10 Surprising Things I No Longer Buy—and How It Changed My Finances

I pushed my stroller around my new neighborhood, feeling grateful that we finally had enough space for our new family of 6. And I felt thankful that I could spend the day solely focusing on my two young children.

But my time with my young boys was temporary.

As I considered going back to work, which I’d have to do soon, anxiety started to roll in, and I started doing mental calculations.

What could we cut so I could afford to stay home longer?

After some work, I found 10 things that made a big impact on our finances. Though, I still haven’t quit my job, we’ve made progress.

Here’s what I cut. I hope it gives you some ideas for what you could cut from your own budget.

The Importance of Goal Setting

Before I began cutting, I had to set some goals to keep me on track.

If you don’t start with goals, cutting expenses won’t work. Everything will feel like a need, and you’ll set yourself into a deprived mindset.

After setting clear goals, you won’t want to buy extra things, and you’re mindset will be empowered.

So sit down with your spouse (if you’re married) and set some goals.

I like setting percentages because it feels more meaningful than an arbitrary number. I’m also a rule follower, so if I set a rule of saving 20% of every dollar we make, I have to stick to it.

But maybe 20% of your income is too much. Or not enough. Set a goal that works for you.

Little Things Turn Into Big Things

The other thing you have to know before you start is that small cuts matter.

It might seem like cutting an expense that’s a few dollars won’t mean anything, but it adds up.

If all your little savings add up to just $100 a month and you invest it, you’ll have $1320 at the end of the year. Leave it there and let it keep growing.

Those are the numbers for saving just $100 a month. If you can find more to save, your returns will be more impressive.

10 Surprising Things I No Longer Buy

Let’s get on to some ideas for where you can find the money to meet your goals.

When I looked at our expenses with the goal of saving 20% and understanding what our goals were for the future, it was easy to cut the following expenses down or out completely.

1. Items Not on the Grocery List

I’m not talking about the essentials you forgot to add to your list. But the bag of chips, soda, or peanut butter cups that you don’t need.

These extras add up. Once I set a grocery budget, I found that anywhere from $20-$50 of impulse buys were making it onto each grocery trip.

Avoid this by…

• setting a weekly grocery budget.
• grocery shopping only once a week (no extra trips for random items).
• making a list.
• leaving your kids/spouse at home.

It’s ok to indulge in extra grocery treats sometimes, but now I make sure they’re planned for and in the budget.

✅ savings of $1,040-$2,600 a year

2. Extra Makeup

Before I had kids, I was into makeup. Whenever I needed a makeup item, I tacked on some extra “fun makeup items” to my purchase. A new eye shadow palette, some brushes, or a lipstick that would solve all my problems.

Since having kids, I’ve adopted a more minimalistic makeup approach. I still have some high-end products that I love and likely won’t change. But I buy makeup items I need when I run out and nothing else.

I also evaluate the makeup cost and try to buy clean products. If I buy a $26 blush that lasts me 3 years and I know a drugstore one would last me 6 months at $10, the high-end blush is more cost-effective.

I only spend $100-$200 a year on makeup by evaluating each product and buying only what I need.

✅ savings of $500-$600 a year

3. Excessive Haircare Products & Salon Appointments

Like makeup, I used to try different shampoos and products on my hair. Now, we buy a few items that work for us and are good for our hair.

I also stopped paying vast amounts to get my hair cut or done. This was never a big issue for me, but once or twice a year, I’d pay someone a lot of money to hate what they did to my hair. Now, I pay a family member a small amount to trim it once a year.

I also gave up regular manicures and pedicures and opted to DIY these tasks when I could. At one point, I paid $40 every three weeks to get my nails done. Now, my nails are a mess most of the time, and I’ve decided I’d rather invest in my family’s future than in my appearance.

✅ savings of $1,200 a year

4. Expensive Skincare Products

Once I hit 35, I decided I needed to invest in anti-aging skin care products. I then learned that you can spend a small fortune on these items. And will your skin look any better in the long run? Maybe or maybe not.

After some research, I found that most of those products are ineffective and even harmful for your skin.

The best anti-aging skin products are sunscreen (1), a vitamin C serum (2), and a niacinamide (3) serum. The great thing is that you can grab all of these items for a fraction of what you may be paying.

I recommend these low-cost products:

• Honest Tinted Moisiturizer* (I use this as my facial sunscreen) and Thinkdaily Suncreen for my neck
• Lanmeri Vitmain C Serum
• Good Molecules Niacinamide Serum

✅ savings of $300 a year

5. Takeout Food

Grabbing takeout food can add up quickly. When I first started budgeting, I went through a few months of bank statements with a highlighter and was shocked to find that we were spending almost $1,000 a month on eating out.

Most of these were quick meals on the go. Not meals that also doubled as time spent with my husband or family.

In the next few years, I worked on meal planning—yes, years. We all know about meal planning, but what I worked on was making meal planning work for me. As a busy working mom, I didn’t have time for anything elaborate. Finally, I figured out a way to meal plan as a busy mom, and it changed everything about the way we ate.

