The Personal Finance Podcast - "Money Saving Hacks" That Do Not Actually Save You Money

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we are going to go through about the money saving hacks that do not actually save money.  How Andrew Can Help You:  Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining  Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest!  Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel!  Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok.  Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course  Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here.  Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at  shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Listen to Planet Money wherever you get your podcasts. Policygenius: This is where I got my term life insurance. Policygenius is made so easy. To get your term policy go to policygenius.com and make sure your loved ones are safe.  Links Mentioned in This Episode:  The Million Dollar Money Decisions You Should Be Focusing On Connect With Andrew on Social Media:  Instagram  TikTok Twitter  Master Money Website  Master Money Youtube Channel   Free Guides:   The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money  How to Negotiate Your Salary  The 75 Day Money Challenge  Get out Of Debt Fast  Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, money-saving hacks that do not actually save you money. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking about money-saving hacks that do not actually save you money. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, at MasterMoney Co. and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on it. If you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on your

favorite podcast player. Now, today we are going to be going through the money-saving hacks that do not actually save money. And this idea is something that we have been talking about for a very, very long time. Now, there are money-saving hacks that will actually save you money that I basically say, hey, you really don't need to focus on these things. And a big example of this would be the latte factor where a lot of people say, hey, skip out on your daily latte every single day and instead, you'll be able to invest that money and become a multi-millionaire. Now, while that is true, the problem with the premise of that is what a lot of people do is they only focus on the small things in life. And instead, what they should be focusing on is the major factors that impact your

budget and impact your spending. So what are the major factors? These are things like the big three. So I'm talking about things like housing. Reducing your housing costs and making sure that you can afford your housing costs is one of most powerful things. This is why we created that total cost of ownership calculator because this is the number one expense for most people and you need to know how to run your numbers on this stuff. So you know how much a house can actually cost.

Number two is transportation. And as the price of cars rises every single month and the average car payment right now is well over $700. This is an issue that a lot of people need to understand that if you control this section of your budget, you'll be able to spend so much more on other things. And then number three is food. And a lot of people eat out and they have a grocery bill. And the number one thing, I always talk about this, the number one issue that people have

with their budget is once they start to add up all of the expenses that they have, is they are surprised about how much they spend on food. Because it is these little transactions here and there. And your grocery budget is a lot more. than you usually think it is. And so between those two things, it is a major factor within your budget. So making sure you control those three expenses instead of the small stuff is a really, really important thing. Now, hey, you can have a latte factor where you're controlling the big things and maybe you're spending money on lattes and you don't really value lattes. You're buying lattes every single day.

That will absolutely make a difference if you take those dollars and invest them if you're not already investing. Nothing wrong with that. But I want you to focus on the things that actually truly move the needle first before you focus on the smaller stuff. You want to go big first, then trickle down to the small stuff over time. Now, what are some other big things you can look at? Is your investment fees? You can look at some of your interest rates that you have on some of your loans. There's a bunch of different things. We have an episode called the $1 million money decisions that you need to focus on. And in that episode, we go through all of those. So if you're looking for those, that's going to be amazing. And today, what I'm going to show you is some other money saving hacks that so many people have

been talking about for decades now. And these money saving hacks really don't save you much money. And some of them actually create a situation where you're losing money. So this is definitely an episode that you want to listen to you. If you're one of those folks who tries to live frugally and you're trying to get by and scrape by on some of these things, a lot of these things are a waste of time, in my opinion. And we will talk about exactly why that is. And so we're going to go through all of these money saving hacks, really excited to dive into this. And there are 11 different ones we're going to be talking about today. So without further ado, let's get into it. All right. Number one is one that is near and dear to my heart because this is something that I

used to struggle with and then I fixed over time. And I am recording this episode actually at the same time that Amazon Prime is having their prime sale. We are getting closer to Christmas time and they're having that prime sale. And this is a big factor for a lot of people. It's on top of a lot of people's minds right now. And it is buying things on sale just because they are on sale. Now, this is a huge problem for a lot of people because what happens is when people put things on sale, there is a psychology involved that makes you think, hey, I actually want that item because it is cheaper than full price. And the psychology that comes into play is really, really important to understand here. So let's take Amazon Prime, for example. I just posted something on one of our Instagram stories

