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Mark Cuban Says These 6 Common Purchases Aren’t Worth Your Money

The billionaire's spending list has a clear pattern.

By Chris Lewis, CEPF , Edited by Laura Hohenstein

Updated Oct. 22, 2026

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Mark Cuban became a billionaire not just by making smart investments but by being consistently critical about what he spends money on. His advice tends to be direct and sometimes blunt, and unlike a lot of wealth advice, it is tied to specific purchases he has personally criticized, avoided, or warned others against.

If you want to avoid wasting money the way Cuban does, this list is worth taking seriously.

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Credit card balances

This is the purchase Cuban has criticized the longest and the loudest. In a 2008 blog post titled "How to Get Rich," he wrote it plainly: "Cut up your credit cards. If you use a credit card, you don't want to be rich. The first step to getting rich requires discipline."

He has repeated the point in interviews for nearly two decades. He told Business Insider that credit card debt is "the worst investment that you can make" and argued that paying off a card charging 15 to 20 percent interest is a guaranteed return that beats almost any investment.

The reasoning is straightforward: money going toward high-interest debt is money not growing anywhere else. Cuban has said this is the lesson he wishes he had learned earlier in life.

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Expensive cars, especially early in life

Cuban drove a car that cost less than $200 until he was 25. He has said so publicly more than once.

"I didn't have a car that cost more than $200 until I was 25, I think," he told an interviewer. "It was crazy. But that was my decision. I was determined to save money."

His broader view on cars, houses, and status purchases has been consistent. When he sold MicroSolutions in 1990 and received $6 million, the first thing he bought was not a car or a home, but rather a $125,000 lifetime American Airlines pass because he flew constantly for work. "I don't care about cars or houses," he said on the Club Shay Shay podcast in 2024.

The principle he is illustrating is not that you should never own a car. It is that spending on transportation or housing to signal success, rather than to solve a real logistical problem, is spending that does not pay back.

Convenience pricing on everyday staples

Cuban still buys toothpaste and soup in bulk. He has said so publicly as a way of explaining how he thinks about everyday spending even now.

One of his documented money tips is that he buys replenishable staples in bulk because the lower per-unit cost is like an immediate return on that spending. He has also framed it in terms of return on investment: "Saving 15% on $1,000 worth of items you know you will absolutely spend money on is a better return on your money than making 15% in a year on a $1,000 investment because you don't pay taxes on it," he said.

The specific purchases he has mentioned include toothpaste and canned soup. The underlying point is that paying convenience premiums on things you will definitely buy anyway is a reliable way to leak money out of a budget without noticing.

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Luxury status symbols: watches, suits, and designer clothing

Cuban does not wear expensive suits or designer watches. He is frequently photographed in T-shirts and casual clothing, which is a deliberate choice, not an oversight.

He avoids pricey watches and suits and has been publicly critical of spending on status symbols designed to impress others rather than serve a practical purpose. The broader principle he has stated is that wasting money on expensive things to keep up with wealthier neighbors or peers puts people further into debt rather than closer to financial independence.

His own wardrobe philosophy is that what you wear to work matters far less than what you produce at work. That logic applies to most status purchases: the cost of signaling success to others is paid out of the same account you would use to actually build it.

Subscription services you are not actively using

Cuban has specifically flagged unused subscription services as a category of spending people underestimate.

He has pointed to subscription products as money that drains out of accounts automatically, often for services that go unused for months before anyone notices. The problem with subscriptions is not the monthly cost of any single one. It is the total of five or six that run simultaneously without being actively chosen each month.

The practical version of his advice is to audit what auto-renews regularly. The ones you have to think about whether you still use are almost certainly not worth keeping.

Impulse purchases without a waiting period

Cuban follows a 24- to 48-hour rule before buying non-essential items. He has described applying this specifically to high-ticket purchases.

The rule is that if you want something that is not essential, you wait at least a day or two before buying it. Most impulse purchases, when evaluated 48 hours later in a neutral moment, do not survive the test.

This connects to something Cuban said about how he has always thought about spending: "I never, ever thought in terms of money. I always thought in terms of time." The question he is implicitly asking with each purchase is whether it earns back the time it costs. Most impulse buys do not pass that filter.

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Bottom line

The throughline in everything Cuban has criticized is the same: spending that serves appearances, convenience, or impulse rather than solving a real problem or building something that compounds. Credit card interest drains capital. Status cars and watches return nothing. Convenience premiums on staples add up to thousands per year without producing anything. Idle subscriptions run in the background indefinitely.

Cuban's own first big purchase, the $125,000 airline pass, demonstrates exactly what his framework allows. It was expensive, specific to his actual situation, and paid back many times over in time and flexibility. The test he applied was whether the purchase solved a genuine problem, not whether it looked impressive. Applying that same filter to everyday spending is one of the most direct ways to build real wealth that most people overlook.

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