If all of us were able to stop, take a deep breath, strip out all emotion, and think before making a purchase, we’d probably save ourselves a lot of money. Impulse buys and impatience often times can be our downfall when it comes to saving money and staying within a budget.

So sometimes it helps to have someone else point out obvious — but often overlooked — money-saving tips by showing us what we can do without, as well as alternatives to some of the items we frequently and/or are more likely to purchase.

Case in point: A great blog post by BillShrink.com. They list 25 areas where we tend to waste money. We found ourselves nodding our heads in agreement as we read through the 25 items and thinking “of course, that makes total sense” while also thinking “and yet, we fall into these traps over and over again”.

For example, we often buy foods because of how they’re marketed without really checking to see how much better they really are for us:

There are a number of products marketed specifically to people trying to live healthy lives. They are often presented as “low fat”, “all natural” or even as being “high protein”. But some of these products may actually be full of other non-healthy ingredients, and can be high in sugar. As a result, “protein bars” can end up just as unhealthy as candy bars, while costing up to five times as much.

Consider us guilty as charged. We’ve bought many “health” and “energy” bars without checking to see just what the advantages are to alternatives that might cost a lot less.

Another example: We buy one electronic brand and then think we have to buy all of that brand’s accessories instead of buying other brands’ add-ons:

Apple has built a cult-following over the past decade, and they are able to demand premium prices for many of their aftermarket accessories. There are, however, a number of manufacturers that make products that are compatible with their mp3 players and other products, available for a fraction of the cost.

Another area that they touch on that we know all too well is paying for faxes. We were so outraged by the price of faxing from a service center like Kinko’s that we purchased a scanner for cheap and now just scan and email documents — a huge money and time saver.

This article is full of all sorts of these money-saving tidbits (well, 25, to be precise), so we suggest you click on over and check them out. It’s worth the couple of minutes to read through the list.

And be sure to share with the Tip Hero community examples of where you’ve wasted money in the past (or have seen others waste money) by posting a comment below.

Stop Wasting your Money on these 25 Things (Source: BillShrink.com)

Photo credit: vsqz