These 5 Costly Habits Are Ruining Your Budget

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Something’s not right. It’s nearly the end of the month, and you just realized a good chunk of your money has slipped away under your very nose. To make matters worse, you are completely clueless as to how it happened.

Your mistake? You forgot to take ant-expenses into account. These are the small and unnecessary expenditures we do habitually and often compulsively. And even though they seem harmless and inconsequential at the beginning, they can have considerable repercussions on our finances over time.

Habits based on ant-expenses are no joke. A study by SlickDeals concluded that the amount the average person spends each week exceeds their budget by $143. Multiply that by the fifty-two weeks in a year, and that extra expending translates to $7,436. Scary, isn’t it?

Here’s a list of easily-overlooked, costly habits you should watch out for and how to break them effectively.

1. Giving in to cravings

You may think a daily bag of potato chips is harmless to your wallet, when in fact, it isn’t. A survey conducted by OnePoll shows that Americans spend an average of $9.22 on snacks per week, which adds up to $479.44 per year. Over an average lifetime, the total comes to $28,766.40 spent on junk food. Whoa!

What you can do:

• By all means, treat yourself to your tasty munchies, just not every day. When you make your cravings a daily habit, you end up wasting a lot of money in the long run.
• Control yourself. Cravings can turn into addictions if you don’t keep them in check, and when they do, you’ll start spending much more money.
• Consider changing your snacks for cheaper — and healthier — alternatives. You can make yourself a sandwich every morning and cut it in half. It’s an economical alternative to hitting the vending machine twice a day.

2. Letting credit card interest accumulate

More than ever, it is convenient to use credit cards to pay for our purchases, especially online. Credit cards, however, are double-edged swords: use them recklessly and you’ll soon find yourself deep in debt as interest charges accumulate over time.

According to Money.com, Americans paid $122 billion in credit card interest in 2019. Considering that in the US there were 374 million open credit card accounts in the same year, the average debt per user was $326.20.

Also, according to NerdWallet’s annual analysis of U.S. household debt, households carrying monthly credit card debt paid an average annual interest of $1,162; whereas a couple with children paid an average of $1,382 in credit card interest charges.

What you can do:

• Save your money and then use that cash instead of your credit card. It’ll take longer, but at least you won’t be spending more than necessary.
• Whenever possible, use a debit card so you are using savings you have rather than borrowing. Watch your balance, though, as it’s easy to lose track of your savings if you start overdoing it.
• Pay on time. The more you delay your credit card payments, the more your interest adds up, and the more your credit score is negatively affected.
• Use credit cards to make zero-interest purchases. This option is not always readily available, but when it is, you’ll be paying monthly fees with no additional interest on them.

3. Overspending on beverages

Insignificant as it may seem, beverage consumption can also harm your finances. A study by the Beverage Marketing Corporation revealed that Americans consumed 14.4 billion gallons of bottled water in 2019, spending $34.6 billion in total. Also, data by GoBankingRates shows that the average person spends $1,100 a year on coffee.

Alcohol consumption is another budgetary concern. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend about 1% of their gross annual income on alcohol. For the average household, that’s $565 a year, $5,650 in ten years, or $254,250 over a forty-five-year period. That’s over a quarter of a million dollars spent on booze.

What you can do:

• Get yourself a stainless steel canister and fill it up with water at home. Not only will you be saving money, but you’ll also be taking care of the environment.
• Assign a fixed amount of money for beverages and stick to it. Integrate it into your budget and don’t exceed it.
• Get a clear idea about the money you’re spending on alcoholic drinks. You can use this online alcohol spending calculator and see if it fits your monthly or yearly budget.
• If you think you have an addiction problem, seek professional help.

4. Purchasing impulsively

Resisting the urge to splurge is not easy. A survey carried out by Slickdeals revealed that the average person spends $5,400 a year on impulse purchases, with respondents identifying food, clothing, household, takeout, and shoes as their most common impulse expenditures. 85% of the same respondents said their impulse purchases were triggered by deals and discounts.

What you can do:

• Question your purchase choices before you walk through the checkout. You can use the following list to evaluate whether you should buy something or not:

1. “Do I need this, or do I just want it?
2. “How many hours did I have to work to buy this?”
3. “Is it worth it?”
4. “Is it urgent, or can it wait?”
5. “Is there a more important purchase I should be making?”

• Don’t hit the mall when you’re feeling sad or angry, for that’s when you’re at your weakest. We tend to indulge in impulse spending to alleviate the distress we’re experiencing, as shopping gives us an emotional high that makes us feel better, but only temporarily.

5. Going overboard with streaming services

Upgrades in TV entertainment come with a price. According to a new study from OnePoll, on average, Americans are subscribed to four streaming services, each costing around $8.99 per month. Also, PCMag found that people pay about $33.27 a month for all of their services combined, coming to a total of nearly $400 a year. This tendency has increased in 2020 due to home confinement.

What you can do:

• Each streaming service you subscribe to adds around $100 to your budget each year. To counter this, limit yourself to a specific number of services. Then, evaluate which ones you watch the most and stick to that number.
• Don’t give in to the temptation of subscribing to another streaming service for a single show or movie exclusive to it. Even if you plan to cancel your subscription later, once you’ve discovered the rest of the content this new service has to offer, opting out of it may not easy.

How to deal with ant expenses

Ant expenses are, for the most part, avoidable. Here are some tips to deal with them and save yourself some money in the process:

• Make a monthly or yearly budget. A budget helps you visualize where your money is going, allowing you to design a plan of action for smarter spending.
• Keep track of your expenses, especially when they’re not contemplated in your budget. That will help you stick to it, and you’ll be able to identify expenditure tendencies you weren’t fully aware of.
• Constantly question your expenditure decisions: Just because you can buy something, doesn’t mean you should. Remember: you don’t need excessive luxuries to have a fulfilling, decent, and happy life.
• Designate a small percentage of your earnings for discretionary expenses. That way you can still treat yourself while you make sure you don’t spend more than necessary.
• Set a savings goal for yourself. Is there anything you’d like to buy, but it’s a bit too expensive? Calculate how much you’d need to save during a certain period of time, and cut out ant expenses to do so. Motivation can be a powerful tool to eliminate these unnecessary expenditures.

At the end of the day, it’s your money that you’ll be taking care of, and consequently, you’re the one who will decide how to spend it most wisely. Getting rid of ant-expenses doesn’t mean you’ll be depriving yourself of food, products, or entertainment. It means you will manage your monetary resources more effectively so that these purchases won’t end up affecting you in the long run.