by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
We all, more than likely, do it. Or most of us at least. We spend little amounts regularly on things like lunch, Starbucks lattes, manicures, golf – maybe even for having a pizza or other takeout foods delivered while we watch a weekly game on the television or some movie, either on TV or DVD.
All these seem like reasonable decisions about relatively small expenses. It's hard to imagine how much they add up.
The harsh reality is that each dollar that's spent today isn't available for something else tomorrow. And these little purchases have a way of robbing us of the things we really want.
Why? Most of us haven't stopped to consider whether that daily cup of Starbucks or Costa coffee is truly precious to our well-being, or if it's just a habit. If it's precious, it's worth doing – at least part of the time.
Smoking and excessive drinking, on the other hand, are neither precious to our well-being and neither beneficial, and thus a bad habit and one best broken and not indulged in. Also saves lots of cash.
Then the cost of your bottles of water on a daily basis. Many people seem to go through several of those things a day. There is no need, in most places in the developed world, to use bottled water. Tap water is good enough in most cases and could even be healthier that bottled spring water, and not just healthier for the Planet.
While tap water falls under strict guidelines and stringent testing – eight or more times a day in the Thames Water area, for instance – no such tests are done on bottled water. Most spring water is only tested for pollutants once every couple of months, if we are lucky. Not using bottled is thus better for our health, more than likely, and definitely better for our wealth. Those buck fifty a bottle multiplied by two or three or even four a day soon adds up. Get a reusable bottle and use tap instead and demand tap water in restaurants too.
Do you really have to have your morning newspaper or is it also just a habit? Can't you get the news cheaper – for free even basically – via the Internet or other such means?
In the London area we are lucky that, if you travel by train in the morning, you get a free morning newspaper called Metro and on your way back you can pick up the Evening Standard, which now is also free. I often do when I travel into London and back but I must say that I don't read the papers complete. Therefore I would not buy one and I haven't bought a newspaper now for somewhere in the region of twenty or more years.
If you start adding up the costs on a daily, weekly and yearly basis and then, say, calculate how much that is in 20 years. You'd be surprised.
Even if we put away the general premise that if you hadn't spent this money, you would have saved it and earned interest on it the savings still would be amazing. In fact I would suggest you just calculate the savings you could make without considering that you'd be putting that money into a bank account of any kind.
Prices obviously differ depending on where you live. In the USA cigarettes are still cheaper by far compared to the UK and also mainland Europe is cheaper in that field, and the same is true for alcohol, as for gasoline. But that is neither here nor there in all honesty. Doing without many of those little money pits will improve your cash flow, of that you can be sure.
It is those small things mentioned here, and I am sure you'll find a couple of more to add to that list, that burn quite a hole into your finance in the space of a week and month. More than any of us would ever imagine because they are just small amounts here and there, but they do add up; only we barely notice it.
© 2011
