6 Unnecessary Purchases You're Making
With the cost of living crisis still fully underway, it’s never been more important for us to look for ways in which to save money. I’ve been looking at our own finances and what we spend our money on and it got me thinking whether we could cut some of it out to save some cash. So here are a few unnecessary purchases we’ve been making and, possibly, some that you’ve been making!
Branded medication
A lot of the supermarket own brand medication have the exact same ingredients as the branded stuff, unless you’re looking for extra strength. But you should always consult the pharmacist before making a purchase. Own-brand medication is just as effective but a fraction of the cost of branded alternatives so next time you reach for the Nurofen, go for supermarket own ibuprofen instead.
Premium petrol
It’s debatable as to whether or not this is really worth the extra cost. Regular use of it for a small or even medium car is often considered to be a waste of money. Premium petrol is actually unlikely to provide any benefits as the consumer. It just means higher profits for the fuel companies. Go for Regular unleaded petrol at the pump and save some dosh, especially with petrol prices being as high as they are currently.
TV packages from companies like Sky and Virgin
We have never had a to package since living together. We have a smart television and a Now TV stick that has everything on it that we could possibly sink our teeth into. From the latest Sky Movies and true crime documentaries to chilling dramas and edge-of-your seat thrillers, we have everything we could possibly want to watch and all without a tv package.
Recently, we’ve enjoyed Ozark, Better Call Saul, Midwitch Cookoos, Mare of Easttown, Your Honour, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monster House, The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Elvis, Dahmer and loads more, all without paying an extra penny directly to companies like Sky or Virgin.
The subscriptions we have, which all add up to less than an average TV package are: Disney +, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple TV and Now TV. In fact, Now TV is costing us less than £10 a month and we’re on a free three month trial with Apple TV.
Disney + has always had a reasonable monthly rate, as has Amazon Prime. The only subscription fee that’s gone up is Netflix, coming in at £10.99 a month. But I might switch to the cheaper version with adverts or cancel it altogether to save even more money on at-home entertainment. Ditch your costly TV packages and subscribe to some of these streaming services instead.
Cookbooks
Simply, you can find everything you need either online or through television shows. Jamie Oliver has is own ‘one pan wonder’ show that we like to record or I’ll simply search for it online. Cookbooks are now a thing of the past. I rarely use mine these days, especially with how easy it is to search for it on phones and iPads - gone are the days where firing up your computer was more of an effort than opening up a cookbook.
Branded food & drink items
This time a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have said the same thing. I was always of the mind that you get what you pay for, but that’s not the case when it comes to food from the supermarket. For example, a tin of baked beans from Heinz costs, at the moment, £1.20, but a tin of Sainsbury’s own brand baked beans comes in at just 50p, and they pretty much taste the same. In fact, Hubbard’s (which is an even cheaper Sainsbury’s brand) baked beans costs 25p - that’s nearly an entire £1 cheaper than the branded baked bean tin.
I find that if you’re mixing in to things, like a tin of chopped tomatoes into a chilli con carne, then the cheaper one is really no different to a branded tin that could end up costing more than double a supermarket-own product.
Cheese is another great example. You can get 600g of cheddar cheese from Sainsbury’s for £2.66 if you choose the Mary Ann’s Dairy Cheddar Cheese instead of 550g of Cathedral City cheese coming in at £5.40 at Sainsbury’s.
The Sainsbury’s own brand cheese is. £2.85 for 400g instead of £4.20 for 350g of Cathedral City cheese. We only really use this cheese for grating onto pasta, jacket potatoes and chilli con carne. If we have cheese and crackers then we like to choose flavoured cheese, like the herby ones. But the cheapest cheese is still just as good as the branded stuff if you’re going to use it as a garnish or to make cheese sauce, for example.
Biscuits are the same. No matter if they’re branded or not, a biscuit is a biscuit and I don’t really see much of a difference. We like the shortcake biscuits with raisins in them. McVities Fruit Shortcake biscuits are £1.30 for 200g, but the Tesco own version is 49p for the same weight, which is more than half price. If you really look for the unbranded items, you can pick up some real goodies for a great price.
Other things I have switched out from branded to unbranded food items include: loaf of bread, ham, sausages, hummus, bread sticks, chopped tomatoes, kidney beans, chickpeas, curry pastes and sauces, pasta sauces, pasta, rice, squash and way more!
But there are still some things we’ll buy that are branded, including: washing detergent, dishwasher tablets, fabric softener, crisps, butter, cereal bars, porridge, cereal, soup, beer, wine, ice cream, yoghurts, olive oil, casserole sauces, fajita kits, toilet roll, kitchen towel etc. If I watch what we spend in some places, there are areas of the food shop we can splurge on, so it’s all about balance.
CDs & DVDs
I have already touched upon this about the streaming services. If you’re going to have all of these subscriptions, then there’s really no need to buy DVDs and CDs anymore, especially with the use of things like YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify. Save money on those things and put it towards a subscription service that’ll give you everything.
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I hope you enjoyed this blog post? Let me know in the comments whether you've given up some unnecessary purchases recently and I'll see you again very soon with a brand new blog post :)
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