Save Money By Eliminating New “Essentials”
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photo credit: redjar
You’ve probably heard someone from an older generation say “We didn’t need to spend all that money in my day”. The annoying thing is that they’re probably right, and we’ve dug our own financial hole by turning new luxuries into “necessities” in modern life. A Yahoo finance story recently listed a dozen items that have become essential to the lives of many Americans, but definitely fit the bill of things that weren’t needed at all a few decades ago.
So find out if you are one of the big spenders. Do you regularly spend money on any of these items?
- Buying take-out coffee (they calculate this costs around 100 times more than making your own - does it really taste 100 times better?)
- Cable TV
- Manicures and pedicures
- Botox injections
- Bottled water (think of the arguments over which is actually healthier, bottled or tap; and then there are the environmental waste considerations too)
- Having a second car
- Cell phones (especially second phones, or phones for young children)
- Lawn service
- Too many clothes (do you actually wear everything in your wardrobe?)
- Private schools
- Birthday parties for children (which have become really extravagant)
- Pet grooming and pet walking (it’s much cheaper to do it yourself)
These are just some of the new “necessities” that are draining our finances today, so read over the list and find out if there are some you could do without - you might make yourself some nice savings.
Tags: Life Hacks | personal finance | Saving Money
This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 3:30 am and is filed under Saving Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
