Many of us are guilty of wasting money without realizing it – it’s something that we all do at one point or another.
It’s not until someone points it out to you, or.. you really sit down and think about your spending habits. Usually tax time is a turning point for some people because it lays out how much you made for the year – people may not have realized they made quite so much.
Then they wonder where it all went.
All of us have great intentions, and even with the BEST intentions, some of us may still find ourselves spending money we may not necessarily need to be.
Here are five ways you could be wasting money.
Buying New Children’s Clothes
Children grow so fast – when they are smaller, there really isn’t any need to buy new items. In some cases they might be cheaper but very rarely. With 4 kids, we only buy for our oldest, and when we do it’s always secondhand. I don’t think we have stepped into a mall or ordered clothes for her aside from an occasional pair of jeans in a few years.
Places like Schoola, thredUp, and local secondhand stores are a great option to pick up clothes for less. Trade with friends, pass hand me downs around in the family and you will find that buying new items is a thing of the past.
Extreme Couponing
Saving money is great, but at the expense of your health? Not so great.
Even more… saving money may be a great thing, but going overboard is really a sign of a bigger problem. When you see something that normally costs $7 – $8, and you are getting it for $1 – $2, you want to buy it. But if you are spending money you would not have normally used you are wasting money.
I always think of it as this: my budget is $0.00. Everything that I need to buy should be a choice – and when i do decide that it is absolutely a necessity, then I look for ways to save. But in the end, that doesn’t always mean using coupons either.
The same can be said about free things – a tube of free toothpaste is great; but if you are buying more than what you can reasonably use then youare hoarding, and not really saving yourself anything.
Depending on your lifestyle choices, at a certain point your time will no longer be worth it to clip those coupons, do those store lists/matchups, store items and detergent all the other ins and outs – whereas you could have done other things that were more valuable in terms of experience, time or even money.
Not Taking Advantage of a 401K Match from your Employer
If your employer has a 401K, find out if they offer a match. If they do, and you are not taking advantage of it, then you are missing out on money earned.
Contribute up to the match on your 401K plan – not only is it money earned in your pocket, you will inch closer to retirement without really having to do too much at all.
Shopping for Deals
Coming from a deal blog, this is hard – though we have cut back on the deals quite a bit and will be even more over the next year.
When you FIND a great deal, you get a sort of rush – it makes you LOVE shopping, and it makes you want to find MORE and MORE deals. Right? I see it on blogs too.. thankfully I just don’t get motivated to spend.
Finding great deals isn’t always about saving money. For most people – blogs, consumers, it’s about the hunt. It’s just that simple.
If you really need it, then great – but if you are taking advantage of deals that you didn’t need to buy initially, then you are actually spending more than you are saving in the end.
Bulk Shopping
Last year I cleaned out my pantry – and when I say cleaned, I literally threw away everything. Lots of items were horrible choices, many were expired, and with a shift in our eating habits we just didn’t want any of the stuff that was in there.
But it made me think of all the food that is wasted – many people who coupon buy more than what they can reasonably use. Same with shopping at Costco or Sam’s too though – if you aren’t careful, you can really spend much more than what you intended to spend, by getting things randomly and not using them.
When it comes to saving money and time, bulk shopping can be great. Most of the prices at Costco are comparative to shopping with coupons without the hassle – but you have to really know what you NEED versus just shopping randomly.