WiseBread asks an interesting question this week: what’s your frugal obsession? You know, that one thing you can’t stand spending money on: “Some people refuse to pay for bottled water; others refuse to shell out $4 to rent a movie when they can get them from the library for free.” Responses so far include software, soft drinks at restaurants, and gift wrap.
Our personal issues are with laundry and home cleaning servcies—it just seems wrong, somehow, to pay for those luxuries unless you work 120 hour weeks or live in a 25-room house. We know it’s irrational, but that’s the point.
“What’s your frugal obsession?” [Wise Bread]
(Photo: Getty)
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i hate paying for cable tv and buying myself clothes.
also, feminine products. but that’s unavoidable =/
a decent HJ
Thanks to consumerist I’m on a crusade to keep my loved ones from buying those stupid 100 calorie packs of anything.
REFILLS AT RESTAURANTS! I can’t believe a $3.00 soda doesn’t have FREE REFILLS! It’s half Ice when they give it to you!
Shipping is fine, but “Handling?!” What do they do, take better care of it because you paid $2.50?!
“Convenience fees!!!” If it’s a convenience fee, where can I buy tickets where it’s inconvenient?! I get SF Giants tickets all the time from Giants Dugouts, Stub Hub, etc. They all charge a convenience fee – EVEN THE STADIUM!
Auto insurance = scam. I’ve been accident free for 12 years and have paid thousands for nothing.
Mixed drinks…$5-$15, the bar isn’t that great a place.
Music. I’ll pay for live performance but not recordings.
Bottled water, unless it’s a gallon.
As far as birth control, condoms are free and available if you know where to go and don’t live in some ultra conservative backwater.
I don’t mind paying taxes (but I’d like to get something for it) or for delivery fees (get it your damn self if you don’t want to pay) or tip (ex service industry worker).
I hate it when I’m driving around, and I stop at the convenience store for a drink. Get to the counter (no cash, of course), and the minimum purchase amount is $5 for debit/credit. Now I have to find $3.50 worth of crap I don’t need.
And to the guys bitching about birth control, I’ve been successfully subscribing to the PSP* method for 5 years.
*pull/spray/pray, not playstation portable, although I’d guess the latter is probably even more effective.
Greeting cards. Nobody even likes the stupid things. You pay $3.99 for a stupid greeting card, you sign your name on it and people take it off the gift, read it, laugh, and throw it away. What a complete and total waste of four bucks.
So I don’t buy them anymore. I don’t even make them. I give gifts without greeting cards and I tell people they got a slightly better gift in lieu of a dumb card. Then I write “From Jim” with a magic marker on the side of the wrapping paper.
Unfortunately, I do buy wrapping paper, but only the really cheap stuff. My friends & family are quite likely to receive birthday gifts with snowmen and Santas on red & green wrapping paper. Hey, you’re just going to throw that away, too. Be happy I bothered to wrap it at all.
I’m thinking I might give that up, though, and just start “wrapping” gifts in the bag the store gave me at checkout. A bit of tape and we’re done! WooHoo!
Prescription drugs. When other countries get the same for a fraction of the cost.
The cost is unjustifiable, especially when insurance will rarely cover it. You pay twice.
I consider new entertainment a waste of money. When I see a new book I want to read, I add it to my wishlist for $.75. Within a couple years, I buy it.
I NEVER buy new books or CDs. I find a lot of music on hypem.com or at the library or through friends. I check books and audiobooks out from the library. I never go to the movies but add things to my netflix.
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Haircuts, check,I cut my own.
Parking, in LA I’ll walk a mile before I valet.
Bottled water, no not everyone here is silly.
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But my own personal, and heretofore unmentioned, wacky frugality is FAST FOOD CHEESE. They jack up the cheddar as if the entire corporate profit depended on it.
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So if I am heading to a FF burger joint, I BRING MY OWN CHEESE.
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(don’t go makin fun of me.)
@Jabes: and @theblackdog: I live in San Francisco. When I lived in St. Louis, the transit system was for the birds, and the monthly pass cost $60.
(If I lived outside of SF, I’d be dependent upon BART, which can run about $8 – $9 per day. So I’m quite grateful to live where I do – even if the cost of living is insane)
Since I have epilepsy, I kind of depend on transit, because I’d rather not risk killing people because I had a seizure while driving! (Damn conscience!)
Pasta in a restaurant. Even if it’s the cheapest thing on the menu, I can’t look at it and not think “10x markup.”
@protest
I did just use 1-800-Flowers and they screwed me royally. I guess I thought it would be easier to order online not thinking that maybe florists in town have their own websites! I am boycotting 1-800-Flowers from now on! Thanks for the tip!
God, we used to pay for a maid service and I thought I couldn’t live without it. Actually, I’d still like to have it but when I started cutting our budget to economize after my husband got laid off, it was the first thing to go.
