People fall into habit-forming behaviors so gradually and simply that they hardly notice when it happens. Everyone has bad habits that they need to break. Some are more obvious than others – smoking, for example – but for most people, their patterns of behavior are so common and natural that they may not realize how much damage it’s doing, especially to their pocketbooks.
Take that unused gym membership, for example. Or the pile of overripe fruits and vegetables in the fridge. How about the workday lunch stops, or the name-brand grocery items?
“Saving money is the easy part. Breaking habits are the hard part. Unfortunately, the two go hand-in-hand. By simply changing our behaviors or mindsets we can lead a better quality of life financially and increase our disposable income by fairly large amounts,” said Kelley Schexnider, Assistant Vice President with Cameron State Bank of Cameron State Bank. “Consider that gym membership. Many people make a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight and workout. They joined a gym, signed up for the $40 or $50 monthly fee, worked out twice, and never set foot in the gym again. But they’re convinced that they’ll eventually go back, so they allow the $50 to be pulled from their checking amount every month.”
Schexnider says if you have an expensive unused membership, cancel it and work out at home – at least if you put that off, you’re not losing precious dollars. Put the money into perspective, as well.
“Think of ways you could have spent the $150 you lost by skipping out on the gym for three months in a row. For that amount, you could have purchased home gym equipment,” she said.
Another common expensive habit: Eating out for lunch. Gone are the days of brown-bag work lunches or noon trips to the home kitchen. Americans are busier than ever and fast, cheap lunches are the order of the day. The problem is, cheap lunches add up to a costly habit.
Consumers could easily spend more than $100 per month just on lunch, “and that’s assuming that they’re only spending about five dollars a day,” Schexnider said. Instead of eating out for lunch, bring last night’s leftovers to work, or stock up on inexpensive, easy-to-prepare meals from the grocery store.
“The grocery store is yet another area where consumers could save significant amounts of money. By planning meals throughout the week and sticking to a schedule, you avoid buying bulks of fruits and vegetables that go bad in the fridge because they aren’t prepared in time,” Schexnider said. “We also fall into the habit of buying name-brand only, which can sometimes cost one or two dollars more than the generic brand. In some cases, you get what you pay for, but in many other instances, you’re just paying two more dollars for the same product. It takes a bit of common sense and trial-and-error to figure out where you can skimp, but rest assured that you can skimp somewhere. You don’t always need the top brand.”
