10 Things I Stopped Buying | Financial Minimalism

What's up you guys? It's Graham here. So throughout my entire life, I've always made a conscious effort to evaluate my spending, cut back on what isn't necessary, and focus on clearing out the clutter. But this year absolutely threw us all for a curveball, and with so much unavailable, I had to get rather creative. Through the process, I actually found some new ways to save money that I never would have imagined. Sometimes it's the smallest differences that could add up to the biggest savings.

Not to mention, when I started this channel, it was all about how to save and grow your money long term. It all starts here with simple, easy ways to cut back that's going to give you more money left over every month. So without further ado, these are the 10 things that I stopped buying. It all begins with you smashing the like button for the YouTube algorithm because that is totally free. It doesn't cost you a thing. It's really fun to do; all the cool kids are doing it.

So with that said, thank you so much, and we'll begin here. The first thing that I stopped buying was haircuts. Now that's something I never thought I would ever say because I always felt like I was getting a really good deal at $35 with tip included every other month, and I was really happy with the haircut I got. But once everything started shutting down, I had to get creative. So I paid $70 on Amazon for a pair of buzzers, and then my girlfriend started cutting my hair. She's been doing this now since April, and just a quick cut every six weeks or so is all it needs. It's totally free.

Now, I know what you're thinking: this is really more like a two-part expense because you got to pay for the buzzers, and girlfriends can be kind of expensive. Thankfully, mine is happy to give me a haircut as long as she gets to cut it to the length that she likes, and I think that's worth the $35 savings, plus the 90 minutes it would have taken me to drive there, park, wait, get a haircut, and drive back. Really, cutting hair is not difficult to learn; just go slow, take your time, and with some patience, you should be able to get a pretty decent haircut for the price of just the buzzers and scissors up front. And really quick disclosure, I’m not responsible for any bad haircuts.

Next, the second thing I stopped buying is really only something I would have done occasionally, but this year I cut it out altogether, and that would be fast food. If you've watched my channel for the past year or so, you would have seen that I didn't have the best diet. I never really ate that much junk food, but maybe twice a month or so, I would go to McDonald's and reward myself with two double cheeseburgers from the dollar menu, or I would just load up on Healthy Choice frozen dinners as a quick snack throughout the day. However, over the last six months, I've cut out all junk food altogether since working from home, and I have to say I don't miss the frozen or junk food at all. If anything, during the day I'm more so craving a salad in the afternoon than I am a Healthy Choice frozen meal.

Not to mention, once you start digging a little deeper into the financials, you'll see that the average American spends $1,200 a year on fast food alone. That's basically another stimulus check every single year just by cutting out fast food. Not to mention, it's actually proven that eating fast food could be more expensive than eating at home. So the notion that fast food is cheaper is absolutely false. If anything, it's more expensive, it's less nutritious, and cooking from home can save you the time from driving to and from McDonald's. I highly recommend that everyone reevaluate their fast food or frozen food diets and just leave them to the rare occasion, so that way you're not only going to have more money left over, but also the food you eat is going to be more nutritious.

Now, the third thing I stopped buying this year was a gym membership, and that was something I never thought I would do. Now previously, I would go to the gym about four to five days a week, and I would regret the days I didn't go. It got to the point where if I didn't work out for maybe two days in a row, I just felt off. But when everything shut down, I had to find an alternative. So after getting a bench and some free weights, and after watching some YouTube videos and home workouts, that nearly replaced my entire gym.

I would also supplement that with two miles a day of cardio five times a week with my editor Jack. I would also go on walks with Macy after work, and it became a really nice way to wind down at the end of the day, all for the cost, by the way, of zero dollars. Now, I will admit there is a part of me that does miss going to the gym, but this one works nearly as well without the monthly cost. I end up getting a lot of work done during the run. However, just be aware that if you're thinking of doing this, from my experience, it's a lot more difficult to motivate yourself to actually work out if you're not physically going into a gym. But if you have the discipline to push yourself at home as hard as you would in the gym, then go for it. It's absolutely worth it.

