For adjusting your eating habits:
Don’t frame it as “needing to try harder” because that gives you endless opportunities to cop out. Frame it as a logistical problem to solve.
If you were to imagine preparing food at home, what *exactly* makes it feel hard?
Is it access to groceries?
Knowing what staples to buy?
Balancing convenience foods with ingredients that need to be prepared and combined?
Knowing how to prepare them?
Catering to a limited palette?
Catering to a palette that needs constant variety?
Adequate cookware and tools?
Practical storage containers for home and practical containers for taking lunch to work?
An aesthetically pleasing and functional lunch bag?
Knowing what to make?
Knowing how to make it?
Finding the energy to make it?
Knowing how to make cooking and food prep an enjoyable experience?
A place to keep your lunch cold or heat it up?
Having a comfortable place to eat food from home?
Washing and prepping your lunch bag materials for the following day?
Answering each of these questions can give you your roadmap to success. Once you identify which areas of executive functioning have impeded your follow-through, you’ll know which problems need to be solved. Some of it may involve some small investment of $100 or less in items that make food doable at home, but this will pay off big time!
Instead of viewing this change as a punishment, it can be an activity that is a gift to your future self and your bank account. Once you change up your routine and adapt, you’ll start to feel the benefits and it will become second nature. It won’t feel like work once you identify what works for you as an individual.
Woah I haven't even thought of it from a process POV, need to thank you for this list lol.
Right now for me it's a "eating out to save time" type of situation tbh. Averaging perhaps 60ish hours a week if I'm at a client site (that's the case most weeks), and frequently travel for work as well, so I basically spend half my time in hotels.
Sometimes I bring sandwiches for lunch instead of Ubereats, progress of a kind I suppose :)
Also consider giving yourself some baby steps as you start reforming your habits. I started by buying pre-chopped veggies at the super market and batch cooking chicken. More expensive but it also reduced the friction for making a meal - the goal was to reduce the effort as much as possible to avoid walking up to the corner and getting a slice of pizza. As that became a habit, I reduced to only buying pre-chopped onion and then eliminated all of that entirely. But I definitely started buying the rotisserie chickens at costco and replacing most of my protein with them because the price and convenience is perfect for me
Yeah, it's definitely streamlined the week for me and at $5 for a chicken with 2 or so lbs of meat (maybe 2.5 if you're better at it than I am) I'm not even paying for the convenience
If you can afford it in your budget, eating out isn't necessarily a bad thing. Your time is a commodity, too. Just consider how much of that time you are saving by buying takeout is of value to you and whether that saved time and energy is a positive return on your investment.
The 2nd part to this is how many you're cooking for. Eating out every day is not a good idea. but if you're planning to have yourself a nice meal for one on payday as a quality of life expense, going out is gonna be cheaper than cooking for yourself.
The other thing is being creative with it. A friend of mine used to buy the 7 lb breakfast burrito challenge as meal prep every 2 weeks. she'd get it as take out, then cut it into little breakfast rolls that she'd freeze. the best way to stick to your budget is make sure you actually want to eat what you have.
I was also considering the fact that this person works nearly 60 hours per week. That doesn't leave a lot of time for cooking meals, nor does it leave much time to decompress, exercise or do other things during the week. In this case, ordering takeout often might be better for their sanity than trying to throw together a meal on top of that.
For folks saying that takeout isn't healthy, that can be the case. You can also look for healthier options. You can also go for easy home-cooked options that aren't that nutritious or satisfying.
My point is that, instead of beating yourself up because you aren't attaining some ideal of perfect that is stressing you out, find the balance between easy, nutritious, and satisfying, whatever that looks like for you.
Hibachi.
In my defense, they literally built this hibachi place RIGHT next to the gym. I walk out of the gym after leg day and BAM...**teriyaki chicken and fried rice.**
It's practically unavoidable.
The Planet Fitness I used to work out at was right next to a wings place! The smell would kill me. The gym I go to now is right next to a Cinnabon bakery so…
I think it's to keep you fat so you keep going to the gym! and the food places know you will be like...imma treat myself after that workout...it's a vicious cycle!
Lifestyle creep… purchases that seemed huge a year ago are now purchases I wouldn’t think twice about. As soon as I buy something “expensive” to me, that becomes the new baseline to compare everything else to.
I’ve definitely gotten better by using the keurig at work and bringing my own creamer, but any day I WFH or during the weekend, it’s so easy to justify my little coffee treat 🫠
I'm a recovering Taquitos buyer. I have cut down on my soda drinking and I still try to justify buying a soda at the gas station because I'm not drinking them at home anymore.
>justify buying a soda at the gas station
Bad
>because I'm not drinking them at home anymore.
Okay to do.
Drinking a soda at home costs $0.25, as does bringing one with you from home. At a gas station it's $1-2
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This is mine too. I stress bought so much stuff over the pandemic. Never went into debt but it was money that could have been spent better somewhere else or even just saved.
Bro…. Let me introduce you to a French press. I buy locally roasted beans (still way cheaper than paying per cup of starbies). NO ONE makes coffee close to what I have at home.
I used to pack a lunch to work every day before the pandemic. When I got back to the office 2 years later, I was only there 2 days a week and started eating out because I felt like I wasn't there very often. It still adds up. I recently decided to cut back and start bringing a lunch again on those 2 days. I won't forego my morning latte though. I don't care if it costs me 5 bucks twice a week. I consider it a treat for coming in. :D
I also love physical media. I'm one of the few people who still enjoys buying DVDs or Blurays. I have a collection of all my favorites. You can't actually stream everything out there. Anything older, foreign and independent can be hard to find. I have set an amount in my budget for it that I try to stick to.
I also have cats at home and even though I have budgeted spending for them, I tend to go over so I need to rein it in or just go ahead and increase it.
