10 Things We Don't Buy/ Pay

The Money Saving Mom and The Frugal Girls recently posted 10 things they don't buy or pay for. I thought it's interesting so I post ours as well. Please don't feel guilty if you chose to buy any of these. We splurge on some other things too.  

Our list of 10 Things We Don't Buy/ Pay:

1. Cable TV, Netflix subscription.  The free basic channels is sufficient for us and once in a while we rent $1 {correction: I heard that it's $1.20 now?} DVD through RedBox.

2. Credit card interest. We use credit card but we always pay it full at the end of the month. Can't wait for the day when pay off our mortgage so we no longer have to pay mortgage interest.

3. Bank monthly fee. Most bank usually have limit of how much we should have in saving/ checking in order to avoid monthly fee.

4. All purpose cleaning spray and cleaning wipes. I made my own all purpose non toxic cleaner and use it with rags instead of using cleaning wipes. 

5. Ice cream. We went out one day and we were at the front of two stand: ice cream and clam chowder stand. We asked Max which one he would like to have. He answered, "Soup. Ice cream bisa di rumah mama yang bikin." {translation = soup, I can eat mama made ice cream at home.}

6. The latest gadgets. I still use my old and faithful Nokia phone. This year we have been saving for an ipad so we were happy to find out they just released ipad 3. That means the price for ipad 2 went down and that's what we got. 

7. Frozen/ packaged meals, soda, chips. Most days we cook from scratch. I learned that it doesn't take a lot of time as long as I planned well {have all the ingredients, know the steps/ familiar with the recipe}. We try to eat healthy so we eat nuts, bread, or fruits as snacks. We made our own coffee instead of buying from coffee shop {except when we're on vacation or on a date}

8. Fabric softener and Dryer sheet. We used to use these until I learned that we don't really need to. In addition, the later one is bad for my asthma and Max' eczema. 

9. Branded bag, shoes, and so on. When I was a teenager, my dad rebuked me when I asked about buying a branded something - I forgot what it was. His message still rings in my head, "Don't care about what people thinks or about the brand, as long as the quality is good." I was 23 when I found out what's LV stands for and I almost passed out when I found out how much does it cost. 

10. New Car. We followed Dave Ramsey's advise here. If 15 years old car is good enough for the Ikea's founder, a 5 years old car is surely good enough for us.

Other things we don't buy/ try to buy less are:
a. Bottled water. We like to bring our own water in Contigo bottles
b. Paper towel. Lately I have been using cloth napkins and it makes me feel like eating in high end restaurant. Should have done it sooner. :)


Again this is just our choice or what works for us at this point. Feel free to comment and share your own list of things you don't buy/ pay for.

10 We Spend Extra Money