at Master Money Co. It's showing that Amazon Prime, the price is exactly. the same the day before the prime day sale, and then they raise the previous price to make it look like it's on sale the next day. Now, this is just one sales tactic that companies use. But I want you to remember something every time you look at something and say, hey, this item is on sale, maybe I should go out and buy it. Everything that you do not buy on sale is 100% off. Let me say it again for the people in the back. Everything that you do not buy that is on sale is 100% off. Now, this is something that I always have to remind myself because I will open up something, say on the prime day sale, for example, or on the Walmart sale or on the Target, whatever the

company is. And you open that up and you say, oh, my goodness, I never thought I wanted this thing. But now I want it because it is way cheaper than I ever thought I would have to purchase this item for. And so this is the psychology that they're playing into, especially when you have some of these big sales. So making sure that you have a list, a value list of things that you actually want to purchase and having that list in order is going to be really, really important because you have to be

conscious on how you spend their money. The more conscious you are and the more aware you are of how you're spending your dollars, the much better you will be. Making impulse decisions on stuff like this is not the way to spend your money. Anything above $100 you should be waiting longer than a couple of days just to make sure that you actually want that item. So buying things on sale just because they are on sale is not the best move for the majority of people. And I will want you to make sure that this does not help you save money. Maybe you walk into the grocery store. Here's another example. You walk into the grocery store. You see something as Bogo that you did not have on your list and you're like, oh, maybe I want to buy this thing. Well, now, if you do that a couple of times a week,

all of a sudden, your bill goes another $10, $20, $30, $40 per week that you're spending on groceries. It's $160 per month on the high end. If you are doing something like that, you can build a lot of wealth $160 per month. Now, again, I'm telling you, don't focus on the small stuff, but that is just an example of how you can take those dollars and invest those dollars over time and something where you really want to be conscious and just stick this stuff that you need, stick this stuff that you want also, but that's on your list. Number two, and this is a huge one, shopping at multiple stores to collect deals. There is no bigger waste of time, in my opinion, than shopping at multiple stores to collect different deals. I used to do this in my early 20s. When I did not make a lot of

money, I would shop at different stores. I would go to this grocery store for the produce. I would go to this grocery store for the meat. I would go to this grocery store for everything else. And what would happen in this situation is I would get the ads. I would go through the different ads and I would look at each and every store who had the deals for specific items. Then I would write a list for each store of what items I wanted and try to configure and figure out how to do this and plan out the trip and all this stuff. This is a waste of energy. This is a huge waste of energy and the savings is not worth the waste of energy for this. Unless you have all the time in the world, You have nobody who depends on you, and this is your hobby to go find deals, then more power to you.

There's a lot of retirees out there who don't have much to do, and they just want to save the extra buck. More power to you. But for most people, if you have a job, if you have kids, if you have a busy life, there is no bigger waste of your valuable time, your most valuable resource than going to different stores to save a few bucks every single time. A, you're spending more money on gas to drive there. But B, at the same time, you're really not saving much money. money week to week because you're spending so much of your time trying to figure out where the best deals are. It is not worth your time whatsoever. It is not worth your time to go figure that out. Especially in a day and age where we have online shopping, things like that, you can kind of

figure out what the best deals are really quickly online. If it's for products that you can buy online, at the same time, for things like groceries, all those other things, sure, there may be a better deal out there. There may be a bogo out there somewhere else, but don't go chase bogos. It's not something you want to be doing or spending your time. doing along the same lines number three is always going and trying to find the cheapest gas i cannot comprehend why people do this to save a couple of dollars so for example you're going around town and you find a gas station i literally never even look at the price of the gas anymore that may be something that is non-intentional to a lot of you but i don't even look at the price of gas anymore because the major

factor that really depends on what your gas price is is the location that you live in we just did a couple of videos on TikTok and Instagram talking about highest gas prices and lowest gas prices by state. The highest gas price by state, for example, right now is in California. They're paying almost $7 per gallon. The lowest gas price is in Mississippi, and they're paying like $3.20 per gallon. Your location is the biggest dictator of how much you are going to be spending on gas prices, especially right now at the time I'm recording this. Now, there are times and situations where all the gas prices will start to rise,

but your location is what matters most and where you live and the cost of living is what matters most. So guess what? You're not really going to save much money at all searching for the best gas station. Now, if the gas station across the street is 20 cents cheaper than the gas station that you were about to go to, more power to you. Go for 20 cents less. You can go save your $5 or $10 or whatever else it is. But for most gas stations, they want you to join their rewards program now, and then you can save the money,