The fourth thing I finally stopped buying was Starbucks coffee—just kidding! I never bought Starbucks coffee; that's a waste of money. But I did change my car insurance plan, and that saved about $30 a month because I'm not driving as much anymore. Now, I know it's past Halloween already, but here's a very scary statistic: Americans are overspending on their car insurance by $37 billion a year. That means that you are overspending on your car insurance by an average of $330 a year. Now, Value Penguin found that the biggest reason for this is that people felt loyal to their car insurance companies and felt obligated to stay with their current plan, even though spending an hour of work comparing rates could easily save them hundreds of dollars.

So if you want to save money nearly instantaneously, right after this video is done, go and shop around your car insurance rates, and evaluate how much you really end up driving. If you're like me and you're not driving as much as you used to, make sure your insurance company knows this. Otherwise, most likely, you're paying for more insurance than you need. This one could really be as quick as a five-minute email or phone call to your insurance agent or just an afternoon shopping around rates. So check this out, and the average person is probably going to save a few hundred dollars by doing this.

The fifth—speaking of the car—I also stopped paying for parking. As most of you know, Los Angeles is terribly expensive; anywhere you want to park, and most parking meters are in full effect until like 10 PM to midnight every single night. Now, usually, it's not that big of a deal if you want to park a block or two away and just walk, but lately, with parking just getting harder and harder to come by, even parking a few blocks away is becoming nearly impossible. So instead, I just bought an electric scooter to take anywhere nearby. It's got over a 10-mile range, charges in a few hours, goes 15 miles an hour, and parking it is absolutely free.

We've taken this down to the beach nearly every other weekend, where parking would otherwise be $10 to $20 depending on the day. We've also taken it to busy main streets, shopping districts—you name it. But I have to say the best part of all of this is just not looking for a parking spot. In Los Angeles, it's estimated that the average person spends 85 hours per year just looking for parking. At the average salary, that's $1,735 of your time just wasted as you sit there hunting for a spot. Something like this easily pays for itself with the convenience of saving time—not paying for parking—and plus, it's just fun to ride around.

Now, number six, I also stopped buying new clothes. It was found that most adults spend, on average, $161 a month on clothing. And let's be real; I'm sure a lot of the time we buy something new; it just gets worn a few times and then sits in the closet for months or years just collecting dust. So the older I got, the more I realized that buying new clothes is not necessary unless it's a functional staple item you actually need. Chances are you already have everything you need that just hasn't been worn enough. When it comes to myself, everything that you've seen me wear over the last year has just been cycled through what I already have in my closet. And if I do get something new, it's usually a gift from somebody else who no longer wears it. So if it fits me, I'll wear it.

As long as you take care of the clothes you already have, wash them correctly, and store them properly, they should last you a really long time. Number seven is something a little bit more unorthodox, but this year I stopped buying rental properties. See, typically in the past, I've set it as my yearly goal to buy one property that I could then rent out, but this year that never happened. I spent the beginning of this year searching nonstop for a deal, but I couldn't find anything worth buying here in Los Angeles that didn't require a substantial amount of work up front.

Now, I did end up getting really close to buying one deal that I thought would make a fantastic series here for the channel, but last minute the seller decided to back out. After that, of course, lockdowns went into full effect, and inventory dried up to next to nothing. That meant that the only deals worth buying here were the ones that needed at least 6 to 12 months' worth of work and at least a few hundred thousand dollars' worth of renovations, which I'm not opposed to, but when I evaluated how much time that was going to take me versus spending that same time expanding my business right now, it just makes more financial sense to continue expanding my own personal brand, creating better content for you, and just diversifying my investments.

So instead of buying another property this year, I ended up throwing a lot of money back into the stock market. I started a podcast, I became an angel investor in Yada Bank (link down below in the description), and now I'm in the process of potentially starting another business to further diversify. So even though rental properties are always going to be my bread and butter and I intend to buy more properties in the future, at this point in time, it's just better to use my time and capital to reinvest into other ventures and back into the business. But that doesn't mean there aren't any deals out there. I have to put a value on my time to find the right property and the commitment for a renovation, and at this juncture, it just makes more financial sense to reinvest into other areas that I think for me might have more potential.

Next, number eight: I stopped buying Gucci. It was found that the average millennial spends $3,146 on a Gucci bag, and that needs to stop today! Okay, that was a joke too; I don't spend any money on designer clothing. This was a gift from Jason Oppenheim, so shout out to Jason—thank you so much for the jacket! Anyway, what I did stop buying is some common fruits and herbs. Instead of going to the grocery store and buying mint, basil, rosemary, passion fruit, lemons, and strawberries, we've just been growing our own.

