Little Things you Buy/Do that are a "waste"

[Paragon Fury]

So recently I got to thinking about how I break down some of the things I buy and something I struck me as funny;

Despite knowing I could get way more if I just went the regular Milk+Chocolate Syrup route, I insist on buying the premade chocolate milks from the store. Partly because of laziness, partly because I like how it's consistent and tastes the same every time whether I want a big glass or a small cup, where using the syrup can give wildly varying results due to doing it by hand.

What are little things you do that are "pointless"/a "waste" but still you prefer anyway?

BTW I'm referring to chocolate milk like this;

Spoiler

 

[tippy2k2]

Well if it's ACTUALLY that chocolate milk (and not just a random example) there is a huge difference between that and you making it yourself. That stuff is lactose free so it's milk for people who can't drink milk...

As to your question, I assume you don't speak of things like hobbies (cause video games and golf are probably a pretty big waste). I'm actually having a hard time thinking of something because everything I buy that costs more has a good reason (generally taste for certain name brands versus generics or because they work better like how I will always buy Hefty Flex Garbage Bags versus normal drawstring bags).

I'm sure I'll think of something eventually...

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I waste a bunch of money going to a gas station that's on my way home from work. It's slightly more expensive than pretty much every other gas station in my area so I waste an extra few dollars on it every time I fill up, and there's another gas station 2 blocks away that I could go to. But goddamn it, when I'm coming home from work the last thing I want to do is take longer on my commute even if it's just going a few extra blocks. Those extra 5 minutes I save feel worth it every time.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I take a car to school even though I could just walk to the campus.

But its fucking hot every morning and I'll be damned if I'm going to be sweaty so early in the morning. Also, I get to class right on the last minute, so I would fail due to absences if I stretched my legs every morning.

Besides the gasoline, apparently the car being used for such short trips hurts the battery or the engine or whatever. So I guess I am slowly killing my car (which I am fine with, since it's nearly a decade old and has broken down multiple times before it ended up with me).

EDIT: Another thing, I buy online store cards instead of using the credit card that I do not have. I always hated buying cards, whether its for PSN or Steam. I fucking hate having to buy 1 $50 PSN card and a $10 card just to buy a game. Why the fuck they sell it in those values is beyond me. As for Steam, I'm always guaranteed to have a small amount left over after buying something. Usually what's left is a few bucks (or cents even) away from being enough to buy a AAA game on sale. Infuriating as hell.

 

[darkcalling]

In college my roommates gave me flack for my Transformers collection. we shared most of our other interests so the various video games or their guitars got a free pass. That and my Cthulhu plushy were really the only things that ever got me wierd looks from any of them.

Aside from the semester I roomed with three Theology majors. Hell on Earth is three very nice people trying to debate religion with someone who doesn't care in the slightest.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I do most of my grocery shopping in my local grocery store that's like 2 minutes away from my apartment, despite the prices there being in some cases as high as 60% higher than in larger stores. But it's just so easy. For example, if I want pizza, I can put the stove on, go get frozen pizza from the store, and be back before it's even fully warmed up. If I went to the other store that's nearby, it'd take at least 4 times as long.

 

[FalloutJack]

20-ounce bottles of any soda from a convenience store are almost always a waste if you can get it in a 2-liter bottle, which - while it might cost more - is cheaper than enough smaller bottles to match its size.

I still buy 20-ounce bottles because I'm also purchasing the convenience in that size to lug around.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I guess ordering pizza was one of the dumbest things I used to do, even though I only ordered when I got a weekly 2 for the price of 1 coupon it was still expensive. Pizza is ridiculously easy to make, and waaaay cheaper too.

Also I moved recently, so I figured I wouldn't need my car anymore since everything I need is much closer now, and I could just take a cab/uber if I need to go somewhere else. So I bought a bicycle. But I guess I miscalculated something because most of the time I just walk everywhere.

 

[babinro]

Humblebundle.com deals and Steam sales are by far the number one culprit for me.

I'll buy a bundle with the justification that there are games I'm genuinely interested in (which is true) and yet over the years I've gradually accrued at least 100 such titles that I have yet to get to.

Once I got to maybe 5 such games in my backlog the REASONABLE thing would be to STOP BUYING MORE BUNDLES but that didn't happen. In fact, the only thing that stopped this practice for me was the fact that my computer can no longer run current generation games. So knowing that I can't play them has actually been an effective deterrent.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Am 98% certain everything I've done, continue to do and will do in future is all a waste. Little and large. It takes a lot of trained self-delusion or mind-numbing to think otherwise, perhaps for now. Perhaps forever. It's an inevitability, though not sure if a trick of the mind or an omnipresent reality. Mind can't make up mind for substantial periods of time. This very action also submits to the endless oblivion of the black hole. Everything could be better spent, better optimised. Hard to pick for now. Not a good person for a lot of things. Decisions. Must stop wasting them.

 

[sageoftruth]

Just video games and internet mostly as time-wasters.

Thanks to my wasteful roommate, I also waste plenty in electric bills. He tends to keep everything on at all times, leaving it to me to roam around the place at night turning out all the lights. If my Eversource mail is to be believed, I still have the highest energy usage out of any of the units in my Condominium.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

20-ounce bottles of any soda from a covenience store are almost always a waste if you can get it in a 2-liter bottle, which - while it might cost more - is cheaper than enough smaller bottles to match its size.