save a certain percentage off that gas price. So it is literally not worth it. A, you're wasting your time and energy trying to figure out which one you can go to. And B, you're wasting more gas trying to find the lower gas prices. So for someone like me who drives a truck, that is not even worth thinking about whatsoever. So this is just a big one that a lot of people love to talk about. I could literally care less what gas prices are. Unless you're somewhere in the middle of a town, sometimes if you go downtown, gas prices

can be one or two dollars more, that would make more sense. But if you're somewhere where all the gas prices are pretty much close enough to the same, it's a 20 cent differential or whatever else it is, I would care less if I were you. All right, number four is buying in bulk. So there are all these penny pinching folks out there who try to preach, hey, buy this stuff in bulk. You can buy all of this amazing stuff in bulk, and guess what? Maybe you can get it cheaper if you buy it in bulk.

You go to Sam's Club or you go to Costco and you buy all this stuff in bulk and voila. You're going to have so much more money left over at the end of the month. Now, I love Sam's Club. I love Costco. I shop at those places, but I get the majority of my groceries actually at Aldi. that's where the lowest price is near me are. But when it comes to some of the stuff that you need to buy in bulk, a lot of times it can be a waste of money. And this is something where, again, spending your time trying to plan this stuff out and fit bulk buying into your budget, it's just not the

best thing in the world. My mom growing up, love to buy things in bulk. If she found a deal on something, we would have 25 different Don Dish soaps in our cabinet by the time we got home. Now, this is something where she loved to find those deals. She loved to go through this process. And if you love that stuff, whatever. I really could care less if you love that stuff. It brings me zero energy. In fact, it drains my energy significantly by doing stuff like that. But there are some things that you can buy in larger quantities that do make sense. So things that are going to last. Now, I'm talking about toilet paper, paper towels, paper plates. If you buy that stuff in bulk, sure, you can save money. If you're using that stuff every single day. Now, if you're not using it every single day,

it makes no sense to buy it in bulk. Number two are things like Ziploc bags or plastics, anything like that. If you're using that stuff, then maybe it makes more sense for you to buy it in bulk. But there are a lot of things out there that do not make sense. Obviously, number one is perishable foods. Things like spices, for example. If you go out and you buy different seasonings and spices and you buy this stuff in bulk, it loses its flavor over time and it makes no sense to buy that in bulk. There are things like cleaning supplies. Cleaning supplies actually have a shelf life and they're significantly less effective after a year. So if you buy cleaning supplies in bulk, it is much less likely that you're going to get the same result, then just by buying it normally how most people

would. Now, I'm all for like buying things like laundry detergent in these giant packages if it saves you money or if you buy some of the cleaning supplies that you're going to use throughout the year, more power to you. But if you're buying like three years worth of cleaning supplies, it just makes no sense. There's certain over-the-counter medications that it makes no sense to buy in bulk because they have expiration dates and they become less effective over time. There are things out there like diapers. So, for example, if you have a kid who is growing really fast and most kids do it when they're in diapers. Buying a large portion of diapers for months and months on end in one size just does not make sense. Now it makes a lot more sense and

what we used to do is we would buy one of each size as they were growing over time on a Costco trip. That way I just don't have to go to Costco 12 different times. I can go to Costco three different times throughout the year and have those diapers available because the prices are cheaper. So that is something where it does make sense if you kind of stagger this out and you know you're going to be utilizing those size at some point in time, then it makes more sense. But there are other things out there, just like these items. Most food items, it doesn't make a ton of sense, unless you're prepping or something like that. Can goods, fine. All that kind of stuff is fine. But there's just no point in a lot of these things buying in bulk because A, it is very difficult to fit in your budget, because now

you bought 25 cans of tomatoes and you went way over on that budget. And how do you fit that into your grocery budget and how you're spending your money intentionally? How do you actually think about that kind of stuff. So making sure that it fits in your budget is really, really difficult. It is not something that I would even consider because of the time, the energy, the mental capacity that it takes to do some of this stuff. And that's what I want you guys to realize is the mental capacity for some of this stuff drains your mental capacity. You only have so much that you can actually spend energy towards per day. And if you drain that out on stuff that saves you three or four dollars, it makes no sense. What if you put all of that energy into actually increasing your income, which moves the needle

significantly, that would make a major difference. Now, number five is extending out oil change intervals. I cannot tell you how many people I've talked to who actually tried to do this. And what happens is they end up damaging their engine or their oil and they're wondering why their cars are having problems past 100,000 miles. One of the best things that you can do for your car is make sure that you have those engine oil change intervals when they're supposed to happen at the mileage that they're supposed to happen.

