rocket finance

I Wish It Were This Easy

Free Money Finance recently posted a list from Yahoo Finance that presents the ten great money drains along with the annual cost of each. FMF stated, “I view this as a list of where we all can save a bundle of money.” I went through the list but did not find many places to improve our family budget. Here is the list from FMF:

1. Coffee – $360 per year.
2. Cigarettes — $1,660 a year.
3. Alcohol — $3,650 per year.
4. Bottled water from convenience stores — $365 per year.
5. Manicures — $1,068 per year.
6. Car washes — $348 per year.
7. Weekday lunches out — $2,350 a year.
8. Vending machines snacks — $260 per year.
9. Interest charges on credit card bills — $4,868 in interest (over time).
10. Unused memberships — $480 per year.

A summary of our household’s approximate expenditures in each area:

1. Coffee:  This is a great weakness of my wife and I. I think we come close to spending $250 annually in this area.
2. Cigarettes:  An easy one to avoid: $0.
3. Alcohol:  Another easy area for us. Neither of us drink: $0.
4. Bottled water:  We drink some, but we avoid expense in this area by filtering our tap water with a Brita Filter. The water tastes just like bottled water. We spend about $15 annually on the filter and have reason to spend another $20 on bottled water for convenience’ sake
5. Manicures:  my wife might get one manicure a year: $35.
6. Car Washes:  I would love to wash our car more often, but we only spend about $30 a year in this area.
7. Weekday lunches out:  I spend about $150 a year on weekday lunches.
8. Vending machine snacks:  A weakness of mine: $100 a year.
9. Interest charges on credit card bills:  $0, so far. . .
10. Unused memberships:  $0

So what does this mean? It means that my “frugal brain” felt really good after reading this list. I was smugly satisfied that our family budget stacks up very well against the Yahoo list.

But the truth is that we overspend even if it isn’t in those ten categories. I need to exercise more discipline, creativity and willingness to find areas to cut expenses. Especially items where I really don’t want to cut back, but know I should. I’m just thankful that cable tv, high speed internet, cellphone bill or Diet Pepsi were not on the list.