I still buy 20-ounce bottles because I'm also purchasing the convenience in that size to lug around.

Yup, this is my daily dilemma. I'm at work and feel like soda - do I close the store for 5' and get a 354 centiliter can from the corner shop or do I go to the supermarket and buy the 1,5 liter bottle (equal to 4 soda cans) for a measly 25% more? I don't want that much, I can't go carrying it around and I don't have a fridge to keep it cool. But buying the tin can is such a comparative waste of money.

 

[prigdishnak]

Depends on how you look at it I suppose. But thus far, from my view both science and religion are agreed that ultimately everything one does is a waste. As those of us who do not apply to 'their religion', and thus that counts everyone since anyone that is of one cannot usually be of another and thus would be bound to the negative outcomes of at least one religion and thus 'doomed for all eternity'. While science thus far states all reality will one day either come crashing back down upon itself, or rip itself asunder, or possibly even a new reality would spontaneously start up within this one and eventually come to completely nullify the one we currently inhabit.

Despite all this. I've just recently had a birthday, and choose to go on living as best I can for however much longer I have. Perhaps merely out of force of habit more than anything else. *chuckles*

To answer the proper spirit of your question. Lottery tickets. I just cannot give them up. That 'one in a million' chance of buying even a single ticket always feels better than buying none. ^^; I dream of one day there being a sort of 'automatic citizen tax-lottery' in which every citizen is automatically entered into a drawing without any action required on their part, though they could opt out of it and get a small credit, the winner each year during tax season gets charged no taxes for that year. :3

 

[McElroy]

I buy energy drinks and usually not the cheapest kind. I also used to buy second hand DVDs and Blu-rays, but now I've moved on to free alternatives that don't need shelf space.

 

[Baffle]

I pay hundreds of pounds a month on the interest on a mortgage. Like pissing blood up a wall and realising you're wearing white shoes.

Also, lots of energy drink and chicken.

 

[Avnger]

20-ounce bottles of any soda from a covenience store are almost always a waste if you can get it in a 2-liter bottle, which - while it might cost more - is cheaper than enough smaller bottles to match its size.

I still buy 20-ounce bottles because I'm also purchasing the convenience in that size to lug around.

Yup, this is my daily dilemma. I'm at work and feel like soda - do I close the store for 5' and get a 354 centiliter can from the corner shop or do I go to the supermarket and buy the 1,5 liter bottle (equal to 4 soda cans) for a measly 25% more? I don't want that much, I can't go carrying it around and I don't have a fridge to keep it cool. But buying the tin can is such a comparative waste of money.

My mind kind of melted when it read "354 centiliter can." As an ignorant Yankee, I'm assuming that's a normal size soda/beer can? lol
It's been a long day...

I'll third this soda conundrum though.

 

[bluegate]

20-ounce bottles of any soda from a covenience store are almost always a waste if you can get it in a 2-liter bottle, which - while it might cost more - is cheaper than enough smaller bottles to match its size.

I still buy 20-ounce bottles because I'm also purchasing the convenience in that size to lug around.

Yup, this is my daily dilemma. I'm at work and feel like soda - do I close the store for 5' and get a 354 centiliter can from the corner shop or do I go to the supermarket and buy the 1,5 liter bottle (equal to 4 soda cans) for a measly 25% more? I don't want that much, I can't go carrying it around and I don't have a fridge to keep it cool. But buying the tin can is such a comparative waste of money.

My mind kind of melted when it read "354 centiliter can." As an ignorant Yankee, I'm assuming that's a normal size soda/beer can? lol
It's been a long day...

I'll third this soda conundrum though.

These cans are 0.33L, ergo, 330 mililiters. You can use that as a reference point, I suppose.

 

[WindKnight]

Humblebundle.com deals and Steam sales are by far the number one culprit for me.

I'll buy a bundle with the justification that there are games I'm genuinely interested in (which is true) and yet over the years I've gradually accrued at least 100 such titles that I have yet to get to.

Once I got to maybe 5 such games in my backlog the REASONABLE thing would be to STOP BUYING MORE BUNDLES but that didn't happen. In fact, the only thing that stopped this practice for me was the fact that my computer can no longer run current generation games. So knowing that I can't play them has actually been an effective deterrent.

Though the price I paid was more than worth it for the new stuff alone, I did buy a comic bundle with a bunch of stuff I already had because it had collected editions of stuff I'd bought as individual issues because it 'neatened' up my comics folder

 

[Kallie]

These cans are 0.33L, ergo, 330 centiliters. You can use that as a reference point, I suppose.

The maths student in me feels the need to point out that that would be 330 millilitres - 330 centilitres is 3.3 litres

OT: I'm another one in the group that buys games (or bundles of games) when they come up on offer, and then never get round to playing them. I dread to think how big my backlog is right now...

 

[bluegate]

These cans are 0.33L, ergo, 330 centiliters. You can use that as a reference point, I suppose.

The maths student in me feels the need to point out that that would be 330 millilitres - 330 centilitres is 3.3 litres

OT: I'm another one in the group that buys games (or bundles of games) when they come up on offer, and then never get round to playing them. I dread to think how big my backlog is right now...

Don't really need to be a maths student to point that out A bit of an embarrassing mistake on my part though...
Now off to edit my post in case a person wouldn't read up to yours.