Personal-finance columnist Charlotte Cowles asks the nosy, revealing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about money so you don’t have to.
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images
Surprising no one, the war in Iran is jacking up prices around the globe, pushing inflation to a three-year high. For the millions of people whose salaries aren’t keeping pace with the rising cost of living, the choice is pretty clear: It’s time to cut back. But where?
A recent survey found that, of recurring expenses Americans had axed in the past year, eating out was the top category, followed by streaming services, the gym, clothing, coffee, and a car (those who got rid of a vehicle saved the most — $9,200 per year on average). Many people I’ve spoken to mentioned doing some version of an expense audit: They took a hard look at where their money was going and figured out where it would be easiest to skimp. One person told me that he printed out all his statements, circled every charge he’d made without thinking — mostly streaming services and other subscriptions — and then canceled them. He wound up with an extra $300 a month. “It did not feel like sacrifice,” he says. “It felt like breathing room I did not know I was missing.”
It’s always nice when you can find spare dollars lurking in your spending habits. But for most people, it’s not quite so simple. Scrutinizing every dollar you spend doesn’t come easily, and most people can’t stick to it for long. Instead, it can be more effective to get rid of one spending category completely rather than trying to spend less incrementally across the board.
Of course, which category to choose is up to you. Here, we spoke to dozens of people about what they’re getting rid of just to keep affording their bills.
“I would rather forgo takeout food forever than stop getting manicures,” Tess, a 32-year-old elementary-school teacher, told me. She’s not doing that exactly, but she did vow to stop eating non-homemade food for the whole year, a resolution she made in January after she noticed that all her bills had gone up — health care, groceries, utilities. “I knew something major had to change,” she told me. “Even though it didn’t seem like I was doing anything different, I was barely able to make my rent every month.” At first, she tried to cut back on little things and monitor her spending more carefully, but then she realized it might be better just to cut out one big thing instead. “When I looked through my bills, that thing was clear: meals. I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on restaurant dinners, random takeout lunches, a bagel on a weekend. So I decided I was going to quit and make all my own food at home.” She started brown-bagging her lunch to work and deleted Seamless off her phone.
It was hard at first, she says. But once she figured out a few dishes to cook, it got easier. Going out to restaurants and bars is a big part of her social life, though, so she made herself some rules: “I do allow myself to buy drinks, but only if I’m with other people. So I can go to a coffee meetup or someone’s birthday drinks and partake. Just no food.” She did once go to a friend’s birthday dinner at a restaurant, where she abstained from ordering anything. “I told everyone that I was getting over a stomach bug,” she says. “In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have lied, but I didn’t want to make it awkward.”
Her goal is to make it through the year without takeout or restaurant food — or save $10,000, whichever happens first. “Right now, I’m almost at $5,000, which is motivating me a lot.”
Giving up a car — if you have one in the first place — isn’t really an option if you need it for work. But a few people I spoke to said that they made some lifestyle changes to do so. Catherine, who works in real estate in Colorado, sold her car after she moved to a more walkable area. Now she bikes or uses public transportation instead. “Doing so enabled me to reduce my monthly transportation costs by nearly 50 percent,” she says.
Lena, a newlywed in Philadelphia, told me that she and her husband decided they aren’t going to take any trips this year. “I know that traveling is supposed to be money well spent — experiences are valuable, etc. — but after going on our honeymoon last Christmas, we decided that we’re going to stay put for a while,” she says. They’ve turned down destination weddings, bachelorette parties, baby showers, and anything else that involves getting on a plane or paying for a hotel.
“Our families were pissed about it at first, especially since we told them that we wouldn’t be coming home for any holidays,” Lena says. (Her parents are in California, and her husband’s are in Texas.) “But now that gas prices have gotten so high and plane tickets are even more expensive, they are starting to understand. We explained that we are taking this year to save up our money so that we have more of a safety net.” That said, they haven’t saved as much as they hoped — about $1,000 so far. “I wish we had more to show for it,” she admits. “But our rent increased, and everything is more expensive. We’re cutting out things we used to be able to afford just to keep paying for the things we need.”
Gyms are an obvious cut when money is tight — several people told me they joined a local outdoor workout group for free instead. Others told me they’d quit Amazon Prime, Instacart, or other membership programs. Amy, a 30-year-old graduate student in New York, decided that she’d cancel her credit card after its annual fee went up. “Originally I thought I would open a new one, but then I realized that not having a credit card made me less likely to spend money mindlessly,” she says. “Now I just use my debit card or cash to pay for things, and I’ve noticed that my expenses have gone down by about $200 to $300 a month.”
Sure, she knows that she’s missing out on credit-card points, and her credit score did take a slight hit after she closed her account. But she wasn’t using her card’s rewards much anyway, and it feels better to simplify. “Something about using a credit card made the money seem almost fake, instead of real cash leaving my bank,” she says. She used to impulse-buy things online sometimes, figuring she could return it before the charge hit her monthly bill. Now that she has to plunk down her debit card, she’s more careful.
There are a million ways to be creative about shopping less (or not at all). But still, it’s not easy when advertisers are trying to sell you stuff all day. A friend of mine recently deleted all her social-media accounts simply because scrolling was too tempting. “After I returned the third thing I’d bought off Instagram, I realized it was a waste of my time and money,” she says. “I’m not telling myself that I can’t buy any clothes at all — it’s unrealistic, for me at least. But I did make a rule that I can only buy things in person, and not having Instagram is helping me stick to it.”
To be clear, no one’s recommending that you skimp on your mental or physical health. But plenty of people are doing it out of necessity: As health-insurance premiums rise, so has the number of uninsured Americans. One person told me that she stopped seeing her therapist after she got laid off from her start-up job in February — and coincidentally realized that an AI therapy tool, Ash, was pretty good. “I don’t want to come across as telling people that therapy is a waste of money — it definitely was not for me,” she says. “But after I lost my job, spending $100 every week for therapy was just not in the cards.” AI therapy is not the same, of course, and she doesn’t want to suggest it as a substitute. “But for me it’s been very helpful. It’s much better than nothing, and it’s free.” She has since gotten a new job, but she hasn’t gone back to her old therapist — at least not yet. “I have to say, having an extra $400 a month has helped my anxiety in a different way.”
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