10 Things I Stopped Buying (Financial Minimalism)

In today's video, I'm sharing with you 10 things that I've stopped buying ever since I started tracking my expenses back in 2014. Now, the primary reason that I wanted to make this video was that I think there are so many purchases that are just not necessary and just end up cluttering our financial lives. If you're able to get rid of some wasteful purchases, I think it's going to help free up a lot of cash that then you can save, invest, or even use for vacation. Even the smallest differences can add up to a lot of cash, so that's what I wanted to illustrate today. Starting with the first thing that I've stopped buying, and that is staying at Airbnbs. Airbnbs used to be the hottest and coolest ways to take your vacations. Back in 2016 to 2017, I actually took a solo trip to Europe and I exclusively stayed in Airbnbs for the entire three weeks that I was there. Airbnbs used to also be a way cheaper way to book a place to stay than a hotel, but at some point post-COVID, there was a shift that I personally noticed. They started to become way more expensive due to their cleaning fees, which were also subject to whatever the owner wanted to charge. They also became more inconvenient, in my opinion, because they didn't have the same amenities as a typical hotel did. For me, they lost their charm. In the beginning, Airbnbs felt like they were these unique original places that you would stay and you would have this amazing experience, but at some point they became really commercialized and I feel like landlords started buying a bunch of rental properties just in order to convert them into Airbnbs in order to make money. I've personally been to some Airbnbs that just seem very sterile and I also feel like the commercialization of these Airbnbs just made them not that cool to stay at anymore. Add in the fact that nice hotel rooms are around the same price of Airbnbs these days and the fact that with an Airbnb, you can't transfer loyalty points. So for example, with a hotel, you could transfer loyalty points from a credit card to a hotel group like Marriott Bonvoy and you might be able to book a really nice room that way with points. The last thing I want to say about Airbnbs is that there's always some sort of Costco run involved. There's usually not food near the Airbnb and at the end of your stay, you usually have to oblige with the host's rules in order to check out. Perhaps that means you have to gather up all the sheets and put them in a pile somewhere. You have to clean up after yourself and you have to make sure everything was basically left in the same place as it was when you arrived. I'm not a slob by any means, but at a hotel, I just like the fact that everything is kind of taken care of for you and you don't really have to do anything additional in order to basically leave or check out of the place. Another thing that I stopped buying these days are, well, books. This probably sounds hypocritical of me given the fact that there are a bunch of books on the bookshelf behind me, but I really stopped buying that many physical books a while ago. Now, don't get me wrong. I used to buy a lot of books. I like learning and understanding new concepts, but sometimes I would buy three books in a week. I would maybe read 10 pages of each book and I would promise myself that I would read more eventually, but that just never happened. I do think one big reason for this was that I generally buy nonfiction self-improvement type of books, so they aren't really exactly page turners. These days, I'd much rather get my information either through listening to it via audio book or podcast. And if I really want a book, I might just ask my friends if they have a copy of that said book first. The bookshelf behind me is just the full representation of every single book that I own. I'm serious. I don't own any more books than that. And if I were to buy more books, I just don't think I would have the space for them because they also cause a lot of clutter as well. All right, so that was my point about books, but this next thing that I stopped buying doesn't have to do anything with clutter, but it has to do everything with overpaying and that's actually changing my car insurance. I personally moved into the city of San Francisco a couple of years ago. And since then, the number of miles that I drive on a yearly basis has gone from 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year down to about 3,000 or 4,000. I'm just not driving as much anymore. And as such, I've called my insurance to see if I can get a better rate on the monthly premiums that I pay. And because I did this, I'm saving about $40 a month compared to before. According to a 2019 study, Americans are overpaying for insurance by nearly $37 billion a year. And that study was conducted six years ago. So I just have to imagine that these days that figure has probably ballooned. And according to the article, Americans were overpaying for auto insurance by an average of $330 per year back then. And most people are loyal to their insurance provider for no rational reason. They usually just choose an insurance provider on a whim, or perhaps they are grandfathered into whatever their parents used at one point. But I think honestly, if you just spend one hour comparing rates, it could easily save you hundreds of dollars, if not maybe even $1,000 on a yearly basis. I will personally link an