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

[HonestTealPoster]

For me, it’s not budgeting. I’ve tried it before and found it quite stressful, I ended up overthinking every purchase. These days I don’t follow a strict budget. I just spend fairly naturally and because I’m quite frugal anyway, I still tend to save more than I spend.

Is there anything you do that might go against the usual advice but works for you?

Buying snacks at the cinema. Sometimes going to the shop beforehand I’d end up spending more on stuff we didn’t need. Same with picnic. Just get a meal deal each rather than loads of food that doesn’t get eaten and has to be carried around afterwards

Same here. Wee have a modest home, but live mortgage free.

Yes, inlaws for us, I think many people plan the same but won't admit it

This is absolutely advised on MN. The “unpopular advice” as per the thread (perhaps more common now for millennials and younger) is to not fret it and accept we will have mortgages for the long haul with house prices these days. You only have to look at mortgage lengths now and the average age of buying to see how different it is generationally.

You take your own wine into pubs?

My dh always buys coffee when he gets to London for work. He could wait until he’s in the office and get free coffee, but it sets him up for the day after the commute in. It’s only once or twice a week so not every day.

Twenty years ago we bought our first house on what would be comfortably on one and a half salaries so I could afford to go part time if we had children.

Two children later and we are still in the same house. I now work full time again. We could have stretched ourselves many times over the years but we decided to stick, have extended (cheaper than moving) and will actually pay off our mortgage in a couple of years.

yes sometimes I wish we had had a bigger house but it’s always been fine and it has allowed us to live in our chosen way. Not so easy to do these days sadly.

And also it depends on your approach to investments generally

On average, stock market returns around 10% which is considerably higher than most mortgage rates. So I don't do early mortgage repayments, I put that money into my S&S ISA.

In the 00s I had an offset mortgage. They seem to have completely fallen from favour - I never hear people talk about them any more, not sure why. It worked really well for me and I paid it off earlier than expected.

Strongly agree with this when it comes to consumer goods. A £20 Asda toaster will do the job of the £250 Dualit one. Maybe not for quite so long but not a tenth of the time. The £230 difference could be earning interest or put towards fun things.

Coffees about four times a week when I’m out and about. It’s irrelevant I can make better tasting coffee at home for a fraction of the price.

I’ve nearly saved up for a house deposit but will be delayed because I’m going on a bucket list long haul solo trip in the autumn that’s costing £2.5k. I don’t earn much and have no partner to help cover costs, but I think with the state of the world now that life’s so short.

I’ve done the sums and won’t be stretching to buy a three bedroom semi or a nicer two bed terraced house compared to the kind of two bed terrace house I’ll be buying. I want low repayments with wriggle room to overpay and that mortgage will be paid off within ten years (and all the years reading posts in Money Matters it seems that most people advise ploughing money into pensions and other investments rather than overpaying mortgages).

That’s what I do/did. I just checked my ISAs, I made between 11 and 14% in the past year.

Paid off my student loan unnecessarily early. I was a SAHM, the loan was only £5k (yes, it was that long ago!) and it saved a load of hassle every year proving to SLC that I had no earnings and no benefits either.

I bought my council house. It was a fantastic financial decision, which I have often seen disapproved of on Mumsnet.

Indeed. On average, it is supposed to be around 10% but mine averages more like 13% over the last few years

I read through a few pages and a lot of the thread replies are mundane, typical, financial advice.e.g not buying coffee when out and about

OP asked for "unpopular".

Mine is... if you haven't got it, don't spend it, for everything except emergencies.

So - no credit cards/loans for holidays, birthdays, Christmas, nice days out, new clothes, beauty treatments etc. Save up for the big items, put money back to pay for Christmas. If you have something spare at the end of the month that you don't need for something the following month then by all means splash out on Alton Towers, an expensive gig, a fancy new coat just because you want it, but don't borrow for those things.

We arecthe same, except my husbands military pension goes into bill account. He sees that as both of ours as I gave up my career to allow him to do 24 years service. I moved around for him with the kids.
Now we both work our wages are in our separate personal accounts I pay for weekly shop.
He pays for phones, car expenses
I have no idea of his spending and dont worry and he doesn't know mine.

Mine has been more like 5% over 20 years. But that's because - another unpopular tactic - I only invested in green energy, socially responsible funds, ESG trackers etc. Some did incredibly well - overall the returns weren't so good, but it worked for me

I buy coffee when out and about and in fact I am enjoying one right now!

I am staying out in London with my family. Moving out simply doesn't make financial sense for us. We live in an unfashionable outer borough that has very decent state schools and a train that gets me into the city in 25mins and the numbers add up for us. Leaving London would really constrain DH and I's work opportunities, and a lot of the commuter belt is actually more expensive to buy property in than where we currently are.

I discarded the "buy the worst house in the best neighborhood" advice. We have an extra bedroom and a summerhouse in our more scruffy neighborhood and we are near the train station. The neighbours are friendlier than in the more posh neighborhoods and no one gives a hoot about keeping up with the Joneses. We also have a cheaper house than we could technically afford, going against the advice to max out the mortgage. Honestly the price of even basic repairs and work on the house is now so high that I really appreciate having that slack in my budget at the end of the month. I think the advice of maxing out the mortgage made more sense in previous generations but it doesn't now.

We dont have a car and even with the cost of public transport and the odd taxi we are hundreds of pounds better off for it. We do live in London so I appreciate this advice wouldn't work for everyone but we are happy with it and it's just one less bill to think about

I like reading about money saving tips but not following them. E.g. could probably take advantage of current account switching to get £100 here and there but really can't be arsed with the hassle.

I have access to discounted gift vouchers via work. Supermarkets about 4% off, M&S maybe 8%, but hardly ever use them as find kept getting refunds in form of vouchers that then had to keep track of and go out of the way to spend at that shop. Wasn't even items not being suitable last 2 times, they just decided they were out of stock between me placing order and them delivering.

I don’t plan like mad for retirement. I do pay into my work pension but just the automatic deductions from salary. I do also save each month but nothing like the amounts some talk about on here.

We really stretched ourselves to buy a house (had to put all our expenses on credit cards for a month as we had nothing left!) The more common approach seems to be to spend less so that you have more for holidays but we don’t go on holiday much, I don’t feel I enjoy them enough to justify the cost!

I have an account specifically for fun things like having a coffee out now and again. Life is hard enough without having a little treat now and again.
I only go into office once a week and don’t take my lunch. I eat the same cheese but every other day of the week, I want something different.

i use Hello Fresh because I think it’s cheaper than meal planning.

im not sure this is going against the traditional advice. I have a one in/two out approach to buying new clothes. And the out has to be via Vinted or eBay. My waiting to be Vinted pile is huge, and I can’t be bothered doing it, so I haven’t bought any new clothes since before Christmas.

Not unpopular but I'm adding this because in the last ten minutes I've saved £60 on my home insurance renewal just by going to the company's website and clicking on the 'thinking of leaving' button. Ten seconds later they came up with a cheaper quote. I look forward to my yearly arguement renewal conversation with the AA for breakdown cover but this was incredibly easy.

I stockpile things when I'm flush. I'm about to buy 3 pairs of the same glasses from goggles4u because they're my favourite ever pair and cost 4 quid. I cut my own hair. When I was really skint years ago I'd water down milk