This is one thing where I talked to a mechanic about. this and he actually wrote me back a quote of how often he is seeing issues with this kind of stuff. He said, here's the bottom line. If you overextend or neglect your oil change intervals, you will eventually cause engine damage. Today's engines are better, but they are not very forgiving. Oil will still break down over time and will dissipate, lowering the oil capacity, which reduces the oil's ability to protect the engine. We have seen way too many cases where engine damage has occurred simply because people have neglected their oil change service or have extended it well beyond the recommended interval. So this is something where you can really be paying

way more money down the line if you're trying to extend out those oil change intervals. There are so many different places that can do your oil change for you. You can get coupons if you're really trying to save that money and go out and make sure that you're doing that. But make sure you're doing it at the frequency that you need to be doing it to preserve the life of your vehicle, especially if you're someone like me who wants to drive, your car until it dies. My goal is to at least get to 300,000 miles on my truck currently. So it's going to be an interesting goal. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I want to be able to give that truck to my son when he turns age 15. He is age 10 now. I've had it since he's born. So we'll

see if we can get that rolling. I don't drive as much as I used to anymore when I was in the corporate world where I was driving all over for appointments and driving to the office all the time and back and forth. But at the same time, it is still something where my goal is to drive that thing as long as possible. So making sure that I have the right oil change intervals is really, really important over that time. All right. The next one we're going to get into may touch a couple of soft spots for people. We're going to talk about couponing next. All right. So lately, I've been noticing how fast things are changing at home. The kids are growing like crazy. Clothes don't fit anymore and routines are changing. And it just hits you. Life is expanding. And when your life grows, your responsibility

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Visit vw.ca to learn more. S-U-B-W, German-engineered for all. Number six is couponing or couponing, however you want to say it. And when it comes to this, extreme couponing can lead to buying unnecessary. items that you would not have a coupon for prior to. Now, here is something that I want to say up front is I am all for, you're going to go buy something online, looking for promo codes, grabbing that promo code, throwing it in and saving the money on that. And I am all for, if you have a coupon for something that you really are wanting to buy anyways, taking that coupon in and using it.

Like, for example, I love the store Dick's sporting goods. I like to go in that store. It has literally everything that I like in there. It has golf stuff. It has pickleball stuff. It has workout stuff. It has fishing stuff. It has all the stuff that I like there. It has all. all the sports stuff. It has everything. That's a great store to walk into for me. And so if Dick's sporting goods sent me a 20% off coupon, I would hang on to that thing because I go into that store just to look around sometimes and I wander around in there. And so for me specifically, I would keep that coupon. That's an example of this is something I value. I'm keeping that coupon for when I go in there until it expires. If expires, I just throw it away. But if you're the person,

unless this is your hobby, unless you really get a rush, like you enjoy this stuff and you enjoy going out there. If you're the person who should be on the extreme couponing show on TV, if you're one of those people where you're spending 40 hours a week couponing and finding the best deals, first of all, you're double-whamming the money-saving hacks that do not work because you're going to different stores to save money with these coupons and you're spending tons of time on couponing. So say, for example, you save $200 per week, but you're spending 30 hours a week trying to find the coupons. That is not a good ROI for your time and energy spent. So this is a something where I really want you to consciously think about this stuff for people who are there.

So ask yourself some of these questions. Am I buying things I don't use because they're cheap or free because I have a coupon for them? Ask yourself, am I stocked with stuff with products I use well past the next sales cycle of when I need to be utilizing them? And can I be doing something else with my time I spend couponing that would put me in a better financial situation than what couponing is doing? Because couponing is small fries. It is what people who have a small growth mindset do. They're saving a couple dollars here. They're saving a couple dollars there. And I don't want to offend anybody when I'm saying this because if it is your hobby,

that's a different story. I guess it's a hobby for some people. But for you, if you're just trying to save money, it is draining your energy. This is not worth the time. So here's a couple of other questions to ask yourself before you start to coupon all over the place. Do I need this item now? If so, great. Use that item.