insurance comparison tool from my website down below in the description. And you can easily check to see if you're already getting the best deal on insurance. You basically just enter in your zip code, answer a quiz, and then you can easily check and compare offers. I think it's really helpful to at least compare the rates, especially if your driving situation has changed, like in my case where I'm just driving fewer miles per year. The main point here is just make sure you're not overpaying for insurance or paying for more than you actually need in terms of coverage. The fourth thing on today's list is really simple. It's clothing just for one specific occasion. I don't know how many of you guys are watching are women, but I find that a lot of my female friends run into this problem. And I was even victim to this same phenomenon. Sometimes I would have a special event coming up and I want to look my best. So I would buy an outfit just for that occasion. And oftentimes I wouldn't wear that outfit ever again. For example, I got invited to a rodeo once and I thought it might be a great idea to buy a cowboy hat. And how many times have I worn that cowboy hat since the rodeo back in 2022? Zero times. I don't even know where the cowboy hat is at this very moment. And the reason why I said that my female friends can probably resonate with this is that oftentimes they will buy a dress for just one special occasion. I feel like that's pretty common. My new rule of thumb is that if I'm going to wear it at least a few times, then I could probably justify that purchase. But if I'm only going to wear it once, I'll probably pass. The next thing on my list that I stopped buying is premium TV or cable TV. At one point in the past few years, I bought YouTube TV, which was $52.99 per month with promotional pricing. And my main purpose was to watch live sports on YouTube TV. But over time, the service got way more expensive. And then they had a price hike to $82.99 at the beginning of this year, which led me to cancel it altogether when I got this email. I personally don't watch much TV. I was watching it mostly for sports. So when I did the math, I actually realized that I was going to spend close to $1,000 per year on just watching a few sporting events. And I realized that it was just not worth it for me. I would say you just have to weigh if paying for TV is worth it for you because it's just entertainment at the end of the day. And if you're watching, let's say TV for 50 hours a month, then perhaps your dollars per hour in terms of entertainment value is quite low. And you can justify this expense. For me personally, since I was maybe only watching it a couple hours a month, then the $82.99 was just not worth it for me. And I hope that you would agree. The next biggest item on this list, which I think is really important, and I think more people should be thinking about this on a daily basis, is investing in things that you do not understand. I think many people are guilty of this. They may hear about an investment opportunity from a friend or a stock pick from a friend and think, oh man, I should probably go in on that too without even doing any research or any due diligence. Now, while this is not something that I've stopped buying per se, it's something that I've stopped putting my money into, which is I don't invest in things that I don't understand. So for example, I don't really understand angel investments that well. And I've been asked to invest in private companies over the years. And back then I would throw in a check for let's say $5,000, but I would have no idea on how to gauge whether a startup is going to be a good investment or not. In fact, most angel investments generally die. And I believe that even the best angel investors out there, only one out of 20 or one out of every 25 investments is a home run for them. The investments that I have felt the most guilty about are usually the ones in fields that I have no knowledge about. So for example, I invested in some sort of medical device company back in 2022. I know nothing about medical devices. The investment just came across my desk and the founder was a friend of a friend. And I trusted said friend that introduced me to the founder. So I thought it would be a good idea to invest in the business. However, after investing in it, I would say about six to seven months later, they actually closed down shop. So essentially my $5,000 just went poof out of thin air. And you might be wondering, well, Humphrey, did you at least look at the pitch deck and see what the financials and the numbers were? And yes, of course I looked at that, but I had no context for how well a medical device company should be doing in terms of their gross margins or what their growth trajectory should look like. I personally just invested in it and it was just something I did not understand. So I would say if you are investing your money into something and let's say it's a mutual fund or a bank account or a treasury bond, you really just want to make sure you know what you're investing into. Like if you buy into a mutual fund, you should know what that mutual fund is holding, what types of stocks are in there, what the risk profile looks like. And basically if your money is being put to work for you in the way that you want it to. A new thing that I stopped buying recently is also buying food in bulk. Now, usually you would think that buying food in bulk would