10 Things That Are No Longer Worth Your Money

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Across the country, there's been no relief as food costs keep rising. A recent Associated Press poll shows more than half of Americans consider grocery costs to be a major source of stress.

[00:00:10]$4.40 on average for a gallon of gas.

[00:00:14]>> Okay, if you've been in the market for a new car, but thought prices were already too high, experts say prepare for sticker shock again next year.

[00:00:22]>> Life is getting more expensive every day. We all know that. But some things in particular have become so expensive over the last while that they're just not worth it anymore. Like whether or not you can afford them. They're just kind of a scam. And in this video, I want to talk about some of those things.

[00:00:36]I want to talk about 10 things that I think are just no longer worth the money. And I know that a lot of these videos have been floating around lately, but I want to do it a little bit differently. So, for every point that we talk about, I'm going to try to offer some practical alternatives because despite the fact that breathing air seems to cost $100 nowadays, I do still think that it's possible to live a good life without getting constantly hosed.

[00:00:55]So, let's do it. All right, so number one has to be restaurants. The fact that going out to eat is more expensive than cooking at home is obviously nothing new, but I'd argue that there was a time when going to a restaurant every once in a while felt reasonable as a treat. But now, it kind of just feels like extortion. The portions have gotten smaller. The quality of the food has gotten so much worse. And the prices are just insane. And not only are the prices through the roof, the expectation for tipping seems to be getting higher and higher basically every few weeks now.

[00:01:25]Just a few years ago, you used to be able to get together with friends for a meal or go out on a date night at a casual restaurant. And it would be like $ 20 to $30 per person for an entree and a drink. Maybe you could even split an appetizer and still stay on budget. It felt doable. But now an entree and a fountain pop will run you like $30 to $40. And somehow the standard tip has gone from 15 to 18 to now 20%. And all in you're looking at $50 for a shitty sandwich, some fries, and a Coke from some slop restaurant chain with string lights hanging from the rafters. And if you even dare to add an appetizer or a dessert, or god forbid, a cocktail to your tab, you'll easily hit $70. That's an entire week of groceries for me. But okay, what's the workound here? The most obvious thing I can say is to cook at home, but that doesn't really address the issue of why people like to go out to eat. And generally, that's going to be either for social reasons or because you can't be bothered to cook or maybe you just straight up hate cooking. For social purposes, I've actually found it to be a lot more fun to have people over than it is to go out. It's less noisy.

[00:02:25]It's less chaotic. It's less rushed. And for the price of one meal out, you can feed five to six people at home. So, you can either take turns hosting amongst your friend group or ask everyone to bring something into a potluck style.

[00:02:36]whatever works for you. But the point is that you don't have to go out to be social. You don't have to spend an arm and a leg to see people. If you can't be bothered to cook or you really just hate doing it, meal prepping is your friend.

[00:02:47]But it doesn't have to look the way you think it does. Because personally, I hate meal prepping. I like my food when it's cooked fresh. I don't want to eat something that's been rotting in my fridge all week long. So, how I meal prep is I do the annoying parts of the meal, like the chopping and dicing in advance, and then the actual cooking part is almost no effort when I want to do it. You can premix a ton of garlic and onions in your food processor all at once and freeze it in little individual blobs. You can pre- chop veggies and leave them ready to go. You can make up marinades and sauces and spice blends in advance. And then when you need a meal, you just drop everything in a pan with a bit of olive oil and you're basically good to go. Also, cooking becomes a lot more enjoyable when you have nice equipment to use. So, I'm not saying to go out and buy a bunch of dumb countertop appliances. Like, I promise you don't need a Ninja Creamy. But investing in a good sharp knife, a nice cutting board, and just some basic quality cookware will cost you less than a few restaurant meals, and maybe even make you like cooking. Maybe. But not every meal out is $50, you say. What about fast food? Not only is fast food not worth it anymore, but I might even make the argument that it's a worse value than a sitown restaurant. The entire point of fast food was supposed to be that it's cheap. It was never good food, but you used to be able to get like a foot long sub for $5 or maybe a $1 burrito from Taco Bell. So, if you were broke and you needed a quick bite, it did the trick. But now that sub is $13 and that Taco Bell burrito is $6 and you need three of them to feel full and still none of it is worth eating. I don't eat at McDonald's ever and apparently neither does the CEO.

