I’ve always said that saving money isn’t about choosing the cheapest option every single time and I think the older I get, the more I realise just how true that is.
There are loads of things that feel like they’re saving us money because we’re buying something reduced, choosing the cheaper version or putting off spending money for a bit longer, but sometimes when you look at what you’ve actually spent rather than what you think you’ve saved, it tells a completely different story.
I’m definitely guilty of a few of these myself so this isn’t me telling anyone what they should or shouldn’t be doing. It’s more a reminder to myself that something isn’t a bargain just because there’s a big yellow sticker telling me it is. 😁
Buying something just because it’s reduced
I’m usually pretty good with yellow sticker bargains because I try to stick to things we’d have bought anyway or things I know we’ll use, but every now and again the reduced sticker gets the better of me.
Last week I bought a pack of mango and coconut chicken that had been reduced to 70 odd pence. I was probably already about 70/30 convinced that we wouldn’t like it because mango and coconut isn’t really a flavour combination we’d usually go for, but it was so cheap that I thought it was worth a try.
It wasn’t worth a try. 😂 It tasted really plasticky, nobody particularly liked it and most of it ended up going to waste. The annoying thing is that I could have made some chicken myself using things I already had in the pantry and we’d have enjoyed it much more.
It was only 70 odd pence so it’s hardly the end of the world but if it hadn’t had that reduced sticker on it, I wouldn’t have bought it. I didn’t save money on some expensive chicken, I spent 70 odd pence on something I already suspected we wouldn’t like.
Driving further because petrol is cheaper
We always use a petrol price checker app and there’s a town about 20 miles away from us where petrol can sometimes be up to 10p a litre cheaper. If we’re putting a full tank in and we’re going even vaguely in that direction then it’s absolutely worth the detour and we’ll usually fill up while we’re there.
But if we only need half a tank and we’d be making a special journey just to get the cheaper petrol then it doesn’t make sense. By the time we’ve driven there and back, we’ve used some of the petrol we’ve just saved money on buying and added extra miles to the car.
It’s really easy to see petrol that’s 10p a litre cheaper and think that’s where you need to go but the cheapest petrol isn’t necessarily the cheapest option if you’re using petrol to go and buy it. We’ll always check the app but whether we actually go there depends on where we’re going and how much petrol we need.
Assuming the bigger pack is better value
I think we’re all so used to bigger packs being better value that it’s really easy to pick up the biggest one without even checking.
Washing capsules are one that I notice quite often because the smaller packs in our local shop are sometimes on offer and when they are, they can actually work out cheaper per wash than the big packs. I’ll just do a quick bit of maths using the number of washes on the pack and sometimes I’ll buy two of the smaller packs instead.
I know we’re only talking a few pence per wash but it’s something we buy all the time so why wouldn’t I buy whichever size works out cheaper? A massive pack isn’t automatically a bargain just because there’s more in it.
Buying the cheapest version of everything
I love a bargain but there are some things where I’ve learned that buying the cheapest version isn’t always the best way to save money.
If something costs half the price but needs replacing three times as often then it hasn’t really saved anything. And if I don’t actually like the cheaper version and end up replacing it with the one I wanted in the first place then I’ve just bought the same thing twice.
That’s not me saying the expensive option is always better either because it definitely isn’t. I just try to think more about how much use I’m going to get from something rather than automatically going for whichever one has the lowest price on the label.
I’d much rather pay a bit more for something I love and will use for years than buy something cheaper that I’m going to want to replace.
Signing up for free trials and forgetting about them
I’ve been using Duolingo to learn Spanish and I signed up for a free trial of the Super version. I’ve actually been doing really well with it and enjoying it, but I only just remembered that I needed to cancel the trial before it turned into a paid subscription.
And I’m very glad I did because it would have charged me £86 for the year! 😬
I’ve forgotten to cancel free trials before and ended up paying for an extra month of something but it’s always been a much cheaper subscription so it’s been annoying rather than a huge amount of money. £86 would have been a whole different level of annoying.
Free trials are great if you genuinely want to try something but the whole point is that you get to decide whether you want to pay for it afterwards. Forgetting about it and finding £86 gone from your account isn’t quite the money-saving win you had in mind when you signed up for something free.