Buy the item. If you don't, then don't do that. Do these products have expiration dates if I'm going to stock up on a bunch of these? and do I have to drive out of my way to get this sale? If there's some answers there that conflict with why you are couponing, then maybe it just does not make sense to go forward with this kind of stuff. And that is where you kind of got to think through all of this process and say, hey, I am spending my time on this thing.

What is my ROI per hour? How much money am I making per hour by doing this? If you're making less than minimum wage doing something like this or even at minimum wage, it makes zero sense to be doing this. Why, you could go out and get a full-time job with the same amount of energy that you're spending. So you got to make sure that you are thinking through this process and ensuring that you are not just

couponing, thinking that you're going to be making money over time. So really, really important stuff there. I do not want to step on anybody's toes because some people love to do that. But at the same time, I am not one of those people. And if you aren't one of those people and you're doing it, stop it. It's not worth it. Just stop doing it overall.

Number seven, this is a great one. I love talking about this one. and I haven't got a lot of time to talk about this on the podcast, but it is buying cheap products. So there are cheaper, lower quality items out there that you can purchase. And some of that stuff, it's better to buy the lower quality item if you're just going to use it a couple of times and get rid of it, then fine. You can buy the lower quality item. But there is a concept, if you've never heard of it, called Buy It for Life. And I heard about Buy It for Life about 10 years ago from Jesse Meacham on the YNAB podcast that he used to do.

And Buy It for Life is a concept. It is actually a subreddit where you figure out, you find items that you can invest in for high quality items that will last either a lifetime or a very, very, very long time. Now, let me give it an example of this. One example of this would be, say, for example, I want to go and I want to buy a pair of dress shoes. Well, I have a couple of options here. I can go out and buy a $60 pair of dress shoes. That may last me three or four years before they wear out. The soles wear out. They don't have quality souls so you can't replace the soles or they get a hole in the leather, anything like that. Or I can go. I can

go out and buy $250 Italian-made dress shoes where I can change out the souls every couple of years if I walk around in them too much. And I can preserve these things and make sure they get shined and make sure I take care of them. I put the shoehorn inside of the shoe. And I do all of these things to make sure that this shoe is going to last me 30 to 40 years. And I'm not buying brand new shoes every three or four years. Instead, I am buying it for life. This is a situation where you are buying more quality made items. You're not spending your time and energy going out. and having to purchase those items over and over again, and you're extending the life of some of these things.

This is something that I really, really love and I really love to talk about because I think it's a very interesting way to think about your purchases. So here are some key principles for Buy It for Life that I want you to think through, and then I'll give you a bunch of great examples of items that you should be interested in Buy It for Life. And if you want to check out that subreddit, I definitely would. It's kind of getting watered down now on some of the things that aren't the best, but you can kind of weed through on some of the top subredits and see some of the great ones.

So number one, a principle is durability and reliability. How durable is this item? How reliable is it over time? I think about this for cars. I think about this for appliances. I think about this for all the major stuff in my house. Timelessness. This also needs to be something that's not going to go out of style.

For example, dress shoes, typically men's dress shoes don't go out of style if you just get that classic timeless look. Number three, repairability. If this item breaks, am I able to repair it for less than the replacement cost? and it needs to be significantly less than replacement costs. Otherwise, I'd rather just buy the same item. Number four is warranty. A lot of these items have long-term warranty. So you can think of something like a Patagonia jacket.

These have really long-term warranties where they will either fix your jacket or replace your jacket depending on what happens there for life. So that is an amazing one. That's one sustainable one. And then sustainability is quality products have to have lower environmental impact because they reduce the frequency of payments associated with it. So those are some of the key principles that folks who are really interested in buy it for life abide by and some of the key things that I want you to think about. Now here's some examples

of items that you can utilize for buy it for life. Number one is kitchenware. So you can buy things like high quality pots and pants. You can buy things like high quality appliances or high quality kitchenware, maybe high quality spatulas, things like that where you don't have to keep replacing it. For example, I have a spatula that we use to make eggs every single morning. I replace that thing. I buy the cheap one at Walmart, the dollar one. And I replace that thing. It feels like every three months. It is something where now I'm out there trying to figure out, hey, which special is going to work the longest? I don't have to keep replacing this over and over and over again, because I'm going to remember to buy it. I got to order it from Amazon or Walmart or wherever else

