There are ways to save money on everything fun, but The Simple Dollar advises not to cut costs there — at least, not at first. Instead of getting rid of luxuries first, you should first be looking at the things in your life you don’t care as much about.
Don’t start with the things that seem important, though. Start with the less important things and work from there so that you can see how painless saving money can be.
For some, there’s a third group — things that seem like they should care about. You might get an instinctive response in your gut to not cut certain things… but you didn’t really even think about cutting in those areas before you read about it on a tip list. Ignore that immediate gut reaction and try cutting those things.
The post has some good examples, like going for a generic laundry detergent brand if you don’t care much about that, or even making your own.
The basic advice here is that the things you enjoy are probably part of your routine and cutting those will make you unhappy. Instead, by saving money on things you don’t care about, you realise that cutting back does not hurt much at all — and that let you experiment with cutting costs in other areas too.
Don’t Cut Where It Hurts (At Least, Not at First) [The Simple Dollar]
Comments
4 responses to “Don’t Sacrifice What You Enjoy To Save Money”
The things that make many happy can add up to be expensive pleasures. My rule is cut out things that give you short term happiness and remain focused on your long term happiness goal if that’s what you really want. Reduce your cups of coffee from the cafe to 1 or 2 a week, take lunch from home, buy travel passes for a month or a quarter to cut down on travel costs, borrow things from friends that you dont need often rather than buy, fix what you can rather than replacing, and go without where possible. Luxuries should probably always be the first thing to go, not the last.
Todays’ culture is about immediate self satisfaction rather than long term benefit, and that doesnt really work for me, as I know one day I’ll need my money saved for a rainy day or large investment to fund my retirement etc.
Travel passes? Oh, for the days when you could buy a monthly travel pass. Don’t exist any more. Fixing also doesn’t work out as well. Example – cost to repair our broken coffee machine, somewhere north of $180. Cost of a new, equivalent model? About $120.
Why should I save for a rainy day and live miserably until then, when I can both save a little and be happy now?
I still buy monthly and sometimes quarterly travel passes for use in the Sydney Metro area so not sure what you’re referring to.
Yes well I did say fix what you can. If you cant fix it or if its cheaper to get a new one, obviously you know where the savings lie so it goes without saying.
That’s fine if that is what works for you. My statement was specifically about what works for me.
I’m not about killing off everything one enjoys, just cutting down where possible. Like my first statement about reducing the amount of times coffee is purchased to a few a week rather than totally eliminating them out of the routine. But my preference is always to go the 80/20 rule, where you reduce your luxuries down to 20% of what they are now and save the rest.
Yeah, while I agree that you definitely need to make some sacrifices for the greater good (or the greater expenses,) they shouldn’t all go. I was saving for an overseas holiday for a year. I could have saved more if I’d completely cut having a social life from my spending, but the thought of spending a year with no after work beers, plays, bands or nights out dancing was way worse than the thought of not going on holiday. It’s just about balance.