[00:04:17]>> That is so good. That's a big bite for a big arch.

[00:04:21]>> But what I've heard is that it's almost $20 for a combo meal now. But my question is this. If the food was never good to begin with, and now it's not even cheap, what's the point? Don't even get me started on Door Dash, by the way.

[00:04:33]That's a whole conversation for another day. But it kind of just seems like fast food restaurants have forgotten why they exist. If I'm out of the house and I need a quick meal, I usually try to stop at a grocery store instead because for half the price of a fast food meal, you can usually get like a sandwich or some prepared food from the hot bar or really a million different options that are going to be healthier and tastier. It's way better than paying $15 to $20 for a bag of salt and grease. Now, obviously, this video is about things that you shouldn't waste your money on, but something that annoys me just as much as wasting money is wasting time. A couple weeks ago, my dentist's office called to let me know that I was due for a cleaning, but I missed their call. So, they left a message. And then, unfortunately, by the time I called them back, they were closed for the evening.

[00:05:13]So, they called me back again the next day, and once again, I missed them. And no joke, it took four full days of back and forth to finally connect with someone, only for them to tell me that the next available appointment is in July. This was in midappril, by the way.

[00:05:26]So annoying. I don't know why booking doctor's appointments always has to be so complicated. But thankfully, with today's sponsor, ZuckDoc, it doesn't have to be. Zdoc makes it quick and easy to find and book highly rated doctors in just minutes. With a few clicks, you can search and compare local in-et network doctors of all types from more than 200 specialties. Read real patient reviews, see their actual appointment openings, and instantly book an appointment right there on the spot. No phone calls, no runarounds, no drama. Whether you're looking for a family doctor or a dentist or a dermatologist or an optometrist or really any other kind of doctor, ZuckDoc's got you covered. And best of all is that it's 100% free to use.

[00:06:00]Appointments booked through ZDOC also happen fast. usually within 24 to 72 hours. And sometimes you can even score a same day appointment. So getting seen has never been easier. I get it. I know how chaotic life can be. I know we're all busy and I know how easy it can be to put yourself last on the list. But if you've been putting off your health, which I know you probably have been, it's time to stop. Head over to zdoc.com/coring nicole or click the link in the description box down below to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list today. I know it may seem small, but just clicking that link in the description is a huge step towards prioritizing your health. Thanks so much to Zodoc for sponsoring this video and for helping us all take better care of our health.

[00:06:40]Next up, let's talk about new phones. It may be 2026, but I am not at all ashamed to say that I am still using an iPhone 11. Yes, even as a content creator. And you know what? It's great. I mean, for a few years now, I've considered upgrading to a newer phone, but then when I see the cost of them and I see how the features are almost identical to the phone I already have, I really just can't find a reason to. Whether you're team Apple or team Samsung, buying the newest model phone will run you roughly $1 to $2,000 today, which is absolutely insane because it's just not necessary.

[00:07:10]Like 15 or 20 years ago when smartphones first came out, there were significant improvements from one model to the next.

[00:07:15]There were new features that were useful and exciting and that made it tempting to upgrade. Smartphones were also only like $300 to $500 at that time, which already felt steep. But today, you drop $1,500 every 1 to2 years just to get a slightly better camera and a slightly better battery. And I have news for you.

[00:07:31]I frequently use footage shot with my iPhone 11 in these very videos, and not once has someone commented negatively on the video quality. So, I promise you that you don't need top-of-the-line anything to take pictures of your cat or whatever. Really, the only thing that I think drives new phone sales at this point is FOMO. Manufacturers make the new models look identifiably different on the outside so that everyone can easily see that you have the latest version, like with Apple making the new iPhone this hideous burnt orange color.