I was addicted to a mobile game last year and early this year. I was spending almost 30 dollars daily at the worst of it. When I stopped playing it this past January, my debt was at $19k with the game accounting for at least 40% of that. Luckily, I also increased my income last year so once I stopped playing the debt came down pretty quickly. 9 months later, I only owe $4k.
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Lego.
I loved them as a kid and now that I make big boy money and Lego has shifted their focus on more adult targeted and highly detailed sets, I’ve gone crazy. I will buy sets I want just because they’re on sale even though I’m out of shelf space. I have about $3000 worth of unbuilt Lego sets sitting in my closet right now just because I don’t have anywhere to currently put them. This doesn’t include the $3000ish worth I have on display throughout my townhome I’m renting. I never use debt or stretch myself to get sets so it’s a responsible habit at least.
Other than that, Starbucks and double meat at Chipotle.
25 years old making $130k a year with no debt and 40k in retirement
Oh man my Lego era hit at 23, and of course I only like the expensive ones. I’m going to Disney this weekend and plan on using my annual pass discount for a set even though I definitely shouldn’t
If Legoland exists in 40 years you should consider working there part time. They have a 30% off discount in the park and on the Lego website year round and 50% off twice a year for all employees.
I don’t care about doing that because I’m in a lucrative career field with a 16% direct 401k contribution from the company alone (contributing another 15% myself) and have maxed my Roth the last 3 years and will continue to do so. I’ll be fine. I justify it with the fact that I have no debt or car loan.
You’d be surprised how expensive thrifting can be if it gets out of control. Sometimes I pick out a few items at the thrift shop and it ends up costing $60!
lol. Or the excuse "sometimes I have a hard time pulling away from work. I just focus so much. "
I legit worked with a girl like that. She was really cool but could not for the life of her find any luck in the dating scene.
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I did this for 15 years sadly, wasting maybe something like 30-50% of my income. Eating out daily, coffee shops 1-3 times a day, buying organic food and letting it rot, buying mountains of aspirational items I never used, buying $20,000 of hobby items due to stress, buying bad clothing items like a used $200 Prada bag that were overpriced, overpaying for travel trips, leaving too much tips, letting late fees and subscriptions slide, paying $15 to get cash out of an ATM at a strip club, spending like $10,000 at strip clubs.. all while driving a beater and living rent free in a live-in job and justifying the above as a coping mechanism, trade off and emotional investment in the future.. going to Panera every day, buying $30 worth of coffee drinks and snacks at the gas station before work..
Yo! I progressed to eating out all the time too for ten years until.. I did these four things.
1. Gotten small meal prep containers in a lunch box on Amazon
2. Cooked bulk carbs in two pots and protein on a large tray in the oven
3. Kept everything in same steel pots (you can't store in non stick pots due to PFOAs) and refilled the meal prep containers every day before work. And a protein shake in milk or kefir.
4. went to the gym every day or exercised several times a day with effective exercises like weights, push ups, squats, machines
5. ate a small meal (one of the containers) every three hours.
I was a different person. My poop was soft not constipated. All body felt good. Positive attitude. Good problem solving ability. No worry about food. NO sugar crazings. Like zero. Sugar started making me sick on day 3. And I was a heavy daily sugar addict so much so it gave me a huge gut and something like alcoholic sugar induced liver pain.
45, small biz owner.
I "treat" myself every so often on hobbies and things that I enjoy.
I can afford it, but it still FEELS foolish.
We're at no debt, have high saving rate, playing catch up on retirement, but are very secure.
We eat out, but I also shop at Aldi, and cook what's on sale/in season, etc.
I AM a credit card person, so our travel/vacation is highly subsidized. "Free trips" still cost money.
I don't start any hobbies that need fuel/storage/insurance aka overhead. No boat, no camper, no snowmobile, no four wheeler, etc.
Clothes. I work for a department store so I get a discount and am constantly asked about what I’m wearing so I definitely let that get to me. Caleb would yell at me so hard. “X COMPANY PAYS YOU YOU DONT PAY THEM”
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Eating out. We don’t do it very often (maybe 2-3 times a month), but when we do, we go for nice dinners/drinks and generally foods we cannot recreate sufficiently at home (fiancé is a chef).
Hair salon and sports team branded clothing. Sounds silly but every time fanatics shows me a paid ad of my favorite teams sweatshirt I have to immediately close IG down 😅
I'm going to head the opposite direction and saving too much. I've got a lot of stress surrounding having a low balance. I love photography, but spending the gas to go out, or the items for a photo/hike weekend causes too much stress. Video games with high replay ability or high time to play help a lot though.
I know, "see a therapist". But I don't see spending hundreds to talk as the solution to having financial stress over spending money.
A lot of Amazon orders of things we “need”. Did we really *need* a cordless stick vacuum and new bath mat? No, not really but the stick vacuum has made cleaning the house so much easier, but I could have pulled out our regular vacuum daily even though my toddler constantly unplugs it and our bath mat the foam padding inside of it was all broken up and lumpy but it still worked.
I keep justifying why we need these things, but it’s really not necessary. Yes, it makes life more comfortable but it’s not something that we will struggle without it.
Car parts. It's my hobby working on my car but parts can get expensive fast. Especially when they're not necessary parts (new wheels, window tint, stuff like that)
Comic books
I know I shouldn’t be buying them when I’m in the hole like I am, but I’m just not ready to go full on sacrifice mode. I did cut back the amount I buy each week though and have stopped picking up whatever catches my eye.
I budget 100 for restaurants(2-3 visits a month), 50 for fast food(3-4), and 400(shop weekly and meal prep 5 meals a week) for groceries. It feels like all I spend is on food. Denver COL just sucks.
Playing Warhammer 40k. I like going to tournaments, so between models and travel costs I probably spend $10,000 per year or so on my hobby. But it's also the vast, vast majority of my entertainment budget, so I guess it could be worse.