Anyway, what I hate paying for is haircuts. To get my hair done by the chick who I like and trust is like a $70 deal. Thing is, I know it’s worth it – there are few things more noticeable about a person than their hair, and when mine looks good I know that I’m more confident in general and feel like that confidence definitely helps me professionally. So while I wish I could scrooge out on the haircuts, I know I can’t. I compromised recently by growing my hair out longer. I used to wear it really short, which I loved, but it needed trimming every four weeks. Now I can go 2-3 months between trims without getting too hideous. I sacrificed the super-low-maintenance and super-cute short haircut, spend a little more time with the blow dryer now, but save money over the course of a year and still look good enough to feel good about leaving the house in the morning.
@jnrmrtn: OMG me too. I have looked at those damn 100-calorie packs in the grocery store SOOOO many times, and been tempted, but thanks to the Consumerist I never succumb. I use ziploc bags and make my own.
Of course the grocery order at work always includes them by the case, and I just laugh. I eat them…sometimes…but I laugh.
1) Interest: This hatred is the only reason I pay off my balance every month. When I was in college I got a 0% credit card. When the first bill arrived, I discovered that was only on balance transfers. I haven’t carried a balance since. (Later on I discovered they also make money by taking a percentage of the transaction, but I really thought I was sticking it to ‘em for years)
2) Porn: It’s all over the internet. I don’t understand how pay sites stay in business.
@scarletvirtue: Not every place has a mass transit system, and not every mass transit system goes everywhere people might work. Mass transit is great and all, but it’s a bit glib to say “let them ride the bus/metro/whatever” when we don’t all have that option.
That said, I definitely hate paying for auto insurance. I don’t enjoy paying for health insurance, either, but at least I can, because I work for an employer who offers it. Back when I didn’t, I hated paying the obscene out-of-pocket costs of for-profit medicine here in the US much, much more. Universal health care cannot arrive rapidly enough.
@RAREBREED: When I worked for a rare book dealer, we did some business via mail order and charged for the actual shipping cost and a small fee, usually no more than a couple of dollars, for handling. This money was for the time spent carefully wrapping and packaging each item for transit, as well as contributing toward the cost of the packing materials.
If these costs weren’t accounted for via the relatively small ‘handling’ charge, how would they be? By raising the price of the books or inflating the shipping amount, naturally… making us appear overpriced and/or dishonest. I don’t get the objection to a (reasonable) handling fee.
Expensive “designer” coffee shop coffee, like Starbucks. I can make coffee at home for fractions of their prices.
I’ll pay $100 for a haircut and color (it’s such a good accessory I can scrimp on clothing), but it hurts me to spend money on parking. Or spaghetti. Or expensive meals that I’ll poop out the next day. I loved living in San Francisco because one could get a gourmet meal for the cost of a drink at a foo-foo restaurant. Why am I back in Minnesoa? *sigh*
car tires.
Already said:
Cable + Internet
Ticketmaster convenience fees
My newest: Water at a restaurant. At many restaurants in NYC they will charge you for water unless you specifically ask for tap water. Sometimes $8-10 per bottle.
Also, TV shows that I missed but already paid for. Even with the DVR there are still a few that I don’t catch and aren’t being rebroadcast but I already paid $100 for cable yet they want more money to see it again.
Insurance. No question.
Porn?
Parking
Parking tickets
Laundry(nobody’s mentioned that yet)
“convenience” fees
bottled water
Tolls
random charges that show up on my cell phone bill from a third-party site I’ve never heard of
WorkingOnYourInvoice: Charging a minimum is a violation of their merchant services agreement.
@Teapotfox: Sorry, didn’t mean to come across as glib! I think I’d meant it to be an “in general” comment, and I understand the lack of transit. Been there, lived through that!
And I agree with you about the health insurance. If I didn’t work for someone that provided it, I would be S.O.L. (especially since I saw that one of my seizure meds is well over $250 without insurance)
I’ll go out on a limb and be the first person to say it: bars/drinking out. What’s the markup on a miller lite in Manhattan? 500%? I’d rather chill at home with friends in an environment where I can actually hear them and speak back without yelling.
I use ziploc bags and make my own.
@Groovymarlin: But isn’t a 100 calorie pack of normal, non-diet cookies just 2 cookies or six normal, non-diet crackers? You must go through a ton of ziploc bags.
car insurance. Unless I take out a bus full of nuns and get sued, I’m never going to get back what I pay into it, but I’m required to buy it by law (and by my bank, at least until my loan is paid off).
It’s always seemed a little odd to me that it costs me $1400 a year to insure my $15,000 pickup truck but $600 a year to insure my $200,000 townhouse.
ATM “out of network” fees. Charge me $2 for using your lousy machine, will you? I’ll walk a couple of blocks to save the $2 and teach you a lesson, you!
(Besides, with one side charging $2 and the other side charging $2, it adds up quick!)
@nardo218:
dude, totally. i live 45 minutes north of the city and the one time i actually made the effort to take the train into town, the f*cker never showed up. i always end up driving but park on the street. screw those jerks charging $20 to park in a lot next to a club where drunks can puke all over your car!
so i guess that is what i can’t stand paying for – parking…and car insurance.
bottled water for sure. where i live municipal water is cheap, clean, and tastes good. i cant imagine paying money for the same thing i get almost free from a tap.