I get it. It's going to come in. Well, how can I just make sure that this lasts longer? Because it's dying. It's not working as frequently as it should be. The same thing with high quality kitchen stuff. So we put really high quality kitchen stuff on our wedding registry when we got married, and we still have a lot of those pots and pans, the majority of them, and we still use them all the time. Like they have not worn out. We're coming up on our. We're coming up on our. 10-year wedding anniversary, and they still have not worn out. I expect those things to go for even longer, 20 to 30 years. So there are things like that, and then high-quality knives as well. Who wants to keep replacing their kitchen knives over and over and over again? Just use the money,

spend it, buy it once, and you're going to end up probably saving money over that time frame. Number two is furniture. So furniture is one that I learned the hard way, where I used to buy cheap furniture because it was less expensive. And then I realized, no, high-quality furniture is made really, really well. And you can see stuff like antiques, for example. If you look at antiques, those things have been around for 100 years. So if you buy high quality furniture, you will literally have to buy it once as long as it doesn't go out of style and then you do not have to replace it. So there are ways to do this and looking at high quality furniture to make sure that you buy this stuff right. I used to buy cheaper furniture, IKEA, those types of things. And that's great

for some stuff. I'm not saying don't buy IKEA. But what I am saying here is buying high quality furniture for your staple pieces, your big ticket items and stuff that doesn't go out of style, stuff that is going to be there for a long time is really, really important. Plus, a lot of this stuff holds its value. Say, for example, you buy something from pottery barn that's really, really high value. You can go resell that stuff on Facebook Marketplace, and you're only going to lose like 20, 30 percent because of the brand name. So there are things like that where you really want to make sure that you are buying high quality. So furniture is another one.

Footwear. We just talked about footwear, especially when it comes to leather stuff or stuff that you're going to be wearing for years and years and years that does not go out of style. That is another great thought process there, especially if you are in the trades. we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast who are in the trades. If you're in the trades, thinking about your boots, those types of things where you can only have to buy them once and every five, 10 years you replace them. You're just replacing souls and kind of repairing those. Those are something else that you definitely want to consider for women. You can think about heels and buying high quality heels or buying high quality shoes for women where you can replace those

items all the time. My wife has more shoes than you can ever think of. She's in the fashion industry. That's what she does for a living. And she has some of her staple shoes, though, that she's had for over 10 years because she bought really, really high quality stuff. So there are things like that that you can do when it comes to footwear. Outerware, this is a big one. If you live in a cold climate, I'm in Florida, so we wear jackets like two months out of the year. But if you're in a cold climate, outerwear is a huge one where you're having to replace your jacket every couple of years. What if you can just buy outerwear and not have to buy it again? Companies like Patagonia, for example, are ones that are out there to make sure that you have to buy it once and then

you don't have to buy it again. You can look at some of the other manufacturers out there, look at their warranties, see how long they will last. You know, things like wool piquots or trench coats, those never go out of style. Rain jackets, all have good warranty. So all this stuff, you know, you got to think about what doesn't go out of style. Next one, luggage. So luggage is a huge one. There has been a lot of advancement in luggage as of late. And luggage has changed a little bit in terms of what the style is going to be. You can think of companies like away, for example, who have somewhat changed that style. But still, luggage is luggage. You take it to the airport. It gets beat up when you go to the airport, you bring it back home. And so it's one of those things, to me,

that is not a huge deal. And so if you buy high quality luggage and just make sure it is durable and repairable, then that is going to be a fantastic way for you to make sure that you just have to buy luggage once and you don't have to buy it again. I love that concept and thinking about that. And coming up with plain colors and not trying to get all crazy with it, you can put your tags on there so you can recognize the luggage, but coming up with just plain color is black or gray or whatever else. Tools. So anybody who has ever bought a cheap tool knows that, A, it does not get the job done as well. And B is something that if your tool is going to break all the time, that is a big, big issue. Now, if you're a homeowner, if you're someone who

barely uses their tools, you use them a couple of times a year, then that's one story. But if you're someone who's using tools all the time, then getting quality tools and just making sure they're well-constructed and they're going to last for a lifetime are going to be really, really important. Watches. So we all pretty much, myself including, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm pointing to it right now, we all have Apple Watches. And the problem with Apple Watches, or any of these fitness wearables is that they're not going to last a lifetime. Whereas you can go out and you can buy a time X for example, and that time X will literally last your entire life. And you can even go a higher quality like an Omega or a Rolex. And those will literally last your entire life, but you got to