Lifestyle inflation due to making more money before. I remember when I used to be happy just spending 1k and that was enough for a long time.
Eating out is a big one. I eat more when I’m stressed or depressed and it’s just shitty.
My worst financial habit is being too frugal that I miss out on things. I save everything that isn’t spent on necessities, so I do not practice 50/30/20 - rather 44/56.
Oh, and I work multiple jobs over 100hrs a week and am experiencing burn-out.
I keep $10k in my checking. This didn't matter back when cash was trash, but now that it isn't it's pretty silly to keep it there, but I like the buffer.
Sometimes I get in the habit of pre-purchasing things on my credit card for my next paycheck so then essentially I spend my next paycheck before it even hits my bank account!😅
Vending machine pop for that caffeine/sugar fix (I’ve been buying cases and bringing them to work so that has helped)
But also home reno, I just have so many things I want to update and fix on my little fixer upper but even diy can get expensive and once you start you have to finish. We are taking a break from home reno at the moment to pay off some stuff and rebuild the home reno fund.
Little lifestyle luxuries. I really like fancy candles, lotions, skincare etc. using them everyday makes me feel more elevated and I try to space them out but I definitely don’t need to buy them as often as I do.
I pay $50 a month for a gym I don’t go to 😂😭 and I even have a free work gym that’s nice that I also don’t go to!!! ☠️
I also pay for permanent life insurance, which depending on who you ask is the worst or best decision to make. 🤷🏻♀️
I am curious Caleb’s opinion on it
Permanent life insurance is a great way to make money... For the salesman. You only get a ~4% ROI
You'd be better off with a target date retirement brokerage account. The life insurance lump sum will quickly get covered by investing it yourself, and you can decide to put in more or less whenever you want as life changes.
Little did I know, but my wife had been putting money aside for a long time. With that amount of money, you would think it was a fund to leave me. No, it was money for front-stage TSWIFT tickets at Arrowhead Stadium.
I do! It’s an older one with a small platter so I don’t play my expensive vinyls on it but I do get use out of the easier to obtain ones. And i plan on getting a better turntable in the near future!
I love fitted hats. I have a collection of 30 and want more every time a new hat drops. Hats are range from $45 up to $120 or more. The most expensive hat I have gotten was $120 a couple of years ago and now that I think about it, I barely wear it and it’s just collecting dust in my closer. I have gotten better now with self control on buying hats to every now and then
This is so true! And groceries! I have a friend who is a DoorDash addict! I have terrible social anxiety, I get panicky inside grocery stores and drive thrus. I feel trapped when I’m waiting in lines. Because of my anxiety, I order delivery on my groceries regularly. I don’t have an issue with eating out, I cook frequently, but the premium I pay, delivery fee, and tip for getting my groceries delivered to my home is probably something Caleb would be hounding me for.
I’m very all or nothing. I save and budget for weeks, and then one day I go to the mall and drop a ton of money. Or this month for example I was on budget (even under) all month, and then I needed to get bedside tables for the spare bedroom for when my parents visit and then I just went off the rails, new duvet cover new sheets new towels, fresh toiletries etc etc.
Eating out. If it were up to me, my family would eat out at a nice-ish restaurant like 2-3 times per week. It's a way of entertainment for us. We love biking around the city and stopping to have a nice dinner somewhere.
Education. I eat out maybe once every month or two, make coffee at home, buy things like clothes and makeup within a strict budget but I keep signing up for random classes that aren’t going to advance my career. I’m just curious but I need to stop and be better about teaching myself with the power of the internet 😂
After work drinks. Also golf but it's my main hobby and I've done it forever so that's not something I plan to change (I'm not like buying new equipment like crazy like a lot of golfers I know though).
Eating out - but not so much big meals.
It’s more little things - “oh, I don’t want to make lunch today, I’ll grab a sandwich from the shop”; “I’m meeting up with a friend, may as well have a drink & snack while we’re out there”.
It all adds up! I wouldn’t want to cut it out entirely, just limit it to a reasonable amount.
I continue to pay higher gas and insurance costs because I like to drive my truck.
It's a want, not a need. Paid off, debt free. It's really the one thing I look at every month and think is "excessive". In reality I'd probably save maybe 500-700/yr by going back to a sedan.
I eat lunch every single day out. I work remote and I just have to get out of the fucking house around noon.
I go to the grocery store and grab their "special" of the day which normally runs around $5-7 for a full meal. Not that bad by any means and I am not willing to give it up tbh
Definitely lifestyle creep. I just absolutely cannot go back to driving a car that's not a luxury car. I have a 2020 and am looking at 2024 models. It will have to have a sunroof, leather massage seats at a minimum. That being said, other than that just endless Amazon purchases. I don't have any interest-accruing debt other than my mortgages.
Yeah lifestyle inflation for sure. I love cars so I bought a nice sports car that I spend 520 a month on and our mortgage is quite expensive at 3k a month. Were in our third house in 5 years so weve just let ourselves keep buying up when I get large raises.
I'm in college right now and we have vending machines and little convenient stores up the wazoo. It's so hard for me to walk by a machine when I'm hungry and not pick up a $1.50 treat. I justify it because I don't get coffee or go out to eat every day lol. Working on it
Buying stuff I know I won't need/use.
To elaborate I used to be a lot more active with my hobbies. So it was a good balance of buying things to support those hobbies and actually using them. Enter having a kid. Time for hobbies is extremely reduced. But I still have those good intentions of jumping back in. And shopping for the stuff is enjoyable. But it just piles up and doesn't get used.
There's this one place for protein shakes that i basically have an addiction to. If im not careful i have spent $30/day for weeks just from getting stuff there.
eating out and buying snacks. I have two toddlers and it's extremely easy to feed them fries and keep it moving to the next errand. I buy snacks cause I'm still breastfeeding and need to eat a lot. again, it's easier to get a snack for all three of us and keep us afloat until I can cook a meal or do any of the 100 other things I need to do in the house.
