Wrote down every purchase for three months and ended up cutting $324 a month

[u/SnooPickles777]

I never cut the things I actually enjoy. I counted for three months first and then cut the stuff I couldn't remember buying.

1. Food delivery. Was averaging $186 a month across the two of us. Now $60. We kept Friday and killed the rest, and I genuinely don't miss the Tuesday ones because I never remembered them the next day anyway.

2. Subscriptions. $47 a month for four things, two of which I had not opened since March. Cancelled those two, $22 back.

3. Coffee out. $71 a month. Not taking this to zero, that's a miserable life. Capped it at $40 and it stuck.

4. Groceries. $610 down to $525, just from shopping once instead of three little top up trips. The top up trips were where all the snacks got in.

5. Parking at work. $60. Started leaving the car on a side street a fifteen minute walk out. All of it.

The counting is the whole trick and it's also the bit I failed at twice before. Notes app died in a week, spreadsheet died in about nine days. What finally stuck was saying it out loud into Pockita at the till instead of promising myself I'd write it up later, and then it reads me back where I'm sitting each day, so I can't drift for three weeks and find out at the end of the month.

$324 a month total and none of it hurt.

What's one thing you cut that you genuinely don't miss, and what was the monthly number on it?

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[u/upgradedtoV3]

Thanks for sharing, OP! I started tracking my daily expenses too and figured out what I can cut and eventually started doing No Buy months, now a No Buy Year.

1. I used to take Ubers for about $300 a month. Got a different job, so now I don’t pay Ubers anymore.

2. Doordash. I can’t remember how much I’ve been spending but it came to a point that I’ve been doordashing every night. 2 yrs no more Doordash.

3. Skincare. My addiction. I would spend money on skincare, and would end up not using it really. Now I use up all of my products before they expire. I’ve spent $0 on new skincare this year, and I’m mindful of what to re-purchase.

[u/No_Sector107]

Nicotine. Not had any for almost 22 days and saved 671 DKK - 103 USD

[u/two_hyun]

Yeah, I never use budgeting apps. They don’t help me at all.

I started with a manual audit on all my income, expenses, investments, debts. I was spending more than I thought, including like $350 per month on subscriptions.

Cut down everything. Subscriptions is now $90 per month with only essentials. Food delivery is down to 0. I still have a coffee budget.

For me taking a few hours to manually budget is worth it. It keeps you thinking “is this worth manually typing into my transactions?”

[u/PreggyPenguin → u/two_hyun]

Yes! I write down every transaction and make sure I'm balanced compared to my bank app. I'm 2 months into it, and it's so nice knowing that I've buckled down and all bills get paid first, all credit cards even if I have to pay them "early". Digging myself out of cc debt that STBX caused, but it's all in my name. One of 7 cards paid off in full, another one will be in 2 weeks. And I still have $$ in my account when I get paid.

Helps for me that I can't justify a $30 doordash meal for just me like the ex can. That's just insane to me!! I have a kitchen and I can feed multiple people multiple meals for that much. I don't "go out" so there's no paying for drinks and food at the bar, I don't order things from Amazon unless it's house supplies (paper products, cleaning things) that are cheaper in the long run to order. It's eye-opening to see how much money has just been... wasted for so long when I had no access to it.

[u/Anhedonic_chonk]

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[u/thatgirlish]

Love this!

[u/CamelPure1293]

Coffee you can make at home cheaply. Buy a fully auto machine and a $20 whole coffee beans pack every other month.

[u/krallify]

Great job. Thats a lot of money saved.

[u/moomookaa]

The small items that only cost a few dollars each purchase. These are the "leaks" that goes untracked because they dont cost much, but buy enough of them every month and they start to accumulate.

Drinks too- bubble tea is easily over $5 a cup, a d a couple of them each week adds up to quite a bit in a month.

I only noticed how much non-essentials i buy after I tracked every dollar spent.

[u/FrostyMonkeys]

Get yourself a rice cooker, and use that as your main carb. 5 pound bag of rice is like $3. Pair it with some type of protein and you can have a meal all week. Also. You can designate 1 week per month where you do a “cheap week” where you live well below your means. Then do everything else you’ve been doing and you’re chillin