What’s an “unpopular” spending or money decision that actually works well for you?

Encourage PiLs to spend all the money they saved rather than leave us an inheritance. They scrimped their whole lives and are in their 80s, they deserve to have a very comfortable old age.

On a more immediate budgeting note, DH and I go out for breakfast dates rather than dinner. It’s a lot cheaper and less busy in the morning, and I’d rather be in jammies by the evening anyway.

In the context of houses, we bought our first house with a 95%LTV mortgage, and our next upsize (to the ‘forever home’) on help to buy.

Both homes new builds (well first one was nearly new), everyone told us we would go into negative equity and over pay. We made 10% on the first (despite only living in it for 2 years) this enabled us to have the equity to upsize to our large home, and we were able to pay off HTB on our current house at the end of the 5 year fix, the interest we would have paid had we bought it entirely with a mortgage would have been far more than what we paid back to the government. The valuation we had done by the chartered surveyor to pay off the HTB valued the house at 25% (ish) more than we paid 5 years previously.

Worked out perfectly for us.

I buy lots of take-out coffees and nice food. I don’t have a nice car or nice stuff for the house. I hate shopping. Don’t really care about ‘nice stuff’ and love coffee and food and holidays.

I don't have pet insurance. My dogs are both 12 and had existing conditions when I got them. Insurance would be so expensive. I belong to a Pet Health Club and pay £60 a month and that covers all vet consults. I have to pay for meds and anything else. I would never let them be in pain and just pay for what they need.

There was £7 off a bottle of booze I wanted today using my Nectar card. Well, ok, £14 cos I bought two bottles 🤣

We haven’t been on holiday since before covid and are early retiring this year, mortgage free. We have almost £900K to spend on a new house. I’d prefer a buffer, though, so we probably won’t go over £700K.

Agreed, some people seem to be using it as a means to reinforce the dredged over finance advice that’s given everywhere!

I don't have a credit card. Never have, never will. I only spend money I have. If I can't afford it, I don't get it.

I gamble. On horses, in person at the track. I see it as a fun day out.

Absolutely. Our friends with a beautiful HP sofa/ car/ life think we're nuts with our old crockery and holey blankets. Meanwhile our children have seen most of Europe.

It's that we are winning anything, it's just what we prioritise.

I'm still a bit confused re the title of this thread, and some of the answers - apart from the drugs and prostitutes, obviously!
I live in a Shared Ownership property.i own my share outright. I will not be purchasing a bigger share, as I do not want to tie up all my cash.
I'm not married, no children, no one to leave anything to, so I will spend my money on nice cars and holidays.
Shared Ownership works for me.

Having been frugal my whole adult life, I started to feel like I was being ruled by budgeting and saving. So, I started to sometimes just say to myself “if I don’t buy this thing I want, that I don’t need, in 5 years time would I miss the thing more than I would miss the money?” In a lot of cases the answer is yes. Money is just a number in my bank account, but certain things bring actual joy even if I don’t need them. So I started buying myself things I don’t need at least some of the time. And I was right, I’m glad I spent money unnecessarily on frivolous things and I don’t really care about the total of my savings!

Expecting to fund retirement from inheritance from boomer parents 😅

I have a shit 20+ year old car , kit us all out in holey second hand clothes, don't spend money on booze or meat, and live extremely frugally in order to go camping / caravanning/ travelling abroad as much as possible from April to September every year. I want my kids to see the whole world because it matters more than designer trainers.

Yes I do the same

This! It seems to go against the MN ‘one pot’ consensus but for us financial independence is important too.

I don’t want to be poring over every spend. We budget within the joint account properly but if it’s in our personal ones we can do as we please 😊

I save a lot using sainsburys nectar card, really brings down my weekly shopping bill

Same. One provider once came round canvassing. I told him I didn't want to save money. Should have seen his face!

When I was in debt I didnt pay off the one with the highest interest rate first. I paid off the smallest one because a) it was the one that was bothering me the most and b) I knew the satisfaction of at least clearing one bill would spur me on to clear the rest.

It worked even though the Barclays financial adviser ticked me off!

I’ve never bought a second hand car. I always buy a pre-registered car from the dealership. Saves a significant chunk of money. Brand new with all the warranties but so much cheaper.

We always had pretty much separate finances too and preferred it that way.

If you listen to some on here you'd think it obligatory to have totally joint finances but we preferred to spend our own money without feeling that we each had to be answerable to the other - not that we were, but it still felt like it.

I also like some ready meals (Charlie Bigham and M & S being firm favourites).

Being totally sensible all the time just drains away all the fun.

Me and my husband keep totally separate finances. If one of us pays a household bill the other transfers half online to the payer.

Invested in green energy not tech. Making a tidy little profit so far

Even including the cost of buying the car, servicing it, paying tax on it, insuring it? Because you can get a lot of bus rides for all that.

Same here. Our FA asks why we need him when we disregard 75% of what he advises 🤣

This will be unpopular but I don’t cook from scratch. I’m a terrible cook and a jar of sauce will taste so much better than anything I make!