save you money. And generally that is the case, especially if you can finish all the food. But here's the thing. I was buying multiple cartons of milk at the same time from Costco. I was buying 24 eggs at a time. I was buying meats. And oftentimes I'm just not enough of a person with enough of an appetite to finish all of the food before it goes bad. So the idea here is that if you want to save some money, of course, you know, you can shop in bulk to save money, but you really want to make sure you're able to actually finish that food. Because for me, at least I ended up spending way too much money on food that was just being thrown out. The number of times that I would pour expired milk down my drain was countless. And I feel really guilty about that. So I personally stopped buying food in bulk as much. And you just want to make sure that if you're buying food in bulk, that there is a balance there that you can actually finish the food before it goes bad. The next thing I stopped buying are items on sale. Now I know that this sounds counterintuitive, but it's something that I want you to be very cautious of. Sometimes a sale that happens frequently is just a reason that the merchant is trying to get you to buy something. For example, there's a gap store near my place in San Francisco. And the one thing I always notice is that there's a sale sign that is displayed at the entrance of the store all the time. And I've actually had friends, for example, tell me, oh yeah, I stopped into gap this weekend and they were running a crazy 60% off sale. They buy $900 worth of clothes for only $300. And the first instinct that you might think is like, well, that's awesome. They saved $600. But what I always tend to think is like, okay, you actually spent $300 that you had no intention of spending in the first place. Just because it's on sale, it doesn't always mean you are saving money. So I personally just try to buy things as I need them. And if there happens to be a sale, then great, that's all good. But I think the more important habit is to just not be affected by sales at all. Now, one exception we should talk about is the end of year quarter four Black Friday sales. I find that those sales are actually worth looking at only if you had an item in mind that you were thinking of buying that you know will go on sale. For example, if you know that there's a TV laptop or piece of luggage that will go on sale, then it might actually make sense to wait, especially if it's like October 30th. And you know that the sales will be just in a few weeks. But for the most part, I feel like sales are just tactics of marketing that retailers are using against you. So if you can stay unaffected by sales, I think you're going to be a lot better off in the long run. All right, the next thing that was a rage during the pandemic was to pay for subscription services that were basically helping you make video calls. So the thing that I've stopped paying for was a Zoom subscription. And at some point I was paying for Zoom premium, which was $17 a month in order to just not have my video call. And after 40 minutes, since then I've realized that video meeting software, the ones that are out there, it's become so commoditized. There's Google Meet, there's Microsoft Teams, there's Discord. And I think even Slack these days has its own video meeting interface as well. Just looking here at all the benefits of the premium Zoom, I almost would not use any one of these benefits in the pro package at all. Like I think you would have to have a very specific use case in order to have 100 participants per meeting. So for me, I don't have any of these use cases. I just find that it's not worth it. Now, speaking of software and products, the next thing I stopped buying altogether were extended warranties. You usually may be approached to buy an extended warranty when you're buying some sort of electronic. So for example, if you're at Costco, Best Buy or something like that, and you're buying a laptop or TV, sometimes they might say like, oh, do you want to buy a three year extended warranty for this product? It's going to cost you X amount. And in general, I find that these extended warranties are just not worth the money. For example, oftentimes extended warranties have exclusions and they might not cover all the repairs for damages that happened to your product. And that's actually one of the worst feelings is when you have the warranty, but it doesn't actually cover your specific use case. And I Oftentimes extended warranties are overpriced just in order to basically capture your money up front. The manufacturer is hoping that you misplace your warranty. You forget that exists, or perhaps it just lapses by the time your product actually needs fixing. So for me personally, I just stay away from extended warranties. And if it does break, I'll just buy another one at full retail price. And I just kind of eat the cost, but that's just me personally. I really take good care of all products. I personally would love to hear if you stopped buying any of these items I mentioned in today's video, are my thoughts valid? Are there things that you would keep? Let me know in the comments. Thank you for being here. And if you'd like to watch my video about my 21 personal finance lessons that absolutely changed my life, you just want to click this video right here and I'll see you in that video. Otherwise I will see you next week. Okay. Peace.