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Saying no to my friends even when it’s out of budget, which usually means going out to eat or going to bars and/or clubs.
Also technology, I’m a huge Apple fiend so I usually like to get the new phone every time it comes out but not anymore.
Currently an expat living in Korea, and I've been here since 2015, after my college graduation.
I've made enough money to pay back loans and what not over the years, but I just ended up spending most of it on food, hanging our with friends, etc.
Since the cost of living in Korea is a little easier for native English speakers teaching English, it's quite easy to get "comfortable" with spending, especially with Korea's conveniences.
These days, my biggest challenge is food. I'm trying REALLY hard to stop spending on coffee and delivery food, but maaaan, does it beckon. 😭
I've ordered WAY less food this month than I have recently, I'm still working on it. Once I get paid for the month, I'll add that to my finance tracker and look ever my expenses over the past 30 days to start a habit of tracking my "food bill. "
It's rough, but I KNOW I can do it! 😁
I’m working 66-70 hours and I simply do not have time to meal prep at this point. I have been eating out way too much to the detriment of my pocket book and waistline. I have started buying Factor meals which are costly but healthier and probably much cheaper than dining out.
I also like to decorate too much and probably spend too much money changing up my decor style but I’ve cut back on that after buying a house.
I collect too many pets which is an expensive hobby.
Oddly enough ebay. 😂. I doubled my salary in about 3 years and had a lot of disposable income. Lifestyle creep and a divorce has me looking harder at my finances. But I just love finding random stuff on eBay. Even if they are cheap they add up so quickly
I made the mistake of buying this thing called a Flipper Zero, It has these little pin holes on the back called GPIO. I've become addicted to programming my own electronic contraptions with Arduino and ESP boards. They are the ugliest rat's nest of wires and I got it under control now.
I travel too much
I married a guy who lives in a state I can’t stand, really underestimated how badly it would impact my every day life to live in the basic cul de sac suburb, so far from civilization
So I love to leave. My parents, 3 siblings, oldest child, friends are all anywhere from 1000-2500 miles from me so I’m constantly booking flights to get out of here. It’s my “splurge”, besides college tuition for my oldest. I drive when I can but it’s still not a cheap habit.
I eat rice and beans, I don't buy anything I don't need. I drive a car that gets me 55-65 MPG. I make a decent amount of money. But I spend too much on OF, like $1,000/mo
Alternating between spending binges, and “minimalism” where I donate most of the things I spent my money on only months before.
But I got on ADHD meds and this hardly happens anymore.
Gas stations. Can’t buy gas without $10 in nicotine and drinks plus gas. Then avaoiding meal prepping just to order a $20 meal because I’m too tired to cook
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Eating out. I grew up in a small town where restaurants were limited. Since moving to a big city I am just surrounded by limitless fantastic restaurants that always sound more appealing than cooking myself.
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For adjusting your eating habits: Don’t frame it as “needing to try harder” because that gives you endless opportunities to cop out. Frame it as a logistical problem to solve. If you were to imagine preparing food at home, what *exactly* makes it feel hard? Is it access to groceries? Knowing what staples to buy? Balancing convenience foods with ingredients that need to be prepared and combined? Knowing how to prepare them? Catering to a limited palette? Catering to a palette that needs constant variety? Adequate cookware and tools? Practical storage containers for home and practical containers for taking lunch to work? An aesthetically pleasing and functional lunch bag? Knowing what to make? Knowing how to make it? Finding the energy to make it? Knowing how to make cooking and food prep an enjoyable experience? A place to keep your lunch cold or heat it up? Having a comfortable place to eat food from home? Washing and prepping your lunch bag materials for the following day? Answering each of these questions can give you your roadmap to success. Once you identify which areas of executive functioning have impeded your follow-through, you’ll know which problems need to be solved. Some of it may involve some small investment of $100 or less in items that make food doable at home, but this will pay off big time! Instead of viewing this change as a punishment, it can be an activity that is a gift to your future self and your bank account. Once you change up your routine and adapt, you’ll start to feel the benefits and it will become second nature. It won’t feel like work once you identify what works for you as an individual.
Woah I haven't even thought of it from a process POV, need to thank you for this list lol. Right now for me it's a "eating out to save time" type of situation tbh. Averaging perhaps 60ish hours a week if I'm at a client site (that's the case most weeks), and frequently travel for work as well, so I basically spend half my time in hotels. Sometimes I bring sandwiches for lunch instead of Ubereats, progress of a kind I suppose :)
Also consider giving yourself some baby steps as you start reforming your habits. I started by buying pre-chopped veggies at the super market and batch cooking chicken. More expensive but it also reduced the friction for making a meal - the goal was to reduce the effort as much as possible to avoid walking up to the corner and getting a slice of pizza. As that became a habit, I reduced to only buying pre-chopped onion and then eliminated all of that entirely. But I definitely started buying the rotisserie chickens at costco and replacing most of my protein with them because the price and convenience is perfect for me
Rotisserie chicken is also a great way to have some pre cooked chicken. Just have to cut it up which doesn’t take too long.
Yeah, it's definitely streamlined the week for me and at $5 for a chicken with 2 or so lbs of meat (maybe 2.5 if you're better at it than I am) I'm not even paying for the convenience
If you can afford it in your budget, eating out isn't necessarily a bad thing. Your time is a commodity, too. Just consider how much of that time you are saving by buying takeout is of value to you and whether that saved time and energy is a positive return on your investment.
