“The Devil Whispering Sweet Lies”: 53 People Thought These Habits Saved Them Money, They Were Wrong
In these economically uncertain times, it’s a good idea to reevaluate your budget and see where you could potentially cut back. That way, you save more cash and can have a bigger emergency fund. However, advice on the internet is a bit of a double-edged sword: some of it can genuinely help you, while other financial hacks can harm your wallet.
In a no-nonsense thread on AskReddit, thrifty and economically savvy internet users shared the things that can actually make people lose more money, instead of helping them save more like they thought. We’ve collected the most egregiously deceptive examples below, so scroll down to check them out. Don’t forget to take notes so you don’t fall into the same pitfalls as others.
If you’re an art/crafts person, seeing something you want and thinking, “I can just make it myself and it’ll cost me a lot less.” That is the devil whispering sweet lies directly into the tender ear of your hubris. If you don’t already have nearly all of the necessary supplies on hand, it *will* cost you more to make it yourself.
The golden rule of personal finance is to earn more than you spend and to spend less than you earn. No matter the size of your bank account, investment portfolio, zip code, or what tax bracket you’re in, if you spend more money than you bring in, eventually, you’ll run out of funds and you’ll take on debt.
So, you need to make sure that you’re being smart with both your income and savings, as well as your spending.
Broadly speaking, you have two main strategies available to you. The first is to spend less by cutting back on things that aren’t essential, like services or memberships you don’t really use or dining out instead of cooking at home.
The second is to earn more, by asking for a raise, getting promoted, applying to work at a better company, upskilling, taking on a side hustle or second job, etc.
Among some of the main ways to save more money, HSBC recommends:
- Planning a budget;
- Reducing your grocery spending at the supermarket and looking for discounts;
- Cutting fuel costs;
- Canceling unnecessary subscriptions;
- Reviewing your debt;
- Looking into tax relief and benefits that you may be entitled to.
Meanwhile, Barclays suggests challenging yourself to spend more. For example, you could aim to save more money over the next year by saving one cent on the first day, two cents on the third day, etc.
Or you could try a ‘no spend’ weekend once a month where you focus on free activities. For instance, you could go to museums, do movie nights, play board games, and go on long walks instead of paying for entertainment. Meanwhile, instead of dining out or buying more groceries, you could use up all the leftover food left at home from the week.
What are your best savings tips that genuinely work, dear Pandas? On the flip side, what are some pieces of financial advice that you’ve heard that are beyond delulu and can actually be bad for someone’s budget?
We genuinely can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this. If you have a spare moment, feel free to share your tips and hacks in the comments at the bottom of this post.
My in laws would drive all over town chasing grocery sales. Milk is cheaper here, chicken on sale here, bread is buy one get one at this store etc.
Even if you don’t make additional impulse buys at each store… who the f**k wants to waste that much time, energy, gas and mental bandwidth on groceries?
It was like a weird obsession and was exhausting just hearing about. Like… pick a f*****g store and be done with it. Change it weekly if you want to. But ffs, going to 5 different stores to meal plan is bonkers.
As a tax accountant, not maintaining a separate bank account for your small business.
The fees for the account will end up being less every year than what you get charged for the additional work of trying to disaggregate your personal expenses from your business expenses in the bank statements alone.
The “buy one get one half off or with discount” type of deals. Anything that incentivizes you to buy more by tacking it on as a bonus if you get it.
If you’re buying in bulk or such intentionally then it’s a good deal. But if you just came in for one box of lets say cookies for $5 and it had one of these deals. So you buy a second box too because its discounted and says if you buy two it will cost $8, as opposed to $10. So you get it thinking you’re saving money.
Instead what you just spent was $3 more than you had to on a second box you didn’t even come in for.
And it repeats throughout the whole store. It’s everywhere, especially in food. The flashy colored tickets, the bold letters, emphasis on how much you save, all to bait people to buy more things than they actually need.
Though it depends on what your actual goals and needs are. It might genuinely save you some and be good, but you could also be getting ripped off.
Over the course of his life my father has change his home heating system numerous times. He went from electric board to electric furnace, then wood stove, then oil stove, back to wood stove and now propane stove. Every single time he tried to convince me he was saving 20% on his energy bill. It cost him so much money that he will never ‘’save’’ enough to pay for just one system.
Growing your own food. I garden because I enjoy it, but I’ve always been scared to calculate how much it actually cost for the garden boxes, soil, fertilizer and pest control (not to mention my time) to grow some cucumbers and peppers.
“Sales”, oddly enough
I read something like “Something at 30% off seems like a good deal until you realise you were convinced to spend 70% more than you normally planned”
Small thing but it made me more aware of my spending habits and Jfc how much fomo engineering there is.
Coupons. I knew somebody who drove all over the city so she could save money with coupons. The gas alone was probably more than she saved… let’s not even get started about depreciation on the car.
Buying cheaply made or disposable things over and over, throwing them away; instead of buying well-made things just once or twice which can last for decades or a lifetime. .
Feeding your pets cheap a*s pet food.
Sure, your cat (for example) may happily eat that $18 15lb bag of corn-based kibble every day…but you’re gonna be paying a lot more in vet bills when their kidneys fail because of it than you would have paid over time for higher quality food.
Cutting corners on professional equipment. A few years back I got a made in China arm for my microphone on Amazon. Cost about 1/4th what the German original did. About 9 months later one night it snapped, fell on my computer, and threw everything to the floor. A $100 item nearly cost me $4,000. I then bought the expensive German model and haven’t had any problems.
A lot of price matching and shopping around ends up wasting more than it’s worth.
Also my dad read that you saved gas money going slower. So he once added an hour to his commute so that he could save gas.
Even aside from the fact that that hour of his life was worth more than the 3 cents it saved him, he had to take a longer route to do it because you can’t go under 60 on the interstate.
Saving money (or, more accurately, spending less on certain things)
Let me elaborate…. Actually, let Terry Pratchett elaborate:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet”.
Meal kits like Hello Fresh… they cost as much as your grocery bill but you only get dinner and you still have to go to the grocery store to get other things.
Some DIY home reno stuff you’ve never done before. Man I wish I had taken a summer job as a teen with a handyman to learn a bunch of that stuff.
Having any kind of car payment and getting a new car every year. I can understand if someone is really struggling and is living paycheck to paycheck but I have always bought my cars in full and keep them until they fall apart. I truly don’t understand why anyone would do anything other than that. It’s the biggest waste of money otherwise.
Not reading labels on the shelf in stores or reading the information on the labels. It tells you what you’re paying by volume. The bigger box or bottle is not necessarily the cheapest and you can compare brands this way too. Also , the 2 for $ sales b1g1 sales. A little math and time is worth it in savings.
The dollar store. You’re paying way more per item, but I understand their utility is to help get by when you can’t afford a full item or to buy in bulk. If you’re not paycheck to paycheck though, it doesn’t make sense to shop there.
Monthly payments, i understand not everyone can come up with a large amount at once but things like example braces the monthly payment was cheap but in the end it turned out to be significantly more than paying it up front, i was the dumb one once i turned 18 all these places would say monthly payment options, i got excited then in the end i was like wait a d**n minute! Haha!
