and there are too many stairs. Plus I have an acre of grass that needs mowed each week.

@jleslie You ask “what would you do differently…” I would have downsized a lot sooner. Now I’m going to spend several thousand dollars to get this house in tip top shape to sale which I probably won’t get back out of.

I will say that my habit of buying cars that cost $1000 or less and owning them outright does help.