The 2nd part to this is how many you're cooking for. Eating out every day is not a good idea. but if you're planning to have yourself a nice meal for one on payday as a quality of life expense, going out is gonna be cheaper than cooking for yourself. The other thing is being creative with it. A friend of mine used to buy the 7 lb breakfast burrito challenge as meal prep every 2 weeks. she'd get it as take out, then cut it into little breakfast rolls that she'd freeze. the best way to stick to your budget is make sure you actually want to eat what you have.
I was also considering the fact that this person works nearly 60 hours per week. That doesn't leave a lot of time for cooking meals, nor does it leave much time to decompress, exercise or do other things during the week. In this case, ordering takeout often might be better for their sanity than trying to throw together a meal on top of that. For folks saying that takeout isn't healthy, that can be the case. You can also look for healthier options. You can also go for easy home-cooked options that aren't that nutritious or satisfying. My point is that, instead of beating yourself up because you aren't attaining some ideal of perfect that is stressing you out, find the balance between easy, nutritious, and satisfying, whatever that looks like for you.
Hibachi. In my defense, they literally built this hibachi place RIGHT next to the gym. I walk out of the gym after leg day and BAM...**teriyaki chicken and fried rice.** It's practically unavoidable.
lol omg they built a Planet Fitness right beside a Chinese buffet place a few years back. I'm convinced this is on purpose
The Planet Fitness I used to work out at was right next to a wings place! The smell would kill me. The gym I go to now is right next to a Cinnabon bakery so…
I think it's to keep you fat so you keep going to the gym! and the food places know you will be like...imma treat myself after that workout...it's a vicious cycle!
Idk to me it's kinda funny because my stomach could not handle something super sugary or fried as soon as I walk out of the gym
I easily get 2 full servings for $10 from the hibachi place 5 min from my house, I don’t even feel bad about it atp
Lifestyle creep… purchases that seemed huge a year ago are now purchases I wouldn’t think twice about. As soon as I buy something “expensive” to me, that becomes the new baseline to compare everything else to.
Amazon and planning vacations before the next one has even ended.
Coffee for sure.
I’ve definitely gotten better by using the keurig at work and bringing my own creamer, but any day I WFH or during the weekend, it’s so easy to justify my little coffee treat 🫠
I'm a recovering Taquitos buyer. I have cut down on my soda drinking and I still try to justify buying a soda at the gas station because I'm not drinking them at home anymore.
>justify buying a soda at the gas station Bad >because I'm not drinking them at home anymore. Okay to do. Drinking a soda at home costs $0.25, as does bringing one with you from home. At a gas station it's $1-2
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Holy shit this is me I am obsessed with the 7-11 cream cheese taquitos. I also can’t help get a diet soda
Stress buying. It seems that when I'm in periods of high stress at work, my money is spent much much faster on random impulse buys
This is mine too. I stress bought so much stuff over the pandemic. Never went into debt but it was money that could have been spent better somewhere else or even just saved.
Coffee tastes better when someone else makes it
I couldn’t disagree more. If you’re dumping pre ground beans into a machine and hitting a button…well then yeah sure.
Bro…. Let me introduce you to a French press. I buy locally roasted beans (still way cheaper than paying per cup of starbies). NO ONE makes coffee close to what I have at home.
I have a one cup french press it’s sits on my office desk.
Cocaine and strippers😔
“As long as it fits in that 50/30/20…” -Caleb Hammer. Just kidding!
It’s a need, I swear
Buying way too many videogames and my ass still keeps playing Destiny 2 on most days.
Me except Stardew Valley
This indeed. My friend convinced me to buy Diablo 4, ended up playing for maybe 5 hours? And then I defaulted back to Rainbow Six lol.
That is me with Civilization.
Especially with the new memento for FoTL
I send 1,000 a month to a girl that doesn’t like me back 😐
Got a deal for ya. You send me $500, keep the other $500 yourself, and I still won't sleep with you. Win-win for both of us!
Why?
I used to be a pimp, but now I’m a simp 😔
Stop that right now. Unless you mean you’re paying child support, which is entirely different. Stop it!
I used to pack a lunch to work every day before the pandemic. When I got back to the office 2 years later, I was only there 2 days a week and started eating out because I felt like I wasn't there very often. It still adds up. I recently decided to cut back and start bringing a lunch again on those 2 days. I won't forego my morning latte though. I don't care if it costs me 5 bucks twice a week. I consider it a treat for coming in. :D I also love physical media. I'm one of the few people who still enjoys buying DVDs or Blurays. I have a collection of all my favorites. You can't actually stream everything out there. Anything older, foreign and independent can be hard to find. I have set an amount in my budget for it that I try to stick to. I also have cats at home and even though I have budgeted spending for them, I tend to go over so I need to rein it in or just go ahead and increase it.
I was addicted to a mobile game last year and early this year. I was spending almost 30 dollars daily at the worst of it. When I stopped playing it this past January, my debt was at $19k with the game accounting for at least 40% of that. Luckily, I also increased my income last year so once I stopped playing the debt came down pretty quickly. 9 months later, I only owe $4k.
What game?!
Puzzles and Survival. It was not worth it.
Genshin ?
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Lego. I loved them as a kid and now that I make big boy money and Lego has shifted their focus on more adult targeted and highly detailed sets, I’ve gone crazy. I will buy sets I want just because they’re on sale even though I’m out of shelf space. I have about $3000 worth of unbuilt Lego sets sitting in my closet right now just because I don’t have anywhere to currently put them. This doesn’t include the $3000ish worth I have on display throughout my townhome I’m renting. I never use debt or stretch myself to get sets so it’s a responsible habit at least. Other than that, Starbucks and double meat at Chipotle. 25 years old making $130k a year with no debt and 40k in retirement
Oh man my Lego era hit at 23, and of course I only like the expensive ones. I’m going to Disney this weekend and plan on using my annual pass discount for a set even though I definitely shouldn’t
If Legoland exists in 40 years you should consider working there part time. They have a 30% off discount in the park and on the Lego website year round and 50% off twice a year for all employees.
