Unfortunately, nothing in life is black and white. Not even saving money. A cheaper couch might seem like a great option in the moment, but it can come back to bite you when it needs to be replaced only a year later. And spending more up front, like buying items in bulk, can sometimes cost you less in the long run.  

Living a frugal lifestyle might feel unnecessarily complicated at times, so today, we’re going to focus on what not to do. Redditors have recently been sharing examples of "tripping over dollars to save a dime," so we’ve gathered some of their tips and anecdotes below. Enjoy reading through, and be sure to upvote the mistakes that you’ll be sure to avoid!

#1

Driving around for cheap gas.

Image credits: Augustus58

#2

Went to Las Vegas because the flight was basically free.

Image credits: Realityhrts

#3

Adding more things to your cart to hit the free shipping minimum

Image credits: 1kiki09

#4

That guy who unplugged his fridge for a 2 week vacay, and all his food went bad and his fridge was full of mold and got ruined, all to save like a dollar in electricity.

Image credits: dav06012

#5

Stayed at a hotel further away from Disneyland, ended up paying more than the difference in Uber fares.

Image credits: aokaroiz

#6

People who don't understand the progressive tax system and turn down raises because "it'll put me on a higher tax bracket."

Image credits: SardauMarklar

#7

Constantly having to get new hires and train them but they leave after around a year because you don't pay them well. So you never have loyal or skilled employees. Well paid employees are more loyal and long term employees are more skilled.

Image credits: maverickhunterpheoni

#8

My company decided that the way to solve our quarterly budget issue was to fire the highest paid support representatives, instead of curtailing the CEO’s pay that was 200% higher than anyone elses and a 25% reduction would have saved these jobs.

Guess what. The most SENIOR repa got paid more because THEY KNEW WTF THEY WERE DOING. We increased churn by 2x, making the next quarter deficit EVEN WORSE.

Guess if they learned their lesson, folks. Guess.

Image credits: footinmymouth

#9

Buying throw away furniture instead of buying a quality piece either new or used and recovered. Landfills are full of IKEA

Image credits: Whyme-notyou

#10

Friend of mine briefly lived with a guy who burned candles at night to cut the electric bill. My friend moved out after the dope managed to set fire to the coffee table and he still wanted to keep using the candles all night.

Image credits: BelmontIncident

#11

Someone trading in an older fully paid off car because it needs $500 in repairs only to buy a used car at a car lot and have to make high monthly payments over and over.

Image credits: FlashyImprovement5

#12

My dad used to take my brother and I the BWW every Monday. He’d pay for wings and beers for the three of else. It was at least a hundred bucks a week he was spending. One day he asked for more napkins and the waiter said he wasn’t allowed to. They were trying save money by reducing the amount of napkins each table got. We’ve never been back.

Image credits: piper33245

#13

I had a neighbor offer to pay me $200 to clean his apartment when he moved out so he could get his $150 deposit back

Image credits: Ok-Eggplant-4875

#14

People being suckered into the fuel promotions at grocery stores. Buying all this expensive food for weeks to save $0.20/gal? It's bonkers.

Image credits: ridethroughlife

#15

Probably mentioned elsewhere, but here it is again. If you’re living alone, it makes *no* sense to buy the bigger version just because it’s cheaper per ounce/pound/liter/ml whatever than the smaller one *if it is going to go bad before you use it all!!*

Because then you’ve wasted 5 dollars instead of using 3 effectively.

Image credits: scummy_shower_stall

#16

“Free” phones from your carrier

Image credits: 2019_rtl

#17

Pet grooming. Decided to do it themselves, buy subpar equipment to do it themselves and either do a horrible job or cut their animal. Have to go to the groomer to get it fixed and/or vet bills.

Some of these grooms they basically cut down to the skin and they are so proud of themselves but if the groomer did that they would have a b***h fit.

Image credits: Lyshire

#18

My mother used to drive around to every grocery store, using every coupon that came into her hands, buying things that she didn't need or even have a plan for. Her food hoarding progressed over the years and is now completely out of control. Pantry moths, maggots, rats. I don't even know what else. But she still has a stockpile of hamburger helper from when it was on sale 25 years ago so, I guess that's what matters most to her.

Image credits: Dependent_Top_4425

#19

When I was in my early 20s and didn't know about things like frozen pipes, I turned the heat off when we left for the weekend. We returned to water all over the floor, a washer destroyed, and, well... A major life lesson learned

#20

Our very large company decided to “save money” by letting go of the cleaning people (paid $25/hr) because each staff member (paid 30-250/hr) could do the work for each of their own offices (trash removal, etc).

Image credits: Mydoglovescoffee

#21

My mom wanted to renovate our roof but did not think professional contractors were worth the money..so she hired some guy from a local church and paid him under the table.

A storm came the following weekend and it rained inside our house. Cost more to replace everything than it would have to have gotten a professional roof installation.

Image credits: Shrek1onDVD

#22

Spending a ton of time to do something yourself instead of paying for a service/good that could do it easily/instantaneously. I know it's technically saving money to do the thing yourself, but time has value and some frugal people forget that.

Image credits: Own_Kaleidoscope_415

#23

Driving 30 miles to Costco just to get gas, not even going into Costco. My mom does this but I think it's really just an excuse to take the dog for a ride.

Image credits: 4Ever2Thee

#24

My boss pays me a lot of money for me to sometimes save scraps of aluminum from remodels that are .002 cents a piece.  While I make like 5 bucks just to save it. 