[00:07:58]And then people with low self-esteem and poor financial literacy line up to fork over two weeks of their pay for something that they already own a perfectly usable version of. No, I'm just kidding. Most people who do that don't even have that much in their account. So instead, they finance it for 70 bucks a month for the next 2 years, which is even worse. The solution here should be pretty obvious. Just buy the cheapest phone that meets your needs and then use it until it dies. In my experience, that should be a minimum of 5 to 6 years, if not longer. And then when it does die, just go buy the oldest available model that's for sale at that point and repeat. I mean, if my iPhone 11 imploded tomorrow, I'd probably just buy a 13 or a 14 or whatever is the oldest available phone that's still for sale. I don't even know, but it would probably cost half of what the newest one costs and there would be no discernable difference. I don't even want an ugly ass orange phone anyways.

[00:08:43]Hey, by the way, if you're enjoying this video, do me a quick solid, hit the subscribe button. Now, speaking of using things until they die, we need to have a very weird conversation that I never thought we'd be having. I've always advocated for buying a 3 to 5-year-old car over a brand new one because that's the age where most of the depreciation has already happened, but the car should still be a long way from having any significant issues. Like this is my 2013 Toyota RAV 4, and at the time that I bought it, the MSRP on it brand new was around $31,000, but I bought it at 4 years old with 47,000 km on it and paid just $17,000. Meaning that I more or less got a brand new or almost brand new car for like half price. And it's great.

[00:09:21]However, almost everything has changed in the time since. Let me show you what I mean.

[00:09:26]The car market has gone nuts. New car prices have increased by 20 to 30% in the last 5 or 6 years. But almost worse is that used cars are no longer even a good deal by comparison. The days of getting 30 to 50% off by buying a car that's a few years old are gone. Now, the difference between buying a brand new car and a 3 or 4year-old car is often like $5,000 or less. at which point you might as well just buy a brand new car. It's ridiculous, but that's how it is. All that said, I still firmly believe that you should never go into debt for a vehicle. If you have to finance it, you can't afford it. And with cars costing what they do now, financing a new car will leave you with almost a second rent payment every month. Like seriously, the average new car payment in America is $750. And in Canada, it's over $1,000, which is insane. I also tend to believe that this is all by design because car dealerships make more money on financing than they do on vehicles themselves. So, if they make cars stupidly expensive, not only do they make more on the front end of the sale, but they also force more people to have to take out loans to afford the cars, and they make a ton of money that way. If you have an older car like I do, and it's still running well, like mine is, just keep it, baby it, take care of it. Do everything you can to keep it on the road as long as possible because that is by far the best bang for your buck that you can get now.

