What did you used to waste money on??

[FusionChefGeoff]

Due to energy crisis, I've only just started turning upstairs radiators off in the mornings and on in the evenings - only heating rooms I'm in.

This embarrassing waste of money has made me think what else (not just energy costs) am I unthinkingly wasting money on.

Generally speaking, we take coffee / tea / water and don't buy it out and shop at Aldi. Both WFH most of the time and don't buy lunches.

Is there anything you've changed and suddenly thought why didn't I do this sooner!?

Ooh, yes - the mobile phone, forgot about that. I bought a reconditioned iPhone 2 years ago for £200 and have spent £11 p/m on a sim only plan since.

Scribed is good for audiobooks for kids. It’s still a monthly subscription but you’re not also paying per book. My kids aren’t teens yet so not sure of the variety of titles for that age group (I didn’t find much I wanted to listen to) but for them it’s been worth every penny.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

Hybrid electric car. In 9 months I've only spent £42 in petrol. That's one tank which has lasted the whole time. I have solar panels on my roof and religiously plug it in every time I park at home. Previously I'd spend £42 per month.

How much extra did the car cost though?

@PivotPivotPivottt

I actually googled the radiator thing the other day. Apparently it doesn't cost any more to have all the radiators on but if they are all on it takes longer for the boiler to heat them all. Whereas if you only have them on in the room you are in that radiator will heat up quicker meaning you can switch the boiler off earlier so saving energy that way.

Thank you. I think you explained it well

Buying random stuff from the supermarket on my lunch hour because I was bored.

Going SIM only and keeping my phone for 2 years rather than 1. I buy it outright on launch day, keep it pristine and sell it when I buy the next one. I only pay £10 a month for 30GB of data and unlimited texts and calls, I used to pay £80-90 for the latest iPhone😳

DD and I are cutting back. We are out for a walk and for lunch I have brought 2 Itsu noodle pots (on offer) and a flask of hot water. We also have an apple and satsuma each and a flask of coffee for me. Plus refillable bottles of squash. I always used to buy us lunch out. The cost of having lunch out seems to have rocketed.

@buddylicious it's a lease which is free with DH's work. Free servicing and insurance too. He has a fuel card for his. It's a huge perk.

This is awesome thank you I'm going to sit down this afternoon with a few months transactions and see where the holes are!

Double check the YNAB subscription as I pay far less than that. Just looked it up and it's $98.99 a year, so should be less than what you've mentioned? It's definitely worth it regardless - has saved me a fortune!

Regarding boilers and radiators. Yes you will save on energy bills if unused radiators are turned down or off. Your boiler will be set to heat to a certain temperature (eg 65C) - don't confuse this temp with your room thermostat setting. As hot water is passed around your radiators, energy is lost in the form of heat as the radiators give out heat to the room - IE the water temp drops as it passed through each radiator. So if u have lots of radiators on, the water coming back into the boiler will be much lower in temp than if only a couple of radiators are on - so more energy is needed to heat it back to 65C. If only a couple of radiators are in then the return temp will be higher so the boiler won't need to heat as much

Cigarettes when I was younger.
Takeaways. So much nicer to cook our own.
TV subscription with the broadband. We had Netflix already and switching to just Freeview lost us all of about 10 channels that we never watched anyway. Saved £11 a month.
Baking bread. We had a breadmaker anyway, and homemade is so much nicer and costs pennies.
Having a bad thermostat. Switching to Nest has saved us several thousand pounds in the seven years we've had it.
Bottled water. I use to only ever drink it many years ago. No idea why, our local tap water is brilliant.

During lockdown I spent around €100 on a UV lamp and all the bits including around 5 colours to do my own gel polish nails. I looked up how to do them on YouTube. I used to spend around €35 a month on my nails. Now I just do them myself at home. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a salon for nails! Every so often ( every three months or so) I buy a new colour for €12. *disclaimer - I just do basic one colour nails, not any of the nail art.

We used to go to cafés and cheap pubs fir food quite

Magazines
Takeaway coffees
Nails
The more expensive supermarket (switched to Aldi)
Cheap footwear (I now buy more expensive and they last much longer, false economy)

For food quite often I mean. I now make space in the food shopping budget for things like croissants, part baked bread to make filled baguettes from, cakes etc so we have the cafe style treats at home. Pancakes, toasties and waffles are super cheap to make.

I must have spent thousands on magazines throughout the 90s and early 00s. It horrifies me to think about it now.

A recent small one - I realised I was paying more than my parents for Netflix because I was paying for HD and theirs was SD. I downgraded and it was only some time after the change had happened that I realised I couldn't tell any difference. So that saves a few quid each month.

Plus if the DCs are in the mood for baking cookies etc it's a good rainy day activity.

I'm happy to spend occasionally in independent cafes to keep them going but I'm not fussed about big chains. My nespresso machine makes nicer coffee anyway. So now we tend to eat at home then go out with full stomachs afterwards.

Years ago it was magazines - Heat, Closer, Cosmo etc. I cringe when I think how much I must have spent between the ages of about 20-25.

I used to get my nails done (gel) but now I use Essie gel effect polish which lasts about 5 days. Super quick to remove at home with normal nail polish remover. Costs £8 a bottle

Snap @harbourlane!

In a less frivolous way, when I first moved in with now DH I rented my old house out and never bothered changing any of the insurances, mortgage protection etc until a long time after we married. Same with travel insurance on my bank account and stuff like that, it never occurred to me that being in a couple can have an effect on that. Definitely some wasted money there.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

For food quite often I mean. I now make space in the food shopping budget for things like croissants, part baked bread to make filled baguettes from, cakes etc so we have the cafe style treats at home. Pancakes, toasties and waffles are super cheap to make.

I do this too. Stops you feel like you're missing out.

My kids loved smearing cheapo tomato pasta sauce on cheapo pizza bases, sprinkling toppings on and shoving them in the oven yesterday. DD proclaimed the pizzas were tastier than Domino's and I told her they cost about 3% of a takeaway!

@Mamamamasaurus

Does turning off some radiators whilst the heating is actually on anyway, actually save any money? Surely, if your boiler is on anyway, it makes no difference if you're heating 4 radiators or 7? I'll happily be told I'm wrong though, this is a conversation I have regularly with DGM

the amount of fuel you use varies with the amount of energy you use, which depends on how many rooms you heat, how much, and for how long.

if you leave some rooms cold or cooler, you will not be using energy in heating them.

but you will not get the same amount of heat for less fuel.

A radiator might use, say, 1500W of energy to warm a room. The boiler will have to deliver that amount of heat via hot water, and will use (something like) the same amount of energy from gas. Radiators vary in size and heat, and so vary in energy used.

Ten radiators will use about twice as much gas as five radiators.

In my early 20's I used to buy magazines to read on my lunch break everyday. This was around 15 years ago when smartphones were new and we didn't really have social media on our phones. Omg such a waste of money, they all had the same crappy celebrity stories in them. I was spending like a fiver a day on them.

In defence of magazines, they used to be worth the money- before Instagram it was a good way to get the latest gossip etc.