If you're not tracking it, then yes, I suspect you would indeed be surprised at how much you are spending on food

We are both naturally frugal, with the exception of food which we feel to be a false economy as a way to go cheap given it's long term impact on your health, though even our healthy choices trend towards value options. One of the great surprises in retirement has been the way our net worth has grown substantially, not shrunk. Semi retired at 54, (me,) and 58 DH, with DH continuing to do some contracting as needed by his last employer, as well as selling off stock options from working days. We just sold our last lot of options, and it's been a year since DH accepted a contract, which I guess makes us officially fully retired as of now. Semi-retirement took place in 2018.

That said, we don't deprive ourselves and travel extensively. Health care is a BIG chunk of our expenses, with my ACA premium alone being about $900/month for a high deductible plan. Had retiree healthcare until DH turned 65, now realizing how underappreciated that was until we had to do without.

We do a WAG budget of about $100K/year, intentionally high and based on credit card statements/on-line banking, never reached max spending, but really don't track it closely. The budget includes annual savings towards property maintenance and car replacement, some other longer term budget items, so it's logical that we don't spend those budgeted savings. I have always hated budgeting and given our frugal nature have found that it's not necessary. We do however track our net worth and have a high level of confidence that we will not run out of money, backed up by a 3rd party.

I very much doubt I could have talked DH into early retirement if we had felt a need to adhere to a budget.

IP