[00:10:38]But if you do need to buy a car and newer cars are within your budget, I hate to say that you're probably best to just buy brand new at this point. I really never thought I'd say that. But if like most people, you can't afford to drop $30,000 plus on a brand new car, just buy a beater for like five grand or as little as possible and then take that $700 a month or whatever your payment would be and start paying it to yourself into a savings account every single month. In 3 years, you'll have $27,000 saved. So, if your shipbox dies by then, you can just resell it for whatever the scrap is worth. And now you can buy a brand new car for $30,000 with no debt or almost no debt. Used cars cost as much as new cars. It's ridiculous. Okay, moving on. Let's talk about streaming services. If you've watched my videos before, you know that I am not at all a fan of streaming services, and I have a lot of reasons for feeling that way. I don't like the fact that a corporation gets to determine what media you can access and how you can access it. I don't like that you can pay thousands of dollars over many years and still end up owning nothing in the end. I don't like that the artists who make the movies and shows and music that we consume are paid pennies while the majority of the profits go to executives and shareholders. I don't like the fact that the abundance of available content has changed our consumption habits and turned everything into just passive background noise. yada yada yada. You know, I could go on about this forever and I have in the past. But there's absolutely a time where despite all of my grievances, streaming services did seem like a good value for the consumer, at least on the surface. You pay a few bucks a month for access to every song in the world on Spotify or for the ability to watch basically any show or movie on demand adree with Netflix. It was a more convenient and a more affordable experience than the alternatives that exist, like buying physical media or subscribing to cable TV. But now, I'm not so convinced. Over the years, streaming platforms haven't shittified themselves to the point that they've become the exact thing that they initially claimed to be rebelling against. They've raised their prices over and over again, and they've divided up content distribution rights amongst so many different platforms that now the average US household is spending $70 a month on streaming subscriptions for things like Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Prime Video, and whatever else. And now they have ads, too, unless you pay for the most expensive tier, of course. On the music side, Spotify has been repeatedly caught pushing AI songs over actual human-made music, meaning that an everinccreasing percentage of their catalog is AI slop, and you don't even know it. And even without that, they've been long skewing their algorithms in favor of a very few select artists instead of whatever you've told that you like to listen to. Like, what do you mean you don't want to just listen to Taylor Swift on repeat for the rest of your life? There may have been a time when streaming services were worth the money, but they're just not anymore. So, here's what I recommend, and here's what I do. Figure out how much you're spending on streaming each month, and instead budget that amount for other forms of entertainment, like going to the movies or going to concerts or buying physical media. CDs and DVDs are dirt cheap secondhand nowadays, if that survived. There are no ads. There's no ongoing fees. And best of all, there's no tech bro that can just take it all away from you with the snap of their fingers. Do you guys remember how these services first pitched themselves as being so much better than cable because cable was so expensive and it was full of ads and you couldn't really control what you wanted to watch? And now look.

[00:13:40]Okay, next up, let's talk about thrifting. Thrifting used to be a great way to find the things you need at a steep discount. Clothing, accessories, electronics, housewares used to be able to find basically whatever you were looking for for just a few bucks. But today, good luck. Now, I want to be totally transparent here and say that I have never really been a thrifter. I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, so have at it, I guess. But I've always just kind of been icked out by the idea of secondhand clothing and furniture. I have a serious phobia of contracting bed bugs. And while I know it's unlikely, I just can't. That said, there have been times where I've stopped into a thrift store and I've got a good deal on something that is not drenched in a stranger's sweat and farts and something that can be actually properly disinfected. Like once I got a paper shredder for $4, which was great.

[00:14:21]Regardless of my idiosyncrasies, thrift stores used to be somewhere you could go to get a good deal. But if you've been in a thrift store lately, you know what I'm about to say. A lot of the times now, prices are just as high, if not even higher than buying something new.

[00:14:34]It kind of seems like they just wised up to the fact that a lot of people were making money flipping items they thrifted, which guilty, I guess. Uh social media's also had a big hand in this. It's made thrifting really trendy over the last decade or so. And I guess the result of this is that they've just raised their prices, but they've done so to a point where it doesn't make sense anymore. Like, why would I want to buy something that's old and used and dirty when I could buy it brand new for the same price or maybe even less? Like last fall when Levi got sick, I stopped into Value Village looking for like a pot or a pan or something that I could use to cook him some food. Because I'm vegan, I didn't want to cook chicken for him in my cookwware. So, I went to the thrift store and I you not, I couldn't find a single sauce pot under $12. And not only were they expensive, but most of them were rusty and scratched and dirty. Like, do they think that we've somehow forgotten that they just get all the stuff for free? I ended up just going to the grocery store next door and I bought a brand new pot with a lid for like 15 bucks and I didn't have to scrape someone else's filth out of it.

[00:15:27]When it comes to clothing and furniture, I really think that your best bet is just to aim for quality over quantity and save up for a few nice pieces that you can buy new and then keep for a long time. The best value that you'll ever get on anything, regardless of the price and regardless of where it comes from, is something that you're going to use a lot. So, just be selective and be picky, but invest into things that you're actually going to use. If you do want to shop secondhand, try places like Facebook Marketplace or other online platforms where you can negotiate a fair price with an actual human person.

