A Few Things You Shouldn’t Waste Money On This Year (Or Ever Again)

Want to improve your financial situation this year? Start by cutting out these expenses.

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Financially speaking, young people are royally f*cked.

If you compare today’s 20-somethings with Millennials a decade ago, Gen Z is far worse off. The median non mortgage debt for Gen Z – aka car loans and credit cards – is $16,560.

This shouldn’t be news to you. Whether you’re scrolling through TikTok or Googling something, there’s nonstop wall-to-wall coverage about just how bad the financial situation is for young people.

Everyone seems to talk about the problem but no one is offering any real solutions. It’s easy to look at the financials showing Gen Z is struggling but it’s much harder to actually do something about it.

A lot of young people don’t know how to manage their money. I know because no one taught me. I had to learn it all on my own.

Back in 2015, I discovered Dave Ramsey and went down a personal finance rabbit hole. I read every book I could get my hands on and listened to any podcast that talked about money.

I started my own blog and began freelance writing for other personal finance content creators. After a decade of educating myself and educating others on topics ranging from debt management to investing, I’m convinced the whole thing is rigged.

A lot of financial influencers have a perverse incentive to sell you financial products that do more harm than good. And if you actually begin studying economics, you realize debt is by design.

This might not sit well, but you are a member of the modern peasantry. You’re not supposed to be able to create wealth – much less get out of debt – just by earning an income.

The situation sucks for young people because the game is rigged. And that’s not going to change anytime soon.

That leaves you with two options. You can:

• Shake your fists in the air and complain about the system

• Do something about it

You can’t control inflation, stagnant wages, or dwindling job opportunities. What you can control is how you spend your money.

The reality is being intentional with your money isn’t sexy because it won’t make you rich. And because it won’t make you rich, financial influencers aren’t doing you any favors. They’re not telling you to do this because they can’t sell a course that teaches you how to live within your means.

Only you can decide to do that for yourself.

To be more intentional with your money, you have to start treating your income with respect. You wouldn’t light a $100 bill on fire so why do you charge things you don’t want or need onto a credit card with 30% interest?

Make this year the year you live within your means. Learn how to spend intentionally.

To get started, here are a few things I’ve cut out (or am working on cutting out) of my own budget. I think you’d be wise to do the same.

Self-Care Products and Services

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Over the last decade, I’ve spent money on juice cleanses, sound baths, mani/pedis, life coaching, astrology readings, and a whole litany of things that you could categorize as self-care.

I do think there’s value in some of these things, but not to the extent it’s being marketed to young people, especially women.

Implicit in the idea of self-care is the notion you need something to be good enough. That something can be working with a life coach or it could be a bath bomb and an expensive candle. But you can’t take care of yourself on your own.

The self-care industry preyed on my deepest fear that I’m not good enough. It capitalized on my vulnerabilities to get me to buy things I didn’t really need.

Sure, a $15 bath bomb from Lush is nice once in a while. But an epsom salt bath with some bubbles achieves the same outcome for a fraction of the price.

Take care of yourself, but do so responsibly.

If a life coach charges fees commensurate with their cost of living, that’s not your responsibility. For every life coach offering Zoom sessions from their Brooklyn apartment there’s other coaches in Asheville, Wichita, or Albuquerque offering the same service for a fair price.

Do your homework. The only person who can help you, is you, and it shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg to do so.

Fitness Classes

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This is something I’m not proud to admit. A few years ago when I was living in Washington, DC I was really into boutique fitness classes. Pure Barre, Barre3, Barry’s, SoulCycle, you name it I did it.

My vice was [solidcore]. Individual classes usually run around $36 a pop. I paid $400 a month for unlimited classes so I could take a 5 am class before work every morning.

Looking back, I don’t think these classes were worth it. I didn’t make friends. I didn’t feel like I was part of a community. And at those price points, I couldn’t go consistently enough to get any meaningful results.

Working out shouldn’t put you into debt. Planet Fitness isn’t Equinox, but it’s a gym. Running outside is free and most cities have a few run clubs where you might actually make friends. And thanks to YouTube, you can get access to almost any fitness class you want for free.

Yoga with Adriene doesn’t replace a yoga class, but it is a low-cost alternative. And if you have kids, maybe splurging on an expensive gym membership that comes with child care might be worth it to you.

Be intentional with how you allocate resources to achieve your fitness goals. You can pay money to burn calories, but you can also burn calories for free.

“Luxury” Apartments

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I always wanted to live in a “luxury” apartment with amenities. Last year was the first year I was able to do so, and let me tell you, it was nothing but a disappointment.