make adjustments to it, all those different things. You got to take care of it. So watches in today's day and age are things like fitness watches or electronic watches. You have to buy them over and over again. Think about the life cycle of an Apple watch, for example. I thought about this the other day where I'm thinking, hey, I'm going to buy an Apple watch every couple of years. It's going to be $300. You add that up over time. I could have bought a Rolex for that same price throughout the course of my life. So it's something where I've kind of thought about this a little more. Do I really need notifications on my watch all the time? And the real reason why I have it is because the fitness side of it. So how can you get the most wear out of it for the fitness side and kind of think through that. So watches are another one for a lot of people. If you don't care about the fitness side of wearables, then that might be one great thing for you.

Also things like office furniture that's on the same lines as furniture. Backpacks and bags. So that's along the same lines as luggage, but you can make sure that you get a quality backpack if you use backpacks all the time or bags that you use for your laptop or whatever else. And then electronics. Now, electronics don't last forever, but making sure you buy quality electronics is going to be really, really important that do not evolve super, super rapidly. So some people hate Apple, some people love Apple. But one thing I do love about Apple is that their products, their computers will last a really,

really long time. I still have an Apple computer that I bought in college from 2009 that still works just fine. and so they have updates to software, things like that that it cannot update to, but really those things will last forever if you really, really want them to. So a lot of the products that I buy are Apple products just because they're last, they're durable, there's a lot of other things involved there. And if you're a fan of, you know, the other side, then I could care less. Don't argue with me about this. But that is just one thing where, you know, their build quality, making sure they have high build quality. Same thing. I actually bought a cheaper pair of headphones

on Amazon years ago. And those headphones, they're over-the-ear headphones. I still have them to this day. It was about 10 years ago, and they still work completely fine. They're amazing. And so I think I bought them for $39. So there are things like that where you can get quality electronics. Can you get five, 10 years out of some of these electronics? That's going to be something where you know it's going to be pretty, pretty durable. So that's just another one to think about. And I went probably too long on that. I probably should have done a whole episode on this, but these are some of the buy it for life items that you need to be thinking about. And seeing how you can actually save money by buying things that are going to last longer that you can really take care of. And if you

take care of your stuff, it will treat you well over time, especially on some of these specific things. All right. The next one is cutting cable for streaming services. So if you were out there and you are cutting the cable cord, this used to save you a lot of money. I used to write articles on my old blog called dollar after dollar. I think it's still out there floating around somewhere where I would talk about, you know, you need to cut back your cable. You need to cut into streaming services because at the beginning, this saved you money. Now what's happening is where I'm probably paying more money now than when I had full on cable for streaming services. I now have Netflix and Hulu and Disney Plus and Prime and YouTube TV, but also my internet bill has gone up because I have all these fancy

electronic products that I have to talk to, what I'm talking to you now on. But now I have all these fancy electronic products that I have. And I have to be able to stream these things at high speeds. And so the price has gone up on all of this stuff and all of us are probably paying more than we ever have before because we have all of these things. So thinking about your streaming services and kind of tailoring them to what you're watching right now is one thing. that you can do. And I use a tool called Rocket Money to just kind of help me with my subscriptions to see what I'm spending money on. But at the same time, just making sure that you're conscious about this stuff. And cutting cable is not going to save you money. If you just had cable on the internet,

it would be less than having all these streaming services if you have 10 different streaming services like I do. Number nine, I learned this one the hard way. And this is DIY projects. Now, there are some DIY projects that I can absolutely do. There are things like landscaping that I can do, even though I don't do it as much anymore. I have folks who kind of do that for us. But like, for example, the other day, I got a mulch quote $400 to lay mulch throughout my entire yard. And then I just priced it out to how much the bags of mulch would cost and it cost me $120. So I just did it myself. It took me an hour and a half. I went and picked it up in my truck, came back and laid all the mulch. So that's something where even as a millionaire, this is still like stuff that I will do because I'd rather save that money. And that is

just something where I had the time that weekend. And so I went out and did it. But for most things, I look at time more importantly than I actually look at doing the item and saving the money. So DIY projects are a big one. I learned this the hard way in my 20s where I would try to do everything DIY and learn how to do it. And I just don't have a skill set for some specific thing. So say, for example, one was we had a water heater go out. And I wanted to replace this water heater myself. And when that water heater went out, I spent an entire day just trying to figure out how to replace the water heater. And I eventually ended up just calling someone to put it in anyway and the plumber put it in like an hour. So this is something,

where there are some DIY projects that are just outside of what I can truly do. The same thing happened. Another plumbing thing. It always seems like it's a plumbing thing. A sink went bad and I was trying to find the problem with the sink and I turned the water off. When I turned the water off, I thought I fixed the problem. Then I turned the water back on and boom, flooded my entire bathroom. It was not fully sealed yet.