[00:15:53]Because here's a fun fact that a lot of people don't know, but most of the thrift stores who claim to donate their profits to charity are lying. They're raking in millions of dollars in profit every year by selling you other people's discarded trash at a premium price. Make it make sense. Now, on the topic of overpaying for worthless trash, how could we possibly overlook the almighty dollar store? It's no secret that dollar stores have always sold cheap but that's kind of why they exist, isn't it?

[00:16:18]Like, when you'd go to a dollar store, you weren't looking for quality products. You were looking for things that cost a dollar, like maybe a pack of pens or a roll of tape or some gift wrap, a notebook, a chocolate bar, whatever. But like the rest of the world, dollar stores have lost their goddamn minds. Most dollar store items are not a dollar anymore. They're $3 or $5 or maybe even $10. But here's the kicker. They're still the same shitty products. In some cases, dollar stores are actually selling items at higher price points than other retailers. And listen, I get it, okay? Running a business today of any type is a very expensive venture. And I know you can't possibly sustain a business $1 at a time. So, in a way, the traditional dollar store model is antiquated and obsolete. But if they want to start charging higher prices, they need to start offering products that warrant those higher prices, and they haven't.

[00:17:03]There's no reason that a bag of chips that's $3 at a grocery store should be $5 at a dollar store. So, honestly, with very few exceptions, I would just avoid dollar stores altogether. You could probably get a better deal on pretty much anything anywhere else or get a better product for the same price. How do they even call themselves Dollarama at this point when everything's like $5?

[00:17:20]It should be like $5. All right, moving on. So, we all know that old trope about how if you stop spending $5 a day on coffee, you'll be a millionaire in like 3 weeks or whatever, right? Honestly, it's been this weird cliche for a while now that the main reason people are struggling financially is because they overspend on coffee. And that's obviously an absurd belief to hold. But while skipping your daily latte is not going to make housing more affordable, there's no denying the fact that coffee shops have become ridiculously expensive. Like, we used to complain about lattes being $5, but now they're $8 or $9. And while I'm not even a big fan of the idea that cutting out every little thing that brings you joy is a viable strategy for financial success, going out to Starbucks or whatever other coffee shop really just isn't worth it anymore. I mean, sure, we could talk about how investing $8 a day every day for 30 years will leave you with more than $350,000.

[00:18:07]Or we could talk about how if you earn the median American income of $51,000 a year, you need to work for an entire hour just to afford two Frappuccinos.

[00:18:15]But that's not even the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is that whether or not you can afford it, paying $8 for a cup of coffee is an objectively bad value. You're getting somewhere between 50 and maybe a dollar worth of ingredients and you'll get at most 5 to 10 minutes of enjoyment out of it. And that's if it's even good, which you know is 50/50. And then you'll pee it out. $5 was steep. $6 was pushing it.

[00:18:36]But $8 is stupid. So seriously, just make coffee at home. It's literally faster to brew an entire pot of coffee in your kitchen than it is to get in your car, drive to the coffee shop, and sit in the drive-thru. And it will cost you pennies. Even if, like me, you prefer like fancy milk drinks like lattes or cappuccinos, you can actually afford to buy a whole ass espresso machine and what you'd spend in just a month or two at a cafe. It's also a really fun hobby to get into. At this point, I tend to treat coffee shops like a social get together only. So, I'll totally go out for coffee with a friend or as a date or whatever. But you'll never catch me leaving my house and going to a coffee shop just for the purpose of buying a drink that I could have made in my house. And in a similar light, but honestly even worse, is alcohol. I've never been a big drinker.

[00:19:16]I'll say that right from the jump. I don't order drinks out very frequently, and I don't keep a supply of alcohol at home. Like, I literally don't think I have a single drop of alcohol in my house right now. But every once in a while, I do enjoy to have a glass of wine or a beer or maybe a cocktail with dinner. But holy has it become expensive. Oh my god. Going out for drinks has always been expensive, but it's gotten completely out of control.