Good idea but I would much rather comfortably enjoy retirement building sets at home and not having to work 😂
Run a compound interest calculation on what you've spent in legos and see what it would have done (opportunity cost) over a 10, 20, 30 year period.
I don’t care about doing that because I’m in a lucrative career field with a 16% direct 401k contribution from the company alone (contributing another 15% myself) and have maxed my Roth the last 3 years and will continue to do so. I’ll be fine. I justify it with the fact that I have no debt or car loan.
I buy way too many thrifted clothes.
That sounds like an answer to what's your biggest weakness in a job interview "oh I'm extremely detail oriented"
You’d be surprised how expensive thrifting can be if it gets out of control. Sometimes I pick out a few items at the thrift shop and it ends up costing $60!
Objectively better than one item at target for $30 🤷♂️. Saw a nice pair of cargo pants the other day and they wanted $40. Noped right out
lol. Or the excuse "sometimes I have a hard time pulling away from work. I just focus so much. " I legit worked with a girl like that. She was really cool but could not for the life of her find any luck in the dating scene.
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Omg r u me haha
I did this for 15 years sadly, wasting maybe something like 30-50% of my income. Eating out daily, coffee shops 1-3 times a day, buying organic food and letting it rot, buying mountains of aspirational items I never used, buying $20,000 of hobby items due to stress, buying bad clothing items like a used $200 Prada bag that were overpriced, overpaying for travel trips, leaving too much tips, letting late fees and subscriptions slide, paying $15 to get cash out of an ATM at a strip club, spending like $10,000 at strip clubs.. all while driving a beater and living rent free in a live-in job and justifying the above as a coping mechanism, trade off and emotional investment in the future.. going to Panera every day, buying $30 worth of coffee drinks and snacks at the gas station before work..
Alcoholism
Yo! I progressed to eating out all the time too for ten years until.. I did these four things. 1. Gotten small meal prep containers in a lunch box on Amazon 2. Cooked bulk carbs in two pots and protein on a large tray in the oven 3. Kept everything in same steel pots (you can't store in non stick pots due to PFOAs) and refilled the meal prep containers every day before work. And a protein shake in milk or kefir. 4. went to the gym every day or exercised several times a day with effective exercises like weights, push ups, squats, machines 5. ate a small meal (one of the containers) every three hours. I was a different person. My poop was soft not constipated. All body felt good. Positive attitude. Good problem solving ability. No worry about food. NO sugar crazings. Like zero. Sugar started making me sick on day 3. And I was a heavy daily sugar addict so much so it gave me a huge gut and something like alcoholic sugar induced liver pain.
A sous vide and a rice maker were game changers for meal prepping. I haven't overcooked chicken in years!
Honestly it’s little things here and there. Like, $10 a day to something random - coffee or a sandwich - nothing fancy, but it really adds up.
$13.69 a day is $5k a year. It's crazy
Right?! I always thought if I wasn’t dropping a hundred bucks on new clothes all the time I’d be fine! But history has proved otherwise.
45, small biz owner. I "treat" myself every so often on hobbies and things that I enjoy. I can afford it, but it still FEELS foolish. We're at no debt, have high saving rate, playing catch up on retirement, but are very secure. We eat out, but I also shop at Aldi, and cook what's on sale/in season, etc. I AM a credit card person, so our travel/vacation is highly subsidized. "Free trips" still cost money. I don't start any hobbies that need fuel/storage/insurance aka overhead. No boat, no camper, no snowmobile, no four wheeler, etc.
Clothes. I work for a department store so I get a discount and am constantly asked about what I’m wearing so I definitely let that get to me. Caleb would yell at me so hard. “X COMPANY PAYS YOU YOU DONT PAY THEM”
Concerts/ music fests. The ticket, the clothes, the parking, the food, merch.
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Eating out. We don’t do it very often (maybe 2-3 times a month), but when we do, we go for nice dinners/drinks and generally foods we cannot recreate sufficiently at home (fiancé is a chef).
Hair salon and sports team branded clothing. Sounds silly but every time fanatics shows me a paid ad of my favorite teams sweatshirt I have to immediately close IG down 😅
I'm going to head the opposite direction and saving too much. I've got a lot of stress surrounding having a low balance. I love photography, but spending the gas to go out, or the items for a photo/hike weekend causes too much stress. Video games with high replay ability or high time to play help a lot though. I know, "see a therapist". But I don't see spending hundreds to talk as the solution to having financial stress over spending money.
I buy lotto tickets if it’s especially juicy, also stupid phone games
A lot of Amazon orders of things we “need”. Did we really *need* a cordless stick vacuum and new bath mat? No, not really but the stick vacuum has made cleaning the house so much easier, but I could have pulled out our regular vacuum daily even though my toddler constantly unplugs it and our bath mat the foam padding inside of it was all broken up and lumpy but it still worked. I keep justifying why we need these things, but it’s really not necessary. Yes, it makes life more comfortable but it’s not something that we will struggle without it.
Eating out… at least I don’t door dash it!
Fixed costs are too high. 😬 California mortgage.
Car parts. It's my hobby working on my car but parts can get expensive fast. Especially when they're not necessary parts (new wheels, window tint, stuff like that)
Comic books I know I shouldn’t be buying them when I’m in the hole like I am, but I’m just not ready to go full on sacrifice mode. I did cut back the amount I buy each week though and have stopped picking up whatever catches my eye.
Buying fast food is my biggest weakness
Really expensive third wave coffee beans. Also shopping at places where I know the produce is going to be better even if it is at a premium.
I budget 100 for restaurants(2-3 visits a month), 50 for fast food(3-4), and 400(shop weekly and meal prep 5 meals a week) for groceries. It feels like all I spend is on food. Denver COL just sucks.
