5 Things To Stop Doing With Your Money This Year
Written by
J. Arky
Edited by
Rebekah Evans
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Ready to make your money your best friend in 2025? Financial influencer besties, Rachel Cruze and George Kamel host a series on Youtube called “Smart Money Happy Hour.” In one of their videos, the two discuss the top things to stop doing with your money this year.
These helpful tips and bits of advice might seem obvious or minimal in how you relate to using your money this year. However, taking even a few of their pitches to pinch some pennies where you can will help you all the way through 2026 and beyond.
Here are the top things to stop doing with your money this year, according to Cruze and Kamel.
Stop Using Your Credit Card as a Lifeline
In 2025, Cruze and Kamel are urging you to put down your credit card as a backup emergency plan for when things go south. Kamel believes that you should never view your credit card as “your friend or your security blanket” because the company who owns your card ends up charging you 25% APR on all purchases. How is that helpful? It’s not.
“I’ve found there is a correlation with people who get ahead of money and people who aren’t getting all these ankle biter emergencies, using the card to swipe,” Kamel said.
No More Excuses for Starting an Emergency Fund
Cruze and Kamel agreed that the answer to having an emergency fund is to actually have an emergency fund instead of just wishing you did. For most people, the duo estimated it can take about 30 days to save up $1,000 in the event of disaster striking. It might not seem like a lot of money, but that back up cash can really help you steer clear of debt in the future.
Kamel calls saving up an emergency fund of three to six months’ worth of expenses the “Never Go Into Debt Insurance Policy.”
No More Credit Card Usage in General
This is not to say never use a credit card again. However, in Cruze’s opinion, if you have outstanding debt and no savings, then you should also not have a credit card. Because when you continue to use your credit card, chasing the monthly payments and interest, you never are fully caught up enough to get out of debt or build up your accounts. So in 2025, cut your card.
Don’t Always View a Sale as a Good Deal
We’ve all been trained to think that if something is on sale, that means you are scoring the best price and must buy it now. Kamel and Cruze urge you to think otherwise. “Everything is 100% off if you don’t buy it and you can go broke while ‘saving money,'” Kamel said.
This is particularly true with holiday and emotional-based spending. Discounts and markdowns can be tempting, but this year, skip them all together and stick to what you have budgeted for in terms of wants and needs.
Cease Comparing Yourself to Others
Going on social media and looking at what others have is the quickest way to spiral out of control with your money. Cruze recommended that the best cure for this headache is to find contentment with what you have. When you do that, you stop looking at what everyone else is accumulating in terms of wealth and lifestyle and focus on enjoying what you have already.
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