[00:19:37]The last time I did, two draft beers cost me over $25 after tax and tip. If you order a fancy cocktail, you could easily be looking at $20 for a single drink. I mean, $20 used to get you an entire meal, and now it's one freaking drink. But drinking at home is more reasonable, right? I mean, yeah, but no, not really. I was in the grocery store the other day and I walked past the alcohol section and I was horrified to see that six packs of Stella and Heineken bottles, which used to be about $14 the last time I bought them, are now over $20. It's debatable if drinking alcohol has ever been worth it between the expensive drinks and the junk food that you buy when you're drinking and the cost of arranging transportation and the damage to your health. But at this rate, even just being a light social drinker like I am doesn't seem justifiable anymore. Just like with coffee, you're ultimately just making really expensive premium pee. I don't really know what to say here in the sense of offering an alternative. I guess I'll just say that if you're someone who uses alcohol as a recreational substance or a social lubricant, maybe try not to. You might actually be surprised to find that you don't actually need it to have fun. And if you're just an occasional light drinker like I am, just pick something else to drink. It will be cheaper and healthier. And if you're not drinking to get drunk anyways, there's honestly no difference. And finally, what is perhaps one of the most common spending traps of all time on sale items. Despite what we might like to believe about ourselves, most people are not that sophisticated.

[00:20:59]We have dumb monkey brains and we fall for dumb monkey tricks all the time.

[00:21:03]>> Extended warranty. How can I lose?

[00:21:05]>> Corporations know this. So, they engineer marketing tactics to manipulate us into buying stuff that we don't need under the guise of it being a good deal.

[00:21:12]Because who can resist a good deal? If there's something you truly need or something you've been wanting for a long time and you can find the opportunity to buy it on sale, that's obviously one thing. But buying things just because they're on sale, just because they seem like a good deal, it's rarely worth it.

[00:21:25]The fact is that most sales are not really sales at all. Stores just raise their prices so they can put items on sale back down to the regular price and trick you into buying things you didn't need. This is super common during events like Black Friday or Boxing Day. In fact, research has shown that up to 98% of items are the same price or cheaper at other points throughout the year than they are on Black Friday. 98%. But if a company can get you all hyped up about a supposed sale, you're more likely to impulse shop. Here's the thing, though.

[00:21:52]Buying a $100 item you don't need at half price doesn't save you $50. It cost you $50. And here's the other side of this that people don't often consider.

[00:22:01]If you're someone who likes to shop for sales, there's a very good chance that by limiting yourself to the things that are on sale, you're probably not even getting the things you actually want.

[00:22:09]Like maybe Cheerios are on sale, but you really prefer Rice Krispies. Maybe a black jacket is on sale, but you really want a red one. Maybe you've been eyeing a certain item for a long time, but you end up buying a different one just because it's on sale. And when you do this, there's a pretty good chance that you're not even going to end up being happy with what you got. And eventually, you're just going to end up going back and buying the thing you really wanted in the first place, which means that you've now spent more money instead of less. And straight up, I have been guilty of this in the past. I bought a pair of designer jeans on Amazon years ago, and I was a size 27, but I saw that the size 26 was on sale, so I figured, how bad can it be? It's like one size, it should be fine. So, I bought the 26, intending to squeeze into them, but they never really fit and they were never really comfortable, and I never really got the chance to wear them. Eventually, I just ended up going and purchasing them again in the correct size, but by that point, I'd paid 50% more than if I just bought the right ones to begin with, which is so dumb. So, yeah, skip the just in case items. Skip the it seems like a good deal items. Don't buy things that you haven't planned for, that you don't actually need, and that you haven't actually thought about wanting. And when you do want something, save up and buy it right the first time.

[00:23:11]Anyways, that is all I've got for you guys in this one. These are 10 items that I personally think are just not worth your money anymore, even if they may have been at one point. And quite honestly, this is just 10 items of a list that could be hundreds long. So, leave me a comment down below and let me know your thoughts. Let me know of any items that I should have added to this list. Anything that you think is just not worth it anymore. And maybe let me know if you want to see a part two. If you like this video, like the video, subscribe for more. You can follow me on Instagram at according_2 Nicole. If you want to watch these videos ad free and early, you can do so at patreon.com/ording to Nicole. And other than that, I'll see you guys next week.