Skip to Content

Popular Things We Don’t Spend Money On + Our Splurges

47 Shares

Things We Don't Spend Money On + What We Splurge On
Isn’t it so interesting to see what people spend their money on?

One of my favorite places to shop is Sam’s Club.

First, they have the little restaurant area where you can get a giant piece of pizza and a drink for, like, $2. You really can’t beat that kind of a deal.

Plus, you get to sit and eat while watching all of the other customers check out. It is completely fascinating to see what other people buy in bulk. One time I saw someone with a cart overflowing with different kinds of breads and rolls. Nothing else. Just bread and rolls.

Anyways, it’s also interesting to see what people spend their money on, or don’t, because something that I save money on by not purchasing might be a “must have” for you. Fascinating stuff guys. So here you have it:

Popular Things We Don’t Spend Money On + Our Splurges

We Don’t Spend Money On:

Men’s Haircuts

When we first got married, there was no money to pay for haircuts. To cut my fella’s hair, we usually borrowed some clippers from my parents and basically buzzed his head every few months. One year, my parents bought us our own set of clippers (really similar to this one).

Over the past few years I’ve gotten a little fancier with his haircuts. I can trim the sides with the buzzer and cut the top with scissors to keep it longer. I’m actually getting pretty good. He even gets compliments on his hair.

It’s really not that hard after you watch a few YouTube videos to figure out what to do. Plus it saves lots of money!

New Books

We buy books quite often, but hardly ever do we buy them new. My fella has been in school for the past year and we’ve saved a lot of money buying his school books used on Amazon.

Things We Don't Spend Money On: New Books

There’s a really awesome used bookstore one town over from us that we visit every few months to buy books for fun. They have a great selection and the books are only a couple of bucks each. We’ve bought a lot of like-new kids books there for nieces and nephews too.

Car Payments

We don’t have a car payment and it is amazing! We’ve always tried to pay cash for vehicles.

The only time we’ve owed money on a car was when we purchased my parents’ old vehicle. We sold our old car to purchase theirs and still owed them the difference, which we payed back to them as soon as we could.

Not owing anyone money except for our mortgage takes a lot of stress off of us and opens up more options for us. We plan to always continue without a car payment.

Magazines

We don’t pay for magazine subscriptions.

On occasion, we have been able to get a subscription to a magazine that we like for free.

We recently found out that our library offers access to an app that you can use to look at tons of different magazines digitally. So, if you’re a magazine lover you might want to see if your library offers a similar program. You can enjoy the magazines without the clutter and extra trash.

Smart Phones + Data Plans

We still don’t have smart phones or a data plan.

We’ve looked at it, but it’s just SO much more expensive than what we pay now! And I truly don’t think it’s a necessity. We both have iPods and tablets and we are rarely anywhere that doesn’t have free WiFi. This is a huge money saver for us.

Cable

We don’t pay for cable TV. We watch a ton of Netflix and are perfectly satisfied with that. We usually don’t even have our TV hooked up for basic channels unless there’s something on that we really want to watch. We’ll hook it up to watch the Olympics this summer, but other than that, I’m good without live TV.

We Splurge On:

Shoes

I had back surgery when I was 21, so I don’t get to wear $2 flip flops or cute flats from Target.

We spend quite a bit of money on good shoes for both of us. It definitely keeps me from being in a lot of pain.

We do, however still try to save money on shoes as best as we can. I order a lot of our shoes from 6pm.com and Amazon to get better deals.

I recently started wearing Cobb Hill shoes which aren’t too expensive, but have good support. The shoes in the picture are what I picked out for this summer. Now if it would only get warm enough to wear them!

Dog Grooming

Haha, we tried to cut Mozzie’s hair once. It was a disaster. Everyone was in tears and now we don’t feel bad at all paying to take him to the groomer every other month.

Things We Splurge On: Dog Grooming

We have found a huge way to save money on grooming though.

We used to take him to a business downtown that charged us $40 each time. After doing some searching, we have found that if you find an individual who does dog grooming out of their house, they usually charge much less.

We found someone who only charges us $25! That’s a big difference, especially since he has to get his hair cut every other month.

Apple Products

I’m a big fan of Apple products. I bought my first Mac with my graduation money after high school. I know they are quite pricey. But I’ve found that they last so much longer and have far less problems than other brands.

My Mac computers have all lasted at least 6 years without problems before I got rid of them. And they still worked, I just wanted an upgrade. Our first iPad lasted about 4 years and is still working fine for my parents. I was just ready to upgrade. And I love how all of the photos I take with my iPod and iPad get sent straight to my computer.

