What do you refuse to pay for?

[greentea]

I'm curious if there are other people who have certain things that they refuse to pay for. I refuse to pay for carwashes. I don't know exactly why, but I have never been able to pay to get my car washed. I always do it at home with a bucket of soap in the garden hose.

Is there something in your life that you absolutely refuse to pay for? What is it, and you have a reason why you refuse to pay?

[dawnwes]

I refuse to get my hair done at a salon or take my boys to a Barber Shop. I cut all of our hair, including mine and I color my own. I get compliments, so I must be doing something ok.

I have very wavy hair so it is quite forgiving if I don't get it 100% straight.

[JoeP]

Plowing my driveway, mowing my lawn, cleaning my house

[disneysteve]

My answer to this question has evolved over the years. Had you asked me 10 or 15 years ago, I would have said mowing the lawn or watching TV. Today, we pay for both of those services. Of course, back then I was paying for haircuts and for the past 8 years or so I've been cutting it myself and would never go back to paying for that.

I won't pay for room service when we're in a hotel. I'll go down to the restaurant and order take out and bring it back to the room but I won't pay an extra 18-20% for them to bring it to me. In fact, I virtually never order to have food delivered to the house. I'll go pick it up instead.

[HappySaver]

I won't pay for stamps if it's a bill I can pay online. I do our taxes. I almost always wash our cars at home as well (unless it's the middle of winter). We take care of the landscaping ourselves (mulching, weeding, planting, and pruning). My husband mows and fertilizes the lawn. We clean our own house. For us, these things aren't worth paying for.

I agree about these things evolving.

We used to pay for basic cable TV, but now refuse. We connect our computer to the TV with an $8 HDMI cable and watch movies and shows that way. We take DVDs out of the library. We also have a digital antenna (cost $20) for occasional PBS watching. We're about to get Amazon Prime (free for a year with a new AMEX card) and we can watch Amazon directly through our TV, which has built-in WiFi and apps for the major content services including YouTube. We don't have any other services like Netflix or Hulu but I do think they're worth it if it fits what you watch. The point is, there are so many new options that standard cable TV just feels archaic to us.

For the first time I started cutting my own hair at home this year. I did it for health reasons (my allergies weren't permitting me to be in the hair salon) but it turns out to be easier than I thought and comes out looking good, so I'm wondering why I spent all those years and all that money getting it cut. Still, if I could, I would pay for this service on occasion. It's just a nice luxury to have someone do it for you.

We usually shovel our own driveway but TODAY, with 3 feet of snow outside and 50+MPH winds, we have hired a plow service. A few years we never would have done this. Now we call for major storms.

If it's a reasonably sized and shaped room I hate to pay for painters. I don't enjoy painting a room but will do it myself. We hire out for hard to reach areas (i.e. you need to be on a ladder) or strangely shaped rooms that are all trim (I hate painting trim the most).

I change my own lightbulbs/air filters on our cars. I hate to pay a mechanic to do this. I also won't go to the dealer for service except for recalls.

[Drake3287]

For us in politically correct California I refuse to pay 10 Cents for a brown bag when I forget to bring my own reusable bag from home. I'll put my groceries in a free clear plastic produce bag before giving them a dime. If I'm going to spend $400. or $500. a month on groceries they at least should offer free brown bags.

Just a warning, this my be new here in California but you can be sure your state won't be to far behind.

[LittleMissSplendid]

For us in politically correct California I refuse to pay 10 Cents for a brown bag when I forget to bring my own reusable bag from home. I'll put my groceries in a free clear plastic produce bag before giving them a dime. If I'm going to spend $400. or $500. a month on groceries they at least should offer free brown bags.

Just a warning, this my be new here in California but you can be sure your state won't be to far behind.

YES! I'll add that I'm done paying for those so called much better reusable bags that have done nothing but fall apart and are a pain in the rear to sanitize. I don't care enough about the environment to forgo regular paper or plastic bags. They work, I want them, and I pay enough in the store for my items to get them free.

I also refuse to pay to have food delivered to my home, but that is more about safety since I live alone then the actual cost.

[HappySaver]

I'm going to disagree. I've been bringing my own bags to the grocery stores for years. I rarely forget - it's just a habit you get into. I keep extras in both cars, and I have a foldable bag in a pouch that I keep in my purse.

Most people don't bring bags, and they're never going to change their habits until they have to pay. In Europe they've been charging for years. We're long overdue on this.

It's not about how much money you spend at the store. It's about implementing policies that will change peoples' behaviors. That's not to say I don't ever get paper or plastic bags at the store. But few and far between is the goal.

[disneysteve]

I'll add that I'm done paying for those so called much better reusable bags that have done nothing but fall apart and are a pain in the rear to sanitize.

We constantly use reusable bags, but we've never paid for a single one. We've gotten them from a variety of sources - community events, charity events, professional conferences, store giveaways, etc. I have about a dozen that I keep in my trunk and my wife has a bunch in her car too.

Our local stores don't charge for bags, though there are a couple that give a discount if you bring your own bags. We do it for the environmental reasons, not the financial ones. Plus the reusable bags are a lot sturdier and hold more.

[LittleMissSplendid]

We constantly use reusable bags, but we've never paid for a single one. We've gotten them from a variety of sources - community events, charity events, professional conferences, store giveaways, etc. I have about a dozen that I keep in my trunk and my wife has a bunch in her car too.

Our local stores don't charge for bags, though there are a couple that give a discount if you bring your own bags. We do it for the environmental reasons, not the financial ones. Plus the reusable bags are a lot sturdier and hold more.

It took awhile for businesses to start giving them away where I live, but they could be found at the dollar store. So its not so much that they were expensive, but the fact that they fall apart and I'm sick of hearing how much better they are. Even the ones I've later gotten free I've had the handles completely break off or the bottoms totally split open. Seriously? Its just groceries, not bricks.

[LuckyRobin]

I won't pay the 5 cents for paper grocery bags here, either. My city has a ban on plastic bags, though the county still uses them. I bought some good quality bags from Trader Joe's. They are only $2 each, but I have had most of them since they opened five years ago here and have added a few more over the years just so I always have extras in the car. I also invested in some high quality insulated bags. None of them are falling part. The trick is to avoid the poorly made bags that can't handle holding much without falling apart.

I also refuse to pay for drinks on the rare occasions we go out to eat. We drink water, no sodas, milkshakes, juice, milk, or alcohol. The mark-up on these things is ridiculous.