Image credits: HistorysWitness

#25

A family member who owned a company declined workman's compensation coverage on himself to save a few grand due to a loophole of being owner/operator. Ended up having a major, major accident on the job. Lost practically everything he had, and the company folded in two months

#26

A relative ignoring a small upstairs bathroom leak rather than paying a plumber. Then years later having to pay to replace the entire bathroom floor AND a major section of her kitchen ceiling before she can sell her house.

Image credits: TheLuckyWilbury

#27

I used to manage a bar and grill. One time we had a mandatory meeting that brought all the employees in during off hours and the bar owner spent a half an hour telling us to try and get the pens back from the patrons who borrowed them to get the phone number of the person they wanted to hook up with. . Back before smart phones, this is how it was done. I was thinking that we were paying our employees about 100$ to talk about pens that I could get at the office store for about 5$.

Image credits: MattockMan

#28

My biggest client is a total cheapskate. Owns 28 residential and commercial properties. He hires the same shitheads to do non urgent remodel and repair jobs and then I have to clean up their mess. One of the usual suspects he hired to replace a roof once. This idiot had worked on this roof 3x before (fixing his mistakes twice) and he somehow still managed to put the new roof on a building across the street, not even owned by the cheapskate I'm talking about.

This guy loves to have things done half a*s even after being told it'll be cheaper in the long run to do it right once. Never wants things done right, just band aids. There's no reasoning with him or talking sense to him. He's easily wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars long term in the 12 years I've been dealing with him just by saving money in the short term.

#29

My father in law driving all over creation saving $0.04 on bananas or $0.49 on noodles. He spends more in gas by far than he saves on anything else. I understand being alert about sales, using coupons, and price matching, etc. but this approach has always seemed unwise to me.

Image credits: ThisIsTheNewSleeve

#30

My former employer had a policy that you had to take the cheapest flight available. We'd put hourly employees on flights with 2 stops and save $200... Then pay them time and a half sitting in airports all day. It cost more but the people who accounted for travel kept costs down on their metrics, payroll was on different books.

They had a similar rule for car rentals. Unless you were in a group you had to get the smallest car available because it was usually cheaper. It got stupid when you'd get a bigger car for the same price and then you'd have to fill out a report on why you violated the travel policy. It got really dumb because if you paid and expensed it they wouldn't audit the expenses. I'd just put an SUV on my card and get reimbursed. On the company card you were stuck with the compact car.

Image credits: Particular_Ticket_20

#31

I know a guy who built a house in the county and to save $2k he got a small septic tank instead of the large one.

Well, now he has to get the thing emptied like twice a year,
at the same price as the larger one that needs to be emptied every 3-5 years.

Image credits: DorvidBorgie

#32

I had a boss stop everyone from working for 2 hours to look for something he lost. The lost item was spray mount and at the time cost less than $6. Seriously dude, just go buy another one. Lost $200 in billable hours for a $6 replaceable item.

Image credits: jodiarch

#33

Had a CFO who send over a long winded email about buying less expensive dish sponges and soap for the kitchen area at work along with pictures and links of what should be purchased. Literally on her salary, we wasted more money from her spending time researching sponges and composing an email and the time it took for all staff to read it than the two dollars she was griping about.

Image credits: Cronetta

#34

Buying cheap clothes. I went to Walmart and bought a knit shirt. A year later it stretched out and it’s only good for when I have a dirty job to do. Meanwhile, I went to a nice stand spent 3x as much for a shirt made of better fabric and it still looks good 10 years later.

#35

When people selling their house take photos with their iPhone instead hiring a professional photographer.

#36

Sneaking around with no auto insurance and then having to get it out of impoundment after paying a ticket and buying insurance…not me thankfully but it’s a thing

#37

Last week I decided to grill & invite the family. While buying the food supplies, I decided to skip on getting sliced cheese; my logic being to instead slice the muenster cheese block we already had.

My dear wife decided to help. Distracted by the guests, she sliced her hand open. We excused ourselves and told our family to make themselves at home. We spent 6 hours at the ER.

My greed & hubris cost me. Should’ve paid for the damn sliced cheese.

#38

My dad is a mechanic, when his car has an issue, he runs it until it causes more problems.

Every single time his car needs brakes, he doesn't change them until the calipers are frozen. He also gets upset at the cost of the maintenance he delayed.... So he trades the car in. Of course, he never has much of a down payment. So he pays high interest as well.

He also, frequently, borrows from his 401k

#39

My ex's dad wanted a truck bed cover. He wasn't Internet savvy so he asked me to look into it. They don't make em for that truck, but I found a website who would do it custom for about $500. He said naw, that's too much. So he went out and bought a $300 cover for another truck and $100 in paint and other materials. Tried to cut it and reshape it so it would fit, and couldn't make it work. Scrapped that project and built another out of wood and some type of heavy duty canvas. That one cost around 250 and he ended up scrapping it too because it was way too heavy. All told he spent almost $700 trying to save $500 and wound up with nothing to show for it.

#40

I saw some lady on TikTok saying that groceries were getting too expensive, so she started making instant mashed potatoes at home. Buying whole potatoes, cooking them, flaking them, drying them... When a box of instant mashed potatoes is less than $2. I can't imagine having that much time to blow on something like that.

#41

Grocery stores have been doing this for decades, it's called a "loss leader" , the cheap item is a profit loss but gets people in the door.

My relative will drive 25 miles from home to get gas from Sam's Club, when she has multiple gas stations close by. She just cannot do the math.

#42

I was an eyebrow micro blade model for a student to get a what is usually a service that can cost up to 1000 for free. Welp. She f****d me up.