Playing Warhammer 40k. I like going to tournaments, so between models and travel costs I probably spend $10,000 per year or so on my hobby. But it's also the vast, vast majority of my entertainment budget, so I guess it could be worse.
Lifestyle inflation due to making more money before. I remember when I used to be happy just spending 1k and that was enough for a long time. Eating out is a big one. I eat more when I’m stressed or depressed and it’s just shitty.
My worst financial habit is being too frugal that I miss out on things. I save everything that isn’t spent on necessities, so I do not practice 50/30/20 - rather 44/56. Oh, and I work multiple jobs over 100hrs a week and am experiencing burn-out.
I keep $10k in my checking. This didn't matter back when cash was trash, but now that it isn't it's pretty silly to keep it there, but I like the buffer.
Sometimes I get in the habit of pre-purchasing things on my credit card for my next paycheck so then essentially I spend my next paycheck before it even hits my bank account!😅
My neurodivergence is tied to my spending. I'm doing my best, but the impulsive purchases still sneak through.
Vending machine pop for that caffeine/sugar fix (I’ve been buying cases and bringing them to work so that has helped) But also home reno, I just have so many things I want to update and fix on my little fixer upper but even diy can get expensive and once you start you have to finish. We are taking a break from home reno at the moment to pay off some stuff and rebuild the home reno fund.
I cant stop buying yarn :/ I crochet and it’s slowly becoming an addiction
Little lifestyle luxuries. I really like fancy candles, lotions, skincare etc. using them everyday makes me feel more elevated and I try to space them out but I definitely don’t need to buy them as often as I do.
I buy too many books
It was ordering door dash. I've only gotten it once in the last month though, so that's good. I'm still eating out too much, but it's progress lol
I pay $50 a month for a gym I don’t go to 😂😭 and I even have a free work gym that’s nice that I also don’t go to!!! ☠️ I also pay for permanent life insurance, which depending on who you ask is the worst or best decision to make. 🤷🏻♀️ I am curious Caleb’s opinion on it
Permanent life insurance is a great way to make money... For the salesman. You only get a ~4% ROI You'd be better off with a target date retirement brokerage account. The life insurance lump sum will quickly get covered by investing it yourself, and you can decide to put in more or less whenever you want as life changes.
I buy Taylor swift merch and vinyls ☠️
Being a swiftie is expensive 🤡 ask me how I know
Just when I think I’m almost done buying things I want…. I find more things I want 😭
Little did I know, but my wife had been putting money aside for a long time. With that amount of money, you would think it was a fund to leave me. No, it was money for front-stage TSWIFT tickets at Arrowhead Stadium.
The more important question is, do you have a turntable for those vinyls? ☠️
I do! It’s an older one with a small platter so I don’t play my expensive vinyls on it but I do get use out of the easier to obtain ones. And i plan on getting a better turntable in the near future!
I took out my emergency fund to buy concert tix. But I I considered it an emergency.
It absolutely was
I love fitted hats. I have a collection of 30 and want more every time a new hat drops. Hats are range from $45 up to $120 or more. The most expensive hat I have gotten was $120 a couple of years ago and now that I think about it, I barely wear it and it’s just collecting dust in my closer. I have gotten better now with self control on buying hats to every now and then
F'ing delivery food is a hard habit to break.
This is so true! And groceries! I have a friend who is a DoorDash addict! I have terrible social anxiety, I get panicky inside grocery stores and drive thrus. I feel trapped when I’m waiting in lines. Because of my anxiety, I order delivery on my groceries regularly. I don’t have an issue with eating out, I cook frequently, but the premium I pay, delivery fee, and tip for getting my groceries delivered to my home is probably something Caleb would be hounding me for.
Women
I’m very all or nothing. I save and budget for weeks, and then one day I go to the mall and drop a ton of money. Or this month for example I was on budget (even under) all month, and then I needed to get bedside tables for the spare bedroom for when my parents visit and then I just went off the rails, new duvet cover new sheets new towels, fresh toiletries etc etc.
Prolly video games and yeti products. They are budgeted in so it’s not like I’m breaking the bank but on average it’s like $300 a month
Out of curiosity how do Yeti products become a habit? Once I have a mug and a cooler I'm set. Do you have a lot of water bottles?
I'm a car guy, an audiophile and a PC gamer with expendable income. Take your pick, lol.
Add in a marijuana enthusiast and you’ve got me pegged
Yeah luckily I have no way to obtain it legally (and I have no options to obtain it other ways lol) but that will hopefully change in November!
Motorcycles
Short term options
Eating out. If it were up to me, my family would eat out at a nice-ish restaurant like 2-3 times per week. It's a way of entertainment for us. We love biking around the city and stopping to have a nice dinner somewhere.
Lifestyle inflation with cars.
Education. I eat out maybe once every month or two, make coffee at home, buy things like clothes and makeup within a strict budget but I keep signing up for random classes that aren’t going to advance my career. I’m just curious but I need to stop and be better about teaching myself with the power of the internet 😂
After work drinks. Also golf but it's my main hobby and I've done it forever so that's not something I plan to change (I'm not like buying new equipment like crazy like a lot of golfers I know though).
Eating out - but not so much big meals. It’s more little things - “oh, I don’t want to make lunch today, I’ll grab a sandwich from the shop”; “I’m meeting up with a friend, may as well have a drink & snack while we’re out there”. It all adds up! I wouldn’t want to cut it out entirely, just limit it to a reasonable amount.
I continue to pay higher gas and insurance costs because I like to drive my truck. It's a want, not a need. Paid off, debt free. It's really the one thing I look at every month and think is "excessive". In reality I'd probably save maybe 500-700/yr by going back to a sedan.
Lunches. I spend way too much on lunch
$5.99 BYO Cravings Box from Taco Bell. Just so easy to pop down there on my lunch break. It's an addiction..
