Hit 300 credit card charges at Home Depot last year and that was just for lumber and fasteners

I added up every single trip from January to December and realized I was basically renting a parking spot at the lumber aisle, has anyone else run the numbers on what they actually spend at a big box store in a year?

2 comments

2 Comments

jessefoster3d agoMost Upvoted

300 trips is a lot but the real kicker is probably the small stuff that adds up. I keep a spreadsheet for my workshop and it's always the fasteners and hardware that sneak past my budget because I'm not mentally adding a bag of screws or some glue to the total. Breaking it down by month might show the hidden costs better than just the raw number of visits.

robinson.quinn3d ago

That bit about "the small stuff that adds up" really hit home with me, @jessefoster. I had a similar wake-up call when I finally tallied up all my trips to the local hardware store for things like paint stirrers and caulk. I always figured each one was just a couple bucks, but over a year it was over $400 in nickel-and-dime stuff I never planned for. Now I keep a running list on the fridge and try to bundle those little things into one big trip at the start of the month. It doesn't feel as wasteful that way, and I end up forgetting half the junk I don't really need.