So now I'm paying more money to make sure that I drain out my bathroom and I still have to call a plumber to actually find and fix the problem. So I'm spending time. I'm spending money and I'm spending energy for something that I could have just called somebody. to do for 150 bucks. This is where DIY projects can go out of way. I can assemble anything you give me. You give me any piece of furniture that has directions.

I can assemble that thing all day. Your boy is an assembly genius. But when it comes to stuff where I got to figure it out, and I've never done it before, and I've never been taught how to do it, I'm just not great with that stuff personally. Some of you are amazing with that stuff. And some of you are amazing at being able to fix things.

If that's you, more power to you need to be doing those DIY projects. It can save you hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I am not one of those people. I just don't have it in me. It is not something that I was ever taught. So it's just not something that I have that I am able to do. Number 10. And this is one I was surprised that people still do,

but skipping routine medical or dental checkups. Now, one big one is dental. Do not skip your dental checkups. That's just gross. Just make sure you're going to the dentist all the time, brushing your teeth, all those different types of things. And you just go to the dentist twice a year, whatever your dentist tells you.

Some people have to go three times a year. And so make sure you're doing that. The big one, though, is your routine medical checkups. Now, I know this sometimes seems like a waste of time if you're in your 20s or your early 30s, but it is worthwhile to stay established with your doctor, get your blood work done, and make sure that you prioritize health over everything else. Health is wealth, and it is one of the most important things that you can do. If you don't want to pay the deductible, all my HSA people out there who have that high deductible health plan, sometimes you

don't want to pay a couple hundred bucks to have to go to the doctor. And I understand that, I get it, but at the same time, it is worthwhile to have those routine checkups so you don't have higher medical bills later on in life. I remember this. It can get annoying to go every time. They're like, oh, you're in perfect health every single time. But you really need to not skip that stuff and make sure that you're on top of it because if there is something that comes up, you got to make sure that you can catch it and so it doesn't become worse. So that's just another big thing there is don't skip on some of that stuff. And then number 11, and this kind of goes for the biffle stuff to buy it for life, is buying fast fashion. And fast fashion is one that has been

talked about a lot lately. A great one is the minimalist documentary. If you've never heard of the minimalists. They have a great documentary on Netflix that kind of talks about fast fashion and how it's marketed to people. And you can think of companies like H&M or Zara or all these companies have fashion fashion where it's changing all the time, Forever 21, all those cheaper brands where fashion is changing over time. But what I prefer to do now is invest in higher quality pieces that are just kind of timeless. And for me specifically, there are a lot of easy things that do for men. Like we can have buttoned down shirts and the jackets stay the same. Suits don't ever change. shoes a lot of times they'll never change. But there are a lot of, you know, fast fashion stuff

that does change. And so just kind of thinking through not falling prey to some of that stuff, you know, if you like that stuff, if you're into fashion, I'm more power to you. I get that stuff. But if you're not into that stuff and you're just buying fast fashion because you think it's in style right now, it may just be a waste of money. So some people love it, some people hate it. If that's something that you love, I know people who really, really value that stuff. And if that's something you love, more power to you. Spend the money on that stuff. Don't worry about that. That is something that definitely, definitely I would consider over time. But overall, these are some of the things that I think are just a waste of time and money-saving

hacks that people talk about that really do not save you money. And if you guys have any questions or you want to push back on any of this stuff, reach out to me. I want to hear some of your answers on some of this because I love to hear back from some of you guys. But I truly appreciate each and every single one of you listening to this episode. I cannot thank you guys enough for investing in yourself because that's exactly what you're doing when you listen to this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving a five-star rating and review.

It truly means the world to be when you guys do that. and share this episode with family and friends who may, you know, go out there. Maybe they coupon too much or maybe they buy cheap stuff all the time and send this out to them so that they can hear this episode as well. Thank you guys again for listening to this episode. We will see you on the next episode. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play.

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