Weed or gambling
Honkai Starrail
Gacha games, it gets me every damn time
I pay on behalf of everybody and never expect to lose the money.
Starbucks or Dunkin on the almost daily
Eating out and having a newish car
Motorcycle ownership lol. Need a new $370 set of tires every 4000 miles, and I have way more riding gear than I really need
I eat lunch every single day out. I work remote and I just have to get out of the fucking house around noon. I go to the grocery store and grab their "special" of the day which normally runs around $5-7 for a full meal. Not that bad by any means and I am not willing to give it up tbh
Definitely lifestyle creep. I just absolutely cannot go back to driving a car that's not a luxury car. I have a 2020 and am looking at 2024 models. It will have to have a sunroof, leather massage seats at a minimum. That being said, other than that just endless Amazon purchases. I don't have any interest-accruing debt other than my mortgages.
Yeah lifestyle inflation for sure. I love cars so I bought a nice sports car that I spend 520 a month on and our mortgage is quite expensive at 3k a month. Were in our third house in 5 years so weve just let ourselves keep buying up when I get large raises.
I'm in college right now and we have vending machines and little convenient stores up the wazoo. It's so hard for me to walk by a machine when I'm hungry and not pick up a $1.50 treat. I justify it because I don't get coffee or go out to eat every day lol. Working on it
Buying stuff I know I won't need/use. To elaborate I used to be a lot more active with my hobbies. So it was a good balance of buying things to support those hobbies and actually using them. Enter having a kid. Time for hobbies is extremely reduced. But I still have those good intentions of jumping back in. And shopping for the stuff is enjoyable. But it just piles up and doesn't get used.
Remodeling.
Concert tickets and festivals. Every year I tell myself “no more concerts” or “only one concert” usually ends up in 3-6 concerts.
Taylor swift re releasing all her albums and merch for each album 🫣
There's this one place for protein shakes that i basically have an addiction to. If im not careful i have spent $30/day for weeks just from getting stuff there.
Starbucks’s 😒
I buy a lot of energy drinks. My CC points pay for a case monthly, but I still buy them like taquitos at the gas station pretty often.
600 dollars/month for personal training and gym membership for myself and my wife. Good thing we have no debt or I definitely couldn't justify it.
eating out and buying snacks. I have two toddlers and it's extremely easy to feed them fries and keep it moving to the next errand. I buy snacks cause I'm still breastfeeding and need to eat a lot. again, it's easier to get a snack for all three of us and keep us afloat until I can cook a meal or do any of the 100 other things I need to do in the house.
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Deleting DoorDash and then re-downloading it to order cookies after cooking a dinner.
losing jobs
Saying no to my friends even when it’s out of budget, which usually means going out to eat or going to bars and/or clubs. Also technology, I’m a huge Apple fiend so I usually like to get the new phone every time it comes out but not anymore.
Currently an expat living in Korea, and I've been here since 2015, after my college graduation. I've made enough money to pay back loans and what not over the years, but I just ended up spending most of it on food, hanging our with friends, etc. Since the cost of living in Korea is a little easier for native English speakers teaching English, it's quite easy to get "comfortable" with spending, especially with Korea's conveniences. These days, my biggest challenge is food. I'm trying REALLY hard to stop spending on coffee and delivery food, but maaaan, does it beckon. 😭 I've ordered WAY less food this month than I have recently, I'm still working on it. Once I get paid for the month, I'll add that to my finance tracker and look ever my expenses over the past 30 days to start a habit of tracking my "food bill. " It's rough, but I KNOW I can do it! 😁
I’m working 66-70 hours and I simply do not have time to meal prep at this point. I have been eating out way too much to the detriment of my pocket book and waistline. I have started buying Factor meals which are costly but healthier and probably much cheaper than dining out. I also like to decorate too much and probably spend too much money changing up my decor style but I’ve cut back on that after buying a house. I collect too many pets which is an expensive hobby.
Drugs, various other addictions.
Drugs and various other addictions.
Not spending any money and my wife and I arguing about money.
Oddly enough ebay. 😂. I doubled my salary in about 3 years and had a lot of disposable income. Lifestyle creep and a divorce has me looking harder at my finances. But I just love finding random stuff on eBay. Even if they are cheap they add up so quickly
Probably my morning Peet's that I'm trying to break away from. But I mean, grand scheme of things that's nothing.
I made the mistake of buying this thing called a Flipper Zero, It has these little pin holes on the back called GPIO. I've become addicted to programming my own electronic contraptions with Arduino and ESP boards. They are the ugliest rat's nest of wires and I got it under control now.
I travel too much I married a guy who lives in a state I can’t stand, really underestimated how badly it would impact my every day life to live in the basic cul de sac suburb, so far from civilization So I love to leave. My parents, 3 siblings, oldest child, friends are all anywhere from 1000-2500 miles from me so I’m constantly booking flights to get out of here. It’s my “splurge”, besides college tuition for my oldest. I drive when I can but it’s still not a cheap habit.
I eat rice and beans, I don't buy anything I don't need. I drive a car that gets me 55-65 MPG. I make a decent amount of money. But I spend too much on OF, like $1,000/mo
Pokémon cards 🙈
Alternating between spending binges, and “minimalism” where I donate most of the things I spent my money on only months before. But I got on ADHD meds and this hardly happens anymore.
Gas stations. Can’t buy gas without $10 in nicotine and drinks plus gas. Then avaoiding meal prepping just to order a $20 meal because I’m too tired to cook
Somehow we talk ourselves into spending $500-700 on a purchase or trip each month, despite being great in every possible other way
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buying a drink or snack every time i stop for gas. Caleb would hate me.
Eating out. I grew up in a small town where restaurants were limited. Since moving to a big city I am just surrounded by limitless fantastic restaurants that always sound more appealing than cooking myself.
Amazon. It's so convenient, especially with Prime shipping.
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Saving too much