How Not to Save Money

Posted on by Guest in Budgeting, Guest Posts, Saving Money & Finances

This is a guest post

How Not to Save Money

We all want to keep more of our money. It’s practically a fact of life. But could you be doing things that mean you’re actually losing out? Despite their best intentions, many people persist in bad habits that mean they have to fork out more of their paycheck than they need to. From not comparing car insurance quotes to being a serial-impulse buyer, read on to find out about five ways not to save money.

Borrowing money to pay for things
One of the biggest mistakes in the book is borrowing credit that you can’t afford to pay back. Of course, millions of people use credit cards and for the most part, these are fine. As long as you are able to pay back what you borrow in full every month (or at least have a plan for how you’re going to pay back the money), there’s nothing wrong with this.

The problems come when you borrow over a period of time without making any significant dent in what you already owe. This is especially true when buying luxuries: many experts recommend that you only buy luxuries you can afford to pay for in cash, otherwise you’re just disadvantaging yourself in the long run.

Failing to look for the best deals
It’s something of a rookie mistake these days to fail to look for the best deals before making a purchase. You can use price comparison sites to check the price of everything from milk to cars, so they’re certainly worthwhile – particularly for big ticket items. For example, car insurance companies often offer significantly different prices for a similar policy: it just doesn’t make sense to go with an expensive one when you could be saving money elsewhere.

Falling for scams
These days, most people are savvy enough that they don’t fall for scams. However, some scams are pretty convincing. A good example is when scammers in Memphis pretended to be from local car dealerships and got hundreds of consumers to give them their personal details. Many people lost thousands of dollars due to identity theft.

The lesson here? Protect your details and do whatever you can to keep them safe, or you never know who might just start pretending to be you – and costing you money.

Having a reputation for impulse buys
Okay, admit it. No matter how hard you try, you still, from time to time, cannot resist making impulse purchases. We’re all guilty of it. Sometimes an overwhelming urge just overtakes us in the supermarket/clothing store/car dealership (delete as appropriate) and we make a spur of the moment purchase.

As hard as it might be to hold back and wait, restraining your urge for impulse buys could help save you quite a lot of money – particularly if you’ve been known to buy expensive things on a whim.

Buying new things when old would do
Related to the impulse buying phenomenon is the tendency of some to buy replacements for things that don’t actually need replacing at all. Sure, it might be nice to have a new car, television, fridge, wardrobe, games console or whatever takes your fancy, but do you really need one? Chances are, you often don’t. Consoling yourself with a smaller treat instead might not be as satisfying, but your bank account will love you for it.

Note from Forest: I enjoyed this guest post and thought it brought in some important points that i myself try to abide by. Do you have anything to add and do you follow any of these ideas. I look forward to your comments.

Tags: saving money