I recently received an email from a reader with a link to an excellent graphic she created about big money wasters. Although the data is based on how Australians spend (and waste) their money, it is safe to say that Canadians and Americans also waste their money on the same things. Some of the numbers may be really surprising, and by sharing this information, hopefully it will help us all to make more informed decisions and lower our wasteful spending.
I know it is easier said than done, but as hard as it must be, if you quit smoking you will not only be saving your lungs and overall health, you will also save yourself a ton of money. Cigarette smoking is definitely one of the top money wasters, right along with buying lottery tickets and buying premium gasoline. Unlike other money wasters, however, this bad habit can have serious health consequences as well.
As a smoker, you pay up to 50% more for life insurance. Medical insurance and other types of insurance also often cost more for smokers. If you also factor in the actual cost of cigarettes, if you can muster up the courage to quit, you are looking at saving at least $3000 every year, depending on how many cigarettes you smoke per day. If you smoke a pack or more everyday, you spend closer to $4000 a year! Over the course of ten years you would have spent about $40000 on smoking alone! Just imagine what you could have accomplished with all that money had you chosen to use it for other purposes.
Too many Canadians are wasting at least $2 every week by buying lottery tickets. Although it is true that a lucky few do win big, most folks might get a free ticket once in a while, or win a minimal amount of money to keep them hooked.
If everyone who was in the habit of buying lottery tickets regularly decided to save their $2 every week instead, this would mean that they could save $104 per year. Now over one year that doesn’t’ sound like much, but over 10 years that is a savings of $1040, not to mention interest or growth earned from the amount saved.
Some people spend a tremendous amount of money every month on bottled water. While at work they use the vending machine and pay anywhere from one to two dollars for a bottle If you are one of those folks who enjoy drinking bottled water throughout the day, I highly recommend saving your hard-earned money and investing in a Brita Filter container instead. The Brita filter will help get the chlorine taste out of tap water. It will taste virtually the same as bottled water and the filters will last a long time.
Bringing a stainless-steel water bottle to work and refilling it with Brita filtered water is the simplest way to save you money every month. If you are in the habit of buying one water bottle at work everyday for $1.50, you are spending approximately $390 per year!
When you have disposable income, it’s easy to splurge on things that are completely unnecessary, which can lead to bad debt.