How to Gain Control of Compulsive Saving

Editor’s Note: This guest post is by Kate Willson who regularly writes on the topics of top online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katewillson2@gmail.com.

Usually when we think of frugal living, we think of saving money and reusing items and keeping things in order to avoid paying to replace them. Waste not, want not, am I right? However, did you know that saving items far longer than they are useful can be quite expensive as well? Think about it. For example, a car that has over 200,000 miles on it means the owner hasn’t purchased a new car for some time, which saves him or her money certainly. But, as with most things, that car’s age will soon lead to its falling apart. As each part fails, the car will need to be fixed or the part will need to be replaced. That extensive maintenance will cost us money. So what we need to do is figure out at what point an item’s usefulness no longer makes up for the expense of replacing it.

But how can you do this? Well, there are three things you can do to make sure your appliances, vehicles, house or apartment, gadgets, and other belongings are not costing your money.

Understand Life Expectancy and Cost of Ownership

The first thing you should do is understand the typical life expectancy of your things as well as the expected cost of ownership over time that goes with owning them. Ask your friends who have owned similar things, such as cars or televisions, how long the item has lasted them. What kind of shape did your friends keep it in? Did they have any trouble with it as it aged? Also, ask experts what they think: how long could this dishwasher last before it needs to be replaced? Know the going cost for regular maintenance visits to the auto dealership. How will the cost of those visits vary with each brand of vehicle and as the vehicle ages? You can also find answers to these sorts of questions by searching online for cost of ownership calculator tools for all sorts of things.

Maintain Your Belongings

Another frugal tip to protect yourself against incurring unnecessary costs on your belongings is to make sure they are well-maintained. Keep your belongings clean. Wash them according to the instructions. Use them correctly. Don’t abuse them. And keep them in good shape. This means scheduling and doing the regular maintenance according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Of course, this is a cost that you’ll have to incur, but it’s a much better cost than the alternative of having to pay for emergency repairs when, say, the furnace in your home breaks during the dead of winter. When you compare those two costs, you’ll see that the regular maintenance costs are much less usually than the costs of rushing a technician and equipment out to your house.

Decrease Clutter in Your Life

Finally, you should learn to let go of things when they’ve outlasted their usefulness. If you’re someone who keeps around broken things in the hopes of one day fixing them or using their parts to fix something else, then you should reconsider that habit. Think about this: how much does it cost to keep those things around? It may not cost you too much money, as you’ve already been storing them in your own house, but it does cost you energy and time to wade through that clutter in order to take stock of your things. If you have to wade through the clutter, then how can you be exactly sure as to what of your belongings is in good order and what needs to be discarded?

Conclusion

Really, what frugal people need to do is to maintain a good routine that helps them constantly evaluate their habits and their belongings. The above is merely a suggestion as to how you can start building that routine to control over-saving and other unnecessary habits that actually hamper our abilities to be frugal in our lives.

Check out our Saving Tips page for more frugal tips or explore some of our money saving calculators on our Tools page.