Now, yes, this one certainly depends on your location and climate, but here in Los Angeles, growing fruits and vegetables like this is really easy—not to mention it's fun! We've planted our own fruits and vegetables in the backyard in March, and since then they've been doing really well. The house I bought also has a really mature rosemary plant and a lemon tree, with a huge passion fruit tree that wraps around the side of the house. So gardening has been a breeze, and it's really nice to walk out to the backyard and just pick what you need.

Now, I certainly wouldn't expect you to scale up to a full-on farming operation overnight in your backyard, but as a fun side hobby, growing some fruits and vegetables is really easy to do if you're into that sort of stuff. Plus, it's really relaxing to go out to the backyard, water the plants, and just see them grow over time. Number nine is something I've always stopped buying, but I felt this is important to mention given the timing of it, and that is not buying the latest iPhone or newest tech each and every year.

Don't get me wrong; I certainly appreciate the innovations and upgrades, and I certainly see the appeal. But the money you spend constantly updating on tech could be exorbitant. Now just like with the fast food budget, the average person spends $100 a month buying the latest tech gadgets. That's why what I've always done is just buy last year's model. If you're going to upgrade to something new, usually you're going to save a few hundred dollars up front. It's nearly the exact same thing, and the differences between them are usually minimal.

On top of that, they also have iPhone upgrade packages that range anywhere from $30 to $60 a month. That's nearly $500 a year just spent on warranty and phone upgrades on something that's not really needed every single year. So my recommendation, like I said, is just buy last year's model and only upgrade every other year if you need to. And on top of that, sell your previous phone to recoup some of the cost. Doing that is going to save you significantly more money than just going and buying the new iPhone every year, especially when the updates between phones are not that noticeable.

Finally, number 10: I stopped buying cat toys. As some of you know, a year and a half ago, Ramsay came into our life as a rescue from the streets, and since then he's been incredibly spoiled. But one thing that has consistently surprised me is that he doesn't play much with cat toys. No matter what he gets, he will ignore it and then just go and play with the box. So we've stopped buying him cat toys, and instead, he'll have way more fun playing with a box or with a straw. He even enjoys it so much that he'll take it to bed with him just so when he wakes up, it's right there for him to play with again.

Now, obviously, your cat may vary when it comes to this, but Ramsay, I think, is just as frugal as I am. So if you could get the exact same enjoyment from a used straw as you can an expensive cat toy, I'm all for it! And yes, he was named after Dave Ramsey for anyone curious.

And listen, at the end of the day, even though you are making small changes here and there, it does add up. Like if Americans just cut out fast food and eat at home, they're probably gonna save about $600 a year. If they shopped only half as much, that's another $960 in annual savings. Or if they shopped around their insurance, that's another $300 a year. Or not upgrading to the latest iPhone every single year is a $500 a year savings. And I'm not even suggesting that you have to do everything to an extreme, but even marginally cutting back on certain areas could absolutely save you at least $1,000 a year with very minimal work and effort up front.

It's all about recognizing where your money goes and where it's being used inefficiently, and then doing your best to maximize the value of your time and how it's spent. With just really minor adjustments, you could start seeing some of these savings instantaneously. And by doing that, you're gonna have more money left over to spend where it counts—like depositing $100 using the link down below in the description and signing up for Webull because they will give you three free stocks when you deposit $100 on the platform.

Two of those stocks are worth at minimum $8 and all the way up to $1,600. So if you guys are interested, use the link down below in the description and let me know which three free stocks you get. So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching; I really appreciate it. As always, make sure to destroy the subscribe button and notification bell.

Also, feel free to add me on Instagram; I post pretty much daily. So if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there as in the second channel, The Graham Stephan Show. I post there every single day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see a brand new video from me every single day, make sure to add yourself to that. Lastly, like I said, if you want these three free stocks, use the link down below in the description, and Webull is going to be giving you three free stocks. That promotion ends in about a week or so, so it's not too late to sign up yet. The minimum you're gonna get from this is $18.50 back with a $100 deposit. That's pretty good, and you can always sell your stocks afterward. So if you're interested, the link is down below. Let me know what stocks you get. Thank you so much for watching, and until next time!