Thread: 47 Simple Ways to Waste Money

• We have cable but no premium channels.
• We try to rent movies from the library but they don't always have up to date movies so we go to the redbox.
• We pay as we go on our cell phones and use it only when needed. No texting or anything other than a phone.
• We brown bag lunch and have been for about 11 years. We do eat lunch out on occasion but most of the time we don't.
• We bake muffins for breakfast instead of buying them at a bakery.
• We never get coffee from Starbucks, We always brew coffee at home in the mornings and it taste great!
• We only give our son 2 meals a day, which he is getting use to ( just kidding ).
• When we go on vacation we usually rent a timeshare from somebody on eBay. Last year we stayed in a 2 bedroom Marriott in Orlando for 750.00 for the wk. It was great!

It’s not that we are thrifty; my wife has been home with our son who has special needs for the past 6 yrs so we are living on 1 paycheck in NY and making under 60K. That in itself is a nice trick to pull off

As a car guy, I can let it slide if I want to change oil at 3k or buy a new car However, never ever let the dealer rip you off, the dealer asked me if I want to flush my transmission fluid for a car that has a enclosed, non-accessible transmission that does not need fluid flush lol.

I also pack my own lunch, a piece of bread bun a day for lunch with my own bottle water.

My advice would be:

1. Research your purchase and all purchases before you commit. Specially for cars... I helped my parent buy a Lexus RX400h for 37k brand new, the sticker price was 51k, completely killed the dealer on that one. Next week went back to the dealer, and the salesman said he shouldn't have made the deal with me because some sucker bought the same car for sticker after us.

Lightning,

I concur where brown bagging is concerned -- you save a fortune eating at home.

I would also suggest buying private label items at the supermarket. You'd be surprised at who manufactures products for in-house brands. For instance, I understand that Costco's Kirkland brand of vodka is Absolut -- I don't know if it's true but I would not be surprised if it were. As a boy, growing up in Chicago, I worked for a Polish bakery that private labeled for some of the city's top grocery chains.