Have you ever come across some people making some big savings mistakes? I do, as some of my family and friends' vision of how to save is somewhat askew from my perspective. For example, some of them would actually opt to buy cheap canned goods or cheap items at. A fast food restaurant rather than spend a bit more and get a healthier meal, which I agree looks sensible in the short term perspective, but in my opinion if it is done often enough it would cost them even more in hospital bills in the future. Do you know of some saving or cost cutting mistakes that people do? Do you have any of these as well? I'm sure I do too, but can't think of any at the moment so maybe I'll be reminded of some of my own mistakes when I see some more posts from you guys.
I can think of one huge mistake I've made in this past year that cost me dearly. I used to have both a savings and checking account. I closed the savings account because it was costing me $5 a month in maintenance fees and I wasn't saving anything in it. Then when the checking account became overdrawn, I couldn't use it to pay my bills or make my credit card payments, so I racked up late fees. If I had just kept the savings account open and used it as a backup account to pay bills in case of checking being overdrawn, it would have saved me a ton of late fees. I'm not bad with money, and not a spender. I have just had a really bad year and was briefly unemployed at one point during the summer.
I think one myth is that buying bulk is ALWAYS better. While bulk can be great and save a lot of money, it can also lose money if you aren't able to use up all of the product before it goes bad. If you end up throwing out half of it 6 months later, then it didn't do any good to save a few dollars on its overall purchase price.
The worst culprits are the supermarkets advertising two for $3 when they are already $1.50 each, people get attracted to the offer and buy without looking.The worst buys are multi-packs when you don't like all the items in them. I always have salt and vinegar crisps left over so it's a waste really and is more economical to buy the flavors I like. Another myth is buying a multi-pack is cheaper, it should be, however it can be cheaper to buy single cans on offer than a multi-pack or the saving is so small less that it's not worth the savings.
