One of those rule of thumbs lessons that I use to consume less is to monitor spending from food, insurance, transportation, and housing. (It spells FIT,H – not the best mnemonics, unfortunately.) The reason is that those are spending that makes up the largest share of a typical household.
The figure included shows expenditure shares of Japanese households. It shows expenditure on average, by 3 age groups. Some thoughts:
Food spending is constant throughout life.
Insurance – this is not a category in the figure, perhaps because of the national health care system in Japan. The medical care spending for an average Japanese household is under 5%.
Transportation is higher for household age of less than 60, and falls as household retires.
Housing is also higher for the younger households.
One takeaway from the figure is that after retirement, spending as a percentage shifts to “other consumption expenditures,” which in likely controllable. As a saver for retirement at a younger age, it is important to note that a willingness to consume less means that the same saver can save less over the working age.
The figure is taken from an International Monetary Fund article. The paper is at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=41812.0, and discusses the effects of population aging on the economy.