It’s Take Control Tuesday, and Mansa Musa from MoneySmartLife.org is back with a strategy most families overlook: cost avoidance.
Not cutting back, skipping purchases or calling something “savings” because it was on sale.
Cost avoidance is different. It’s money you never have to spend because you made a smart move earlier. For most working families, money is limited. There’s often more month than money. So instead of constantly reacting to bills, Mansa challenges us to prevent some of them from showing up at all.
What Cost Avoidance Looks Like
Maintain your car. Fix small issues at home before they grow. Practice energy-efficient habits. Small upkeep today prevents big repairs tomorrow.
Another example? Buy quality when you have to buy anyway.
Instead of replacing cheap shoes, coats, or work clothes over and over, invest once in durability. You avoid repeat purchases. You reduce long-term spending. (And yes, this works best for adults — kids outgrow everything.)
Mansa also highlights a category people rarely connect to money: behavior.
Speeding tickets. DUIs. Ignoring health until it becomes a crisis.
Those aren’t just one-time costs. They create years of higher insurance, medical bills, and lost income.
Cost Avoidance Silent Leaks
Late fees. Convenience fees. Subscription creep. Small penalties that quietly drain working-class households. When you step back and review them, you often find money slipping away.
Even your credit score plays a role. Strong credit lowers what you pay for insurance and borrowing. Maintaining it becomes another form of cost avoidance.
Here’s the bottom line:
Cost avoidance doesn’t always show up as extra money in your account. It shows up as bills that never arrive. It changes the math of your life by shrinking future expenses before they happen. As Mansa reminds us: Costs avoided today are money you don’t spend tomorrow.
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