Girl Ninja and I have made multiple intentional decisions on how we can best reign in spending and control our costs. We don’t have cable, we rent a one bedroom apartment, and we try to buy as much stuff as we can on sale. We intentionally cut costs to save money.
Last night, however, I started thinking about all the ways I unintentionally save money. Turns out, I’m even more thrifty than I realized. Here are some ways I’ve unknowingly been saving some serious coin…
Alcohol:
I only know a handful of people like myself. People that hate alcohol. This is not a religious thing, but more a I-hate-the-way-it-tastes kind of thing. It amazes me how much some people wish I drank. I swear every time I go out someone is begging me to try their glass of wine, their beer, or their rum and coke, as though, my taste buds will suddenly do a 180 and be in alcohol heaven. I’ve done a lot of taste tasting over the years and the scale in which I use to describe alcoholic beverages ranges from “extremely disgusting to moderately disgusting”. I’m yet to find a drink I legitimately enjoy. Since I’ve never bought alcohol before, I don’t really know how much I’m saving. I’ll make a completely uneducated guess and assume most other 20-somethings probably drop between $30 and $200 a month on alcohol. Is that a good guess? How much do you spend?
Haircuts:
If you haven’t noticed in the various pictures I’ve posted over the years, my head is shaved. After my freshmen year of college I decided it was time to say goodbye to my long flowing locks and get the clippers out. That was seven years ago. I haven’t paid for a single haircut since. Prior to buzzing it all off, I was probably getting my hair cut once every two months. At $20/cut that works out to a total savings of $840 over the years. The only thing I miss about going to get my hair did, was the way the stylist would massage my scalp under hot water. Can I get an amen?!
Coffee:
I must have some extremely jacked up taste buds, cause not only do I hate the taste of alcohol, but the taste of coffee (or anything with coffee in it) makes me want to projectile vomit all over a white cat (I hate cats). Girl Ninja loves her some Starbucks. It’s a good thing I don’t, otherwise we’d probably be there every day. She does her best to minimize her “Tall non-fat vanilla latte” purchases, but probably averages two a week. If I was joining her each trip that would be an additional $7/week out of our pockets, or $364 over the course of a year. Extrapolate that over the last 10 years and we are talking THOUSANDS of dollars saved by not liking the flavor of coffee. Booya for sensitive taste buds.
Video Games:
I may have to give up my man card for mentioning this one, but I don’t really get the point of video games. I played them in elementary and middle school, but by the time I got to high school I cared more about my outfit, girls, and sports then I did about what type of gun Lara Croft used. While video game consoles are reasonably priced (most around $200), the video games are a budget killer. At $40 to $80 a pop, I don’t know how gamers sustain themselves. Oh that’s right, they never go outside and they all live in their mother’s basements. Kidding….kind of. Thank goodness World Of Warcraft and NCAA Football ain’t my thing.
Okay now that I’ve pissed a bunch of video-gamers off, it’s time I step down and give you an opportunity to share some ways you’ve unintentionally saved some scrilla (that means money for the less cultured). Do you hate sweets? Never shave your armpits? Or do use public transportation? It might take a minute to think something up, but when you do drop a comment below.
