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?

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

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

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 😊

Yes I do the same

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.

Expecting to fund retirement from inheritance from boomer parents 😅

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 have no idea what money or savings my DP has and he has no clue about mine and we live together. we are in our 50’s, so long as we can do what we want to do I don’t care

I won’t fly economy anymore if a flight is longer than 5 hours. Premium economy is fine but I’m too old to be squashed on a plane

I only lease cars. I have no idea if they’re good value or not. I spend a lot of time in the car and I want something new and whizzy. I set myself a budget, see wht I can get for that amount and don’t think about it again.

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.

Milk delivery for me too means we don’t run out.

Also, more controversially perhaps, we had our kids before we owned a house, before we had our careers established (not planned, the first, I do add). Ironically, most of our childcare was funded, and by the time they started school we were a 6 figure household and I was a higher rate tax payer. Got maternity leave and the trickier childcare years out the way when we were lower income, by the time they were teens we were in the top 10% of households.

Now we will be ‘kid free’ in our mid 40s, and planning a lot of travel

The thread title is:
What’s an “unpopular” spending or money decision that actually works well for you?

How is a Nectar Card 'unpopular spending' or an 'unpopular money decision'?

Also this!

I thought she was posting in response to another poster who said they never use loyalty cards - by pointing out how much they do save

That's as maybe, but still not relevant to the thread.. we all know reward cards can save you money. The fact that someone has posted that they dont use them definitely fits the thread title, that poster isn't interested at all how much someone has saved, because she has chosen not to use rewards cards

This is just so weird - this money could have been earning interest even in a simplest saving account?...

I spend everything I earn, pretty much. I earn well but I'm a single parent and live in expensive area of London so my bills are quite high. I have CC debt and no savings. Keep paying it off but then spend more - I never save for big things, I buy first then pay. I never pay interest on CCs as its all interest free - only pay transfer fee occasionally (every couple of years when deals run out). I also use Klarna a lot. Might be idiotic but my credit rating is glowing )))