This is true, but also not as relevant as you think. Beyond housing costs (which OP has considered), the big one of these is probably commuting (if you had a substantial commute when working). But clothing costs are a pretty small part of most people’s budgets, so even if that went to zero it wouldn’t be substantial (and it won’t go to zero). As far as eating out, there are very few jobs where you can’t bring leftovers from home, so someone who eats out for lunch is likely to have made that choice as a lifestyle choice, not based on ability.
Lower cost housing is big, commute is often significant, but the rest of it is not likely to change much.
How many people have jobs where they can’t make it to the supermarket in the middle of the week? I’m sure it’s some, but…
Right but also the potentially big thing going in the other direction is the degree to which free time causes you to spend more (on either things or experiences) you didn’t while working. This is what IMO and E can blow up the idea of ‘you can live on 20% less’ retired. Some years into retirement, we spend significantly more not less even adjusting for general CPI inflation. One element there is not moving from a very expensive area nor to even to a smaller place. The other, again strictly individual, elements are whether you tend to spend more $ w/more with more time to spend, and whether you can do that without worrying about it.
Fortunately there’s a degree of natural adaptation. If you find money is tight spending the way you’d like, spend less and get used to it. Some people don’t have an internal feedback mechanism that makes them uncomfortable spending beyond their means. But most people do to some degree, and can just pull in their horns as necessary without a lot of anguish. Even many rich people might live like super rich people if they were super rich, but they’re not, so they don’t.
Moving to a cheap area from an expensive major metro area though is in the general right direction of making that adaptation smoother at least financially.
