In this segment of Pick's Financial Fix, financial coach Ash Exantus breaks down the everyday, often invisible expenses that drain most people's wallets despite a decent income. He highlights five primary leak sources: daily coffee purchases (including subscription coffee apps), food‑delivery and lunch costs amplified by service fees, surge pricing and waiting fees in rideshare services, the cumulative impact of recurring subscriptions and forgotten free‑trial renewals, and the overall hidden cost when these small leaks add up to thousands of dollars each month. Ash advises listeners to audit all expenses, use budgeting tools or simple bank‑statement reviews, differentiate needs from wants, and redirect the saved money into savings or investments. The conversation is conversational, supportive, and aimed at empowering listeners to take concrete, low‑effort actions to stop the money drain.
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Listen, you work hard for your money, but somehow by the end of the week or the month, it feels like your wallet is always empty.
So where is the money going, right? Joining us for this edition of Pick's Financial Fix is author and financial empowerment coach Ash Cash Exantus. Great to see you once again.
Likewise, likewise. Great to be here, great to be here.
And it is payday, my friend, okay? So here's the thing, this money comes in and then you look and it's already gone. So where does the money go?
Yeah. First of the month, the money's gone. Look, number one, daily caffeine fix, right? But here's the thing. We're not realizing that these designer iced coffees, energy drinks, they even have subscription-based coffee apps. All of those things are draining our money.
Oh my gosh. I am so guilty of that. I know it's so easy though.
I keep telling people, you make your own coffee, then take that money at the end of the week and then put it into a savings account.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Let it grow. Let it grow.
Buy that fake cup of coffee and then just stash the money away. But whatever. You know what? I, I used to be guilty of this, but thankfully I work early morning, so I don't buy lunch every day. But that's what a lot of folks do every day, right? They, they go out, they, or they go on the app.
Yeah. Buying lunch is a big one, right? Because you gotta think about it. Now we have so much convenience, food delivery apps. You have DoorDash, you have Uber Eats, but here's the thing that we don't realize is that there are, uh, surge pricing, there's fees, there's tipping. So you might be looking at the price of the food, But what about like, if everybody's ordering during lunchtime, that price is gonna go up. And so now you got surge prices, now you got fees, now you got tipping. All of these things is draining a hole in our pockets and we not even, we're not even realizing it.
Is that the service fee? Is that where it goes up?
Like depending on what— Absolutely. Yep. It's service fees. And, and here's the trick though. Sometimes you look and they're like, oh my God, free delivery. But then they're like service fees and like, and you're like, why, why is this $12 extra? You know?
Right. Yeah.
Happened to me the other night. I ordered pizza and I was like, you know what, I'll do pickup because it's $17 cheaper. Uber is part of everybody's vocabulary, right? And that's another thing with the surge pricing here and here and there when people have to pay more because of everybody using it. If it's raining, they raise the prices.
Yeah, absolutely. That's a— that's absolutely right. Another one, right? You have surge pricing, but you also have waiting fees, right? So if you're taking too long, there's waiting fees. And the truth of the matter is that a lot of people are using Uber and taxis, ridesharing as a replacement for owning a car. But you have to pay attention, right? You have to look at the price to make sure that it's not going over what you probably would be paying in a car note or, you know, you know, just, just, just pay attention to that.
Yeah, good point. Good point. Something that people forget, monthly subscriptions.
Ooh, that is the— that is the wallet killer. You got streaming services, right? You got digital magazines. As much as I love them, meditation apps, right? AI tools. You know how many AI, like I love AI. You know how many AI tools I have on my phone that when they renew, I'll be like, oh man, I forgot to cancel this, right? And here's the thing, the forgotten free trials.
Yes.
They'll suck us in and they'll say, hey, oh, don't worry about it. We'll give it to you free for 7 days. And then you forget. And now every single month you're being charged these monthly subscriptions and it's draining our pockets.
So on a one-off, these all sound like things, well, it's cost of doing business in life, right? But when you add 'em all together and you kind of look at it, You're spending a lot of money on these things, right? So how do you kind of look at them all and say, okay, here's how I cut them out and start to budget?
Yeah, that's a great question. We have to look at them all, you know, look at the grand number and not necessarily just, oh, this is $20 here, $50 here. Because here's the thing, if you look at a big bill that's $1,000, $2,000 a month, you might say to yourself, all right, I'm not doing that, right? But when you look at all of your subscriptions, you look at all of your daily habits, you look at everything, that may come up to an extra $2,000. It may come up to $3,000 a month. And that, you know, you could be using that in a much smarter way. And so the way I say is look at your budget. You can look, you could get a, you know, some type of budgeting app. You could simply just look at your bank account, right? And just, you know, at the end of the month, look at how much money is coming out and really do an assessment on the things that you actually need versus the things that you want. And then make your decision based on that.
All right, great advice, great advice. Ash Cash Exantus, I love your name. I love saying it. So much fun. Always great to have you in. Likewise.