Buying things for the cashback or points
I love cashback and I’ve been using it more and more lately but there’s a big difference between getting cashback on something you’re buying anyway and buying something because there’s cashback available.
If we’re going out for a meal anyway then I’ll happily spend less than a minute paying through Sprive and get some money knocked off our mortgage. If I’m shopping online then I’ll check TopCashback before I order and if there’s cashback there, brilliant.
But spending £50 that you weren’t planning to spend because you’ll get £3 back isn’t saving £3, you’ve still spent £47 more than you were going to.
The same goes for loyalty points. I love getting extra Boots points on something I was already buying but I’m not going to add random things to my basket just to hit a spending target and earn some extra points. The cashback or points are the bonus, not the reason for buying something.
Stocking up on things you don’t actually need
I love having a well stocked pantry and my Christmas Cupboard is probably proof that I’m never going to be against stocking up when something we use is on a good offer. But there’s a difference between stocking up and buying loads of something just because it’s cheap.
If it’s something we use regularly and I know it’ll get used then I’ll happily buy a few while it’s on offer. If I’m buying six of something we’ve never tried because it’s half price then there’s every chance I’ve just bought six things nobody wants.
Food waste is basically throwing money in the bin and a cupboard full of bargains isn’t really saving anything if half of them eventually get thrown away.
I’d rather have two of something I know we’ll use than ten of something I bought because the offer looked too good to leave behind.
Doing every job yourself
We’re doing loads ourselves in this house and I genuinely love that. We’ve restored things, painted things, made things for the garden and worked out ways to use what we’ve already got rather than automatically paying someone else to do it.
But I don’t think DIY is always automatically the cheaper option.
There are some jobs where you need to buy tools and materials before you’ve even started and if it’s something you’re never going to do again then suddenly the cheap DIY option isn’t quite so cheap. And there’s always the possibility of getting something wrong and having to pay someone to sort it anyway.
Sometimes doing it yourself makes complete sense and sometimes paying someone who knows exactly what they’re doing is worth every penny. I’m quite happy to have a go at lots of things but there are definitely limits. 😉
Keeping things for best
This is something I’ve been thinking about since I finally burned the Jo Malone candle the kids bought me a couple of Christmases ago.
It sat on the shelf looking all posh for ages because it felt too nice to burn and I was saving it for some reason that I couldn’t really have explained if you’d asked me. Then I finally lit it and for about a week my house smelled amazing.
And then it was gone and I was back to my supermarket candles. 😂
But the money had already been spent on it whether I burned it or not. Keeping it sitting on a shelf wasn’t saving anything and I got much more enjoyment out of actually using it.
I think we do this with all sorts of things. Nice toiletries, clothes, candles, food and things for the house get saved for best and sometimes we barely use them at all. I’m trying to be much better at actually using the things I’ve got rather than keeping them nice forever.
Putting off repairs because you don’t want to spend the money
We learned this one the expensive way in our old house.
We had a leaky roof and we knew it needed fixing but it was one of those boring grown up things that we kept putting off. We’d save some money towards getting it done and then something much more interesting would come along and we’d spend the money on that instead.
Obviously the roof didn’t magically fix itself while we were busy spending the money on less grown up things and over the next couple of years it got worse. When we decided to move house we couldn’t put it off any longer so we finally had to get it sorted and by that point it cost us way more than it would have done if we’d fixed it when we first knew there was a problem.
I wish I could say that taught me to get every boring house job sorted the second I notice it but I’m not going to pretend I’m suddenly that grown up. 😁 It did teach me that there’s a difference between putting off spending money and actually saving it though.
And I think that’s probably the thing that links most of these together. I still love a yellow sticker, I’ll still drive to the cheaper petrol station when it makes sense, I’ll always check for cashback and I’m definitely going to keep stocking my pantry when the things we use are on offer.
I just try to look at what something is actually costing me now rather than getting too distracted by how much I’m supposedly saving, because as my 70 odd pence mango and coconut chicken proved last week, sometimes the best bargain is the one you leave on the shelf.
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