The Joy of Spending Less and Making More
Spending Less and Making More – how does that sound to you? We all know that spending less and saving more money are things that we should do, but the DO part is often what gets lost along the way. When you have got a full-time job, a family, and a social life to tend to, adding one more thing to the TO DO list can become a huge hurdle. That is why you might need to trick yourself into spending less money, so you can save more. Here are some ideas that will help.
Visual Reminders
Practically everywhere you look, you are visually tempted by things we can spend money on… but what about things you should save for? Here is an idea: if you are saving up for a vacation, you can put a photo of your dream destination in your wallet right next to your credit cards and whenever you are on the verge of swiping the plastic, you will give it a second thought.
Get Excited about Affordable Things
Before you can spend less, you should figure out where you are overspending. Once you do that, you will feel the thrill of a more affordable alternative. For example, one of my clients cut one expense to start building a fund for her dream adventure. To save up for a year of travel, she and her husband gave up fancy restaurants for a while. For six months they put their dream adventure ahead of spending and it worked.
Be a Master