Last month at Lifehacker, readers joined our February Money Challenge, which was to haggle your bills. I saved about $131 negotiating my web hosting and Internet. Not bad, right? But our readers put me to shame. They saved several hundred, and in some cases, several THOUSAND dollars for the year. One reader negotiated a better Internet deal AND a credit after finding a bill error. Another reader knocked $100 off their car insurance just by asking the carrier to match competitor prices. One reader even haggled a $160/month discount on rent!
Encouraging stuff. I pitched the Ultimate Money Challenge because we share so much solid advice for saving, earning, and managing money at Lifehacker, and I wanted to put that advice into action. It’s nice to see just how much it pays to take action:
And we just announced March’s challenge: Curb Impulsive Spending. Broad, I know, but we all waste money on different things. The goal with this challenge is to get readers to spend more mindfully. That doesn’t mean cutting out all of the fun stuff, either! The goal here is to tackle the impulsive, emotional spending that trips you up, destroys your budget, and detracts from your goals. It’s the spending you usually regret later for those reasons.
In the above video, I discuss how to curb this kind of spending. There are a lot of tricks and hacks out there–freeze your credit cards, pay with cash only–and those practical tips can be really helpful. The video, however, focuses more on why we spend impulsively and how to recognize it and nip our triggers in the bud.
This month, I’m focusing on my biggest spending vice: clothes. I can be spendy in other areas, too, but this is probably the most emotional and wasteful category for me. I sure as hell don’t need new clothes (they usually end up in the back of my closet), yet somehow I still end up spending $200 a month on them. It may not be an easy challenge, but hopefully, those who join will save some cash and learn to be more mindful about spending in the process.
Great idea for a challenge — I find myself putting roadblocks for myself (not putting credit card info online.. or resetting it, etc) and my laziness helps me avoid some spending. That and staying in my house… though with the weather improving, that roadblock might not be good enough. 🙂
Haha I love when laziness works in your favor!
Based on Jim’s suggestion, I removed all my credit cards from my Amazon account. This probably lasted less than 3 hours as I found myself wanting to purchase something and said F*k it I’m keeping the card online. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love this challenge. I’m getting ready for a baby and keep wanting to buy stuff for her. I seriously don’t need anything, but I just keep wanting to spend anyway. Hopefully this challenge will help me stay on track.
Congrats! And good luck with the challenge 🙂
I will surly going to join this challenge and according to me it will help me a lot to change myself. Thanks for this amazing post Kristin.
Sweet–glad you’re on board!
Thanks kristin.
I’m such a frugal weirdo that I think I do a decent enough job curbing my impulses. Two things I can try to cut this month are random coffees out and random Amazon purchases. I also like to buy random dorky tshirts on occassion (wrestling, Doctor Who). Challenge accepted!
Yay! Glad you’re on board. I almost caved this morning because I got an email from my favorite store for a 25% off coupon. I am resisting temptation.
Good challenges! I think my cable/internet bill is almost $200 now, it kinda makes me sick! When everything else is falling, why is cable/internet continue to rise?
The biggest thing I need to get down is my Aweber e-mail monthly fee of $140. What is up with that. I feel like I’m being held hostage b/c they start off at like several bucks a month, then a reasonable $50, and then they jump all the way to $140 after some arbitrary subscriber threshold. I’m gonna bring this sucker DOWN!
S