10 Unnecessary Wastes of Money You Don’t Think About

According to lifehack this are  Unnecessary Wastes of Money You Don’t Think About:

1. Buying brand name products

Store and generic brands have to be one of the most underused ways to save money across a range of products. From food, to skincare, to over the counter medicine, chances are your local grocery or drug store has a store brand for them or sells a generic version. Check the labels; in most cases, the ingredients are pretty much identical, but you don’t have to spend money on the big brand names.
Also, if you have prescriptions, you can sometimes ask your pharmacist for the generic version of your medications. They work just the same as the brand name, and can save you quite a bit of cash if your co-pay is high.

2. Paying someone else for simple car repairs

Basic car maintenance is something fewer and fewer of us learn, perhaps due to our increasingly busy lives and the preference for someone else to do maintenance work. But, assuming you own a car, money is flying out your wallet if you take your car to a shop for every little complication. Several of the simpler car problems don’t take a professional mechanic to fix, and even routine maintenance tasks can be performed at home. The great thing about the Internet age for car-owners is that there are all sorts of easy and helpful instruction videos out there.
Now, this doesn’t mean you can just start whacking at your engine with a socket wrench, but you definitely have more ability to tune up your car for cheap than you think you do.

3. Grocery shopping when you’re hungry

Or when you have all the time in the world. Avoid these two scenarios when taking a trip to the grocery store at all costs. If you shop for groceries when you’re hungry, even just kind of hungry, you’re more susceptible to buying extra stuff you don’t need or that you’ll waste later. Same goes for a leisurely grocery trip. If you make your trip when you have other errands to do and only a certain amount of time to do them, you’re less likely to spend time exploring all the isles and picking up more food than you originally planned on buying.

4. Buying a snack at the gas station “every now and then”

The quotation marks are there because “every now and then” usually means you just don’t keep track of all the little snack purchases you make on the go. All those bottles of soda and chip bags you pick up when you’re filling up the tank or making a stop at the drug store add up. Make a rule that you have to track all of those little snack purchases and you only get a small allowance of them per month. Get in the habit of bringing plenty of fluids and a snack or two with you whenever you go do errands or anything else that might bring you near convenient snack-filled temptations.

5. Taking expiration dates as law

For some of the more perishable foods expiration dates hold more authority, but you can usually tell this by the funky smells or colors that develop when they start to go bad. But an expiration date on a food item isn’t the be all end all, assuming they have been stored in a cool, dry area. The most obvious case of this is pretty much any dried good, such as cereal, uncooked pasta, and dried beans.
Several foods that usually go bad when their labels say they will, such as raw meat or bread, can be stored in the freezer before their expiration date if you don’t think you’ll make it in time and be perfectly fine when you thaw them again. You can also use online databases to look up the actual shelf-life of certain foods and compare it to what the label says.

6. Paying for cable

Cutting the cord might seem like something only super savvy Millennials and tech whizzes can do without sacrificing a few of their favorite shows. But there are a bazillion TV and movie streaming services and other non-cable options out there now, the quality and variety of which will only keep growing in the years to come. Pretty much any streaming service is cheaper than paying for cable or dish, and you don’t get stuck with all the extra channels you never watch yet still have to pay for.
You can’t sit there and surf channels aimlessly any more, of course, but it’s not like doing that made your TV experience fantastic anyway.

7. Only using credit/debit cards

Convenient? A bit. Ignorant bliss? Definitely.
If you almost exclusively use your card to pay for things, it’s a lot easier to spend more than you intend to because you aren’t seeing the money. You just press some buttons and boom, purchase made. You might not be so liberal with your funds if you had to watch the cash leave your wallet. If you use mobile banking or money management apps to keep on top of your finances while still using your card, and it’s working, keep doing your thing. For the rest of you, you might want to consider weekly or bi-weekly trips to your bank or ATM and withdrawing a fixed amount of cash for your spending.

8. Your bank in general

Banks and everything to do with them are just money-vacuums in general. Take a look at your accounts and card fees and see if there are any better options than what you currently have. Try your darnedest to use ATMs for your bank only, as using another branch’s machines typically racks up unpleasant fees.
Better yet, ditch the bank altogether. Try a local credit union instead.

9. A drafty living space

If you pay heating and cooling bills, you might be paying more than you need to due to inadequate insulation. If you can afford it, you can install more airtight windows and maybe a door or two as well. But effective insulation can be achieved without entirely replacing your windows in most cases. Start here and here.

10. In-game purchases

As a semi-recovering Candy Crush addict, I know how hard this habit is to break. But those $1 or $5 purchases here and there WILL add up, and you’ll suddenly be looking at your bank statement with a whole lot of shame and regret. Remove your credit card info from any sites or apps where you play games, and if you get really frustrated by a level you just can’t seem to beat, Google a how-to guide. (After finding some really effective ones for Candy Crush, I feel really dumb about buying those power-ups.)