I learned that I could microwave some dino nuggets, whip up a PB&J, or even throw together a pizza in less time than it takes my husband to run out and pick up food.

It became the norm once I broke the habit of just picking something up.

We didn’t cut out eating out altogether because sometimes we intentionally choose to go out for a meal together, and my husband still grabs fast food when he finds it convenient. But we have a specific, small budget for these occasions.

Cutting this has saved so much money (and improved our health) in the long run.

✅ savings of $9,600 a year!

6. Dollar Store Items/Cheap Items

Another one of my habits used to be going to the dollar store. It’s down the street, and every time we go for a long walk, we end up there. I’d tell my kids they could get a snack and an item. So we’re looking at $2.50 a kid, which doesn’t sound like a problem. But sometimes, they’d convince me to get a few extra things. And then there were the items I bought—arts and crafts, home, holiday, etc. We’d leave there with me wondering how I’d just spent $20 at the “dollar store,” again.

This happened about once a week.

I didn’t need all those cheap items. Most of them broke within the week, were lost on the way home, or got shoved into the back of a cabinet somewhere and forgotten about.

My kids still love to make these trips, and doing them once in a while and sticking to the $5 budget isn’t a problem.

✅ savings of $980-$2,020 a year

7. Lots of Clothes & Shoes

I’m not sure how much I spent on clothes and shoes, but I always felt like I needed something. Almost every single day, I was dissatisfied with something about my wardrobe.

I’d heard about capsule wardrobes, but every time I looked into them, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work for me—a regular mom who just wanted to feel comfortable and confident. Finally, I decided to figure it out myself. And it worked.

For the past six months, I’ve quickly gotten dressed every day, and rarely have I had thoughts about buying new clothes.

In this post, I outline my whole process about building your perfect capsule wardrobe.

Now, I have a set budget for clothes and following it isn’t a problem.

Similarly, I stopped buying so many clothes for my kids.

I don’t think a capsule wardrobe will work for a 2 and 4-year-old boy, but I finally realized that I was wasting money buying them nice shoes (that they never wanted to wear), more than one coat, or character items that they weren’t into after a few months.

✅ estimated savings of $800 a year

8. TV Subscriptions

For some of you, this is a massive area of potential savings. For us, a few subscriptions had crept in that I quickly canceled. It’s so easy to subscribe to something and forget about it.

At one point, we’d subscribed to Disney+ and PBS Kids, which didn’t add up to much, but we never watched them.

We watch one movie as a family (or just the kids) once a week. My husband watches some sports on free broadcast stations. We didn’t need TV subscriptions.

I will say this wasn’t always the case. But I’m so happy that we’ve traded hours of time watching TV for things that are more productive and better for our health.

This was a challenge for my kids, but once I finally broke them of the TV habit, which took a few weeks, I would never go back. They play on their own, and we play games together. I see them painting, coloring, building forts, playing with legos, driving cars, throwing balls, etc. All things they never would have done if the TV was on. Plus, they help with chores and are more pleasant to be around.

✅ savings of $179.76 a year

9. Cleaning Service

We were paying someone to clean our house twice a month. 😕

Now, there’s nothing wrong with paying for this. I work out of the home, have little kids, and a messy house stresses me out. But if you don’t think you can save money and you pay for this, you need to reevaluate (at least I needed to).

Even though household chores are a challenge that I’m still figuring out, I’m glad we’re working on taking on this responsibility as a family. And I’m glad we’re using the savings to build our family’s future.

✅ savings of $3,120 a year

10. Car Washes

Similar to getting the house cleaned, we’d outsourced cleaning our cars. Car wash subscriptions are a relatively new thing, but it’s just one more thing to spend money on.

Yes, it’s nice to have a clean car, but we realized we could spend an hour once a month doing this task ourselves and save the money for the subscription.

✅ savings of $635.76 a year

Are You Ready for the Total?

When I add up all the savings, I end up with a crazy amount of savings.

📣 Total Savings of $18,355.53-$21,052.52!

That gives me everything I need to contribute 10% to savings and another 10% to investing. I did this all by cutting some pretty simple things.

What About You?

Your financial situation may be different from mine, but I suspect there are some areas you can cut if you look hard enough.

Don’t forget to set your goals beforehand so it’s easy to pass on all the extras.

Would you cut all this if it meant you wouldn’t have to stress about money in the future? Let me know in the comments. And share this post so others can see the power of cutting the little things.

References

Bieber, C. (2023). Will investing $100 a month really make a difference in your net worth? The Motley Fool. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/buying-stocks/articles/will-investing-100-a-month-really-make-a-difference-in-your-net-worth/

NutritionFacts.org. (2024a, April 20). The single most important thing for Anti-Aging skin care. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-single-most-important-thing-for-anti-aging-skin-care/

NutritionFacts.org. (2024b, May 15). The benefits of topical niacinamide for reversing skin aging. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-benefits-of-topical-niacinamide-for-reversing-skin-aging/

NutritionFacts.org. (2024c, May 15). The benefits of topical vitamin C for reversing skin aging. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-benefits-of-topical-vitamin-c-for-reversing-skin-aging/