Apple products are just so easy to use and hardly ever have a problem. It’s worth it for me. We save a little money on Apple products by always buying the refurbished ones. We don’t have the newest model, but it has the same warranty and a little nicer price tag.

Birthday & Christmas Presents For Each Other

I know a ton of spouses who don’t buy gift for each other. Like, a ton. But we’ve always spent a little extra on each other for birthdays and holidays.

We’ve never had much money to have our own “fun money” (maybe $10 each a month), so it’s nice to be able to get each other something nice a few times a year. It’s usually not much of a surprise of anything, but it’s exciting and special for us to be able to buy something for the other person.

By the way… I’d love for you to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram(if you like pictures of adorable dogs and food), and/or Twitter.

You can also “Subscribe Via Email” in the right-hand column to make sure you don’t miss any posts.

⇒ Alright, now you need to spill what your splurges are and what you never spend money on 🙂

This post may contain affiliate links. Image backgrounds from Vecteezy.com.

Popular Things We Don't Spend Money On + What We're OK Splurging On

If you find this page helpful, please pin or share it :)

47 Shares

Cheryl

Saturday 30th of April 2016

We ditched cable and my husband put up an antenna, 23 local stations for free, with a better picture than the grainy basic cable. This crazy lady let my husband give me a haircut when we first started dating and have not been to the salon since. I was actually quite surprised that he did such a great job. So he kept the job, he took over giving my boys their monthly haircuts, before we were married after they got two bad ones in a row at the barbers. So I bought a good set of Wahl clippers, not the cheapy set, a good cape and I had him help me, I think I did pretty job, but my boys fired me and insisted he cut their hair. I felt relieved because I was worried I might screw up and it still saved me a lot of money. I figure over a grand a year. And while I was getting my hair trimmed a few weeks ago, my best friend stopped by and chatted and watched very closely how he was cutting my hair. When my husband finished with my hair, she said he did a great job and asked if he had the time to cut hers. So he gave her a haircut and she was very pleased with the results. She offered to pay and asked how much. He told her a smile and a thank you. So now she is going to be stopping by to get hers cut by my husband too. We have apple iPads, iPhones and Mac computers as well. They just work great and we have gotten two free operating system upgrades on them so far. My husband and I are very budget conscious and we have no loans on our vehicles and he always put a good chunk in his 401K at work, so we won't be having to work in our 70's, if we don't want to.

Christine

Saturday 30th of April 2016

That's awesome Cheryl! I used to just buzz my husbands hair, but now I can give a pretty good cut! I wish he could do mine. I go to a salon every few months and it's so expensive just for a basic cut. Sounds like you guys have been really smart with your income!

Erin | A Welder's Wife

Tuesday 26th of April 2016

I love your splurge and not splurge list! The only thing I think we don't have in common are the phones and car payment. I kept my last car for 7 years before deciding to buy new, but the main reason for buying new was to get as much use as possible out of it. If I maintenance it properly, I should get somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 miles out of it. I also don't plan to trade it for something different until it's practically dead! I don't care for the payments, but I'm not far from having it paid off! I agree with your splurges 100%! We also like to splurge on an occasional date night which consists of picking up carry out from a nice restaurant and grabbing a redbox movie. It's a treat that goes a long way for us! We usually only spend $20-$25, depending on the restaurant.

Christine

Tuesday 26th of April 2016

That'll be exciting to have your car paid off! I like your date night. We love getting takeout! We have an amazing local pizza place that we get about once a month. Sooo good! It makes for a cozy home date for sure.

PPB

Monday 25th of April 2016

Just discovered your blog & loving each and every one of your posts! They're so helpful :)

Ann

Tuesday 19th of April 2016

We have an Apple orchard at our house, too! :-) My husband does get pro haircuts because he has to look good for the public as a representative of his company -- and my cuts don't do that for him, lol. But I usually go almost 6 months between cuts, so it all evens out, since women's cuts are always more expensive. The more I live frugally, though, the more I find things that I thought I had to splurge on that I really don't. Priorities are always changing, aren't they? :-) Thanks for linking up at Frugal Fridays!

Christine

Tuesday 19th of April 2016

Thanks for stopping by Ann!

Alexis @ Fitnancials

Tuesday 19th of April 2016

We also don't spend money on mens haircuts. We buzz everything off ourselves and save about $20/monthly. =)

Christine

Tuesday 19th of April 2016

It's a really great way to save!

47 Shares
Pin
Share