Sure, I was walking distance to downtown Austin and had amenities like a pool and a gym, but the cost of those things wasn’t worth it.

The complex itself was poorly built. There were constant issues with plumbing and leaks. It was so bad that a couple months after I moved in, the pool was completely renovated. It was out of use for 80% of my lease term. Even though I paid for the amenity, I never got to use it.

I lived in a first floor unit with high ceilings. I couldn’t sleep without a sound machine at night because I could hear everything that was happening in the unit above mine. And by everything, I mean everything.

There were all sorts of fees that made the out-of-pocket rent more expensive. There was a fee for the privilege of walking my garbage to the garbage room. There was a monthly “lifestyle” fee. There was the pest control fee. There was a fee to park my car. And you can’t forget all the administrative fees.

When all was said and done, I spent half my income last year to live in an urban prison just so I could line the pockets of a property management company. And for what? To live “close” to bars I never went to? To fight downtown traffic everyday?

“Luxury” apartment complexes are money pits. They’re designed to give you a false sense of community where it will never exist. After a while the amenities lose their appeal and you feel trapped in a place that will never quite feel like home.

Stop following what everyone else is doing. Everyone else is wrong. Skip the luxury apartment complexes. Stop transferring your hard earned cash to greedy corporations. Get some friends, rent a house together, and prioritize lowering your housing costs.

Lattes

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This is a tough one for me to admit that we should all give up. I spend a lot of time working from coffee shops and drink a lot of lattes. I’m a sucker for all the fun seasonal flavors.

But I’m realizing it just isn’t worth it anymore.

If you haven’t been to a coffee shop in a while, they’re increasingly becoming sugar mills. You’re not paying for coffee, you’re paying for all the extra crap that goes into your coffee.

Take a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte as an example. A grande is 390 calories and contains 50 grams of sugar. It’s not a meal and has no nutritional value yet it contains more than the daily recommended limit of sugar.

Thanks to inflation and the high cost of living, a lot of craft coffee shops are charging $8 to $9 for specialty lattes filled with artificial flavors and sugar. One cafe here in Austin closed shortly after releasing an updated menu with $11 lattes…

The worst part is that sugar is literally killing all of us. 93.2% of Americans have metabolic dysfunction and you can largely blame sugar for that.

I’m not saying you should quit lattes forever but I am strongly advising you to be more intentional about what you’re paying for and putting in your body.

Lattes provide zero benefit. Unless you work from coffee shops or you're meeting up with someone, don’t waste your money on a latte to go. Invest in a nice Nespresso machine and make your own syrups at home if you must.

You’ll save money, control how much sugar you’re putting into your body, and contribute fewer coffee cups to America’s growing trash problem.

Alcohol

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I’m not one of those people who set out to become sober. It just happened. I was raised in a dry household and never had a problem with drinking so maybe that helped.

Now that I’m in my early 30s, drinking has become less useful. I don’t go out on the weekends and I don’t have a reason to drink at home. I’d personally rather spend my grocery money on a nice chocolate bar than on a meh bottle of wine.

Like sugar-laden lattes, alcohol is largely a waste of money. Sure it’s fun to get an espresso martini once in a while, but that’s one of those things that shouldn’t put you into debt on a weekly basis.

If your social life centers around alcohol – going out to bars, beer league sports, and bottomless brunch – I hate to break it to you, but you need a different social life.

Your “friends” are spending your money and you don’t even realize it. The moment you stop engaging in alcohol-related activities, you’ll begin to see who your real friends are.

And those are the people you want to invest time and effort into building relationships with. Because in a decade, you’re going to need those people to carry you through life. Not your drunk “bestie” who you get hammered with on a weekly basis.

If you’re struggling to make ends meet or just want to invest in a better future for yourself start here. Cut out the alcohol and build a new social network. You’ll be amazed at how much your quality of life will improve – and how much money you’ll save – from this one decision.

Dining out

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I used to dine out all the time. Similar to drinking, going out for dinner was one of those necessary social obligations I felt like I had to do to keep up with appearances in my network.

These days, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve sat down for a meal inside a restaurant during the last year.

The value proposition of dining out has changed. Inflation has pushed menu prices through the roof. Even though prices have gone up, quality hasn’t. At some point you have to come to terms with the fact that there is no justifiable reason to pay $20 for a wedge of iceberg lettuce – plus a tip.

