Okay, so you’re scrimping and saving and going to all the bargain shops that you can in an effort to stick to your budget. While you deserve props for that, the fact is that some of these well-intentioned habits might actually be hurting your budget more than helping. Below are 5 habits that could secretly be sabotaging your budget. Check them out and make sure that they aren’t sabotaging yours. Enjoy.
If you purchase items simply for the fact that they’re on sale, you may be sabotaging your budget. The fact is, sales can be extremely dangerous, especially on things like clothing. Many a person has purchased clothing items that they don’t need simply because they were “on sale”. If you see something you truly need and it’s on sale, by all means pick it up but, if it’s something you don’t normally purchase or simply don’t need, avoiding that sale is your best bet.
One habit that could be sabotaging your budget is buying coupons for things that you can’t actually use right, or do, right away. For example, if you just got a great Groupon coupon to go to the Medieval Festival that’s coming in two months and you forget about it and missed the festival, that’s money that goes straight down the drain. These types of coupons are offered all the time in emails and text messages but if you forget about them they can expire and ‘poof’,there goes your money.
If you purchase more products online in order to get a shipping discount, you could be sabotaging your budget. For example, if the shipping costs $8. but you purchased an extra $40 worth of goods in order to get it all shipped free (goods that you didn’t need to begin with) you just wasted $32.
One of the biggest mistakes people make that sabotages their budget is to sign up for a long-term contract at a gym. Many of us do this with the best of intentions, thinking that signing up will “force” us to go to the gym and get back in shape but, unfortunately, very few people actually do that. Instead most go for a few weeks or maybe even a few months and then spend the next year to a year and a half paying for a gym membership that they aren’t using.
You’d be much better off to sign up for a short-term contract, even if you have to pay a little bit more, so that if you end up stopping you don’t lose a lot of money. If you find out that you love it and do go all the time, then you can sign up for a long-term contract after the short-term contract expires.
Lastly there is buying the cheapest of everything, which can definitely sabotage your budget. Yes, there’s no need to buy a $90 hammer when a $12 hammer will suffice but, on larger, bigger ticket items you might be better off spending a little bit more money to get better quality because that better quality will mean a longer life and less chance that you will have to replace that product often, or at all. On big-ticket items it’s best to do as much research as you can before making a purchase and, if you find exactly what you want and it’s a few dollars extra, but it’s superior quality, purchase that item.
Now that you learned the fine art of dodging sabotage, you’ll be able to stick to your budget much more easily, save more money, pay down your debt much faster and feel superior (just a little) to those people that can’t seem to stick to theirs.
