7 Chronic wastes of money

The greatest chronic wastes of your money probably don’t even go noticed. Most of the things we think we need to have a good time are overrated, or we don’t do a good job of guessing how much of something we need.

This is a list of my opinion on what I and possibly others waste lots of money on that we don’t need and might even make us healthier to boot.

1. Beverages – In general you don’t need to spend the money on drinks for every meal which at restaurants can be up to $3 per person. If you don’t want to drink water at least consider this idea. I love Dr. Pepper, but $1.50 for a 20 oz at the convenience store is a bit much. If I buy three of those in a week that’s $234 a year. If I buy a can of Dr. Pepper at a convenience store for $.75 I can still get my fix for half the calories and half the cost.

2. Price per pound at the grocery store – I’m talking about items at the produce and deli sections. I at least have done this several times and had it backfire on me. I thought, “wow at 99 cents a pound I’ll buy lots of (insert food here) and I won’t have to buy them for a couple weeks now.” Then I end up having the fruit, veggies, or whatever go bad and I have to throw them out. That’s a waste of money. I found that you can’t buy long term with short life products, they don’t last for weeks so I started buying fruits and vegetables for only a few days to a weeks worth and by planning meals instead of grocery lists I reduced my waste on buying the wrong amounts of the right things.

3. Buying alcoholic drinks when your out socializing – There’s nothing wrong with going out and socializing, but it can get really expensive real fast. This might take all of twenty minutes so write down all the places you and your buddies frequent and call them and find out when their drinks are on sale such as days or hours. Next write that on a piece of paper and presto, you have a list of places you like and when you can cut your bill in half or more.

4. Generic vs Name Brand – This goes for most things at the grocery store or local walmart. You can read the ingredient list on the back to make sure the products are identical. There are only a few things that I don’t buy generic. For me that is ketchup and mustard, bacon, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

5. Cleaning supplies – There’s all sorts of new cleaning gadgets out there that are supposed to make things easier and faster to clean, but most of them aren’t worth the money to me. One good mop and a bottle of Pine Sol will last me much longer and save me more money than buying a Swiffer mop thing and having to buy replacement parts all the time. I just use an old dish towel and general cleaner for everything else. You can also read lists of cheap cleaning solutions just by googling it.

6. Car care parts – Taking care of your vehicle is important, but spending hundreds of dollars extra a year is ridiculous. Spend a little time reading what’s in all the fuel injector cleaners will help you decide what you need. You can use general dishwashing soap to clean your car and vacuum it. The only other thing I use is Armor All and I’m sure there’s a generic version of it too. Now don’t get me wrong, make sure you use good quality parts in your car, I’m just talking about the cleaning and light maintenance.

7. Not planning your errands – You can save lots of money in gas and time by just planning your errands. If you run 6 errands at once with the least amount of driving, you can knock out how much time you would spend if you only did 2 errands at a time.

That’s it for now. These are some things that I’ve learned to help me spend my money in a wiser fashion and still have fun and buy the things I want and need