America has created a culture for itself where we rely on third spaces to facilitate social interactions. We go to coffee shops, bars, and restaurants to engage with friends.

It’s time to put an end to this.

Learn how to cook if you don’t know already. YouTube University is free. Host potlucks with friends. And if you must dine out, skip the restaurant and order take out.

If you haven’t come to the conclusion that dining out is a waste of money yet, you will when you want to buy a home or start a family and you’ve got no money in the bank.

Future you will be happier and healthier if you started learning how to make home cooked meals than wasting money on a sub par, nuked dinner at a mediocre restaurant.

New Clothes

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The average person has more than 100 articles of clothing in their closet and spends around $1,800 per year on clothing.

But how much do you actually wear?

In America, we’re obsessed with filling our homes with sh*t we don’t need. And it’s honestly doing more harm than good.

All those clothes you buy sit in your closet until you decide to take them to Goodwill to donate them. But they’re not given to the needy like you think. There’s more clothing in existence than anyone truly needs. Your junk is sent to Africa and ends up polluting shorelines over there instead.

Stop buying new clothes. Not only are you wasting money, you’re passing the buck onto someone else. Rather than taking responsibility for filling your closet with clothes you don’t want or need, you’re making it someone else's problem.

And if you think about it, the whole clothing industry is quite despicable.

Most items are made in China using the equivalent of modern day wage slaves. You buy Shein because it’s cheap or lululemon because it’s Instagrammable. But then you go to protests about climate change or low wages here in the U.S.

You can’t be a social justice warrior while consuming products that exploit other people and the environment. It makes you a hypocrite with too much consumer debt.

Wearing second hand clothes used to be a stigma but now it’s fashionable. There’s any number of ways to get affordable used clothing. And the best part? If you play the game right, you can resell your clothes too.

Clean out your closet and take your clothes to a resale shop like Plato’s Closet. Take the store credit and buy yourself new clothes. Repeat this process over and over and you’ll never spend money on clothes again.

If you need help breaking your shopping habit, I’d recommend reading

Cait Flanders

book The Year of Less. Do a shopping ban like she did and stop wasting money on clothes.

College

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If you’re not college age this won’t apply to you but if you know someone who is – or parents of teenagers who are about to be – share this with them.

College is a scam. As a society, we need to stop brainwashing our young people into thinking college is the only way to succeed in life.

A decade ago I graduated with honors from a top university with around $35,000 in student loans. Today, I’ve paid more than $14,000 but I still owe $28,000.

It’s abundantly clear now that the jobs don’t exist to justify the financial investment required to get a college degree.

Professors are decades removed from the job market. They have no idea what’s actually happening and can’t advise you on the skills you need to secure a good job.

Think of it like investing in the stock market. Would you pay a financial advisor to help you manage your portfolio using market data from 1983?

No, you wouldn’t. So why do we do that with college? Why do we let people with outdated information convince us that going into debt to get a job is a good idea?

Thanks to new technology, college is becoming even more irrelevant. Whatever you want to learn, you can do so on your own. I wanted to learn economics so I built myself a class using ChatGPT. If you want to read more about it you can do so here.

You can do what I’m doing with ChatGPT or you can chart a different path for yourself. You can take free online courses through platforms like Coursera or edX. You can join a paid membership platform like the Peterson Academy. You can get a certification directly through a company like Google or Salesforce. Or you can go a different route, learning a trade or literally working your way up to a management position within a company.

The point is, you have options now that didn’t exist before. Or maybe you just didn’t know some of these options existed.

Don’t waste money on college. The return on your investment just isn’t there anymore.

Final takeaway.

Life is a series of choices. The choices you make determine the quality of life you get to live.

The money you spend is a reflection of the choices you’re making on a daily basis.

If you have cash to blow on bar tabs, a useless college degree, or a fancy apartment, by all means, blow it.

But if you’re one of the millions of Americans struggling with debt or living paycheck to paycheck, stop wasting money you don’t have on things you don’t need.

The only thing worse than wasting money on things that poison your body, your mind, or your relationships with other people is spending money you don’t actually have.

Make this the year you commit to making informed decisions about how you spend your money.

You can’t stop BlackRock from buying single-family homes. But you can stop sending your monthly rent payment to a bunch of private equity investors.

You can’t change the American healthcare system. But you can stop consuming fast food, empty calories, and alcohol that makes you sick and dependent on it.

You can’t stop the fast fashion industry. But you can stop being a consumer of it.

Everything is a choice. What choices will you make this year?

Is there something else you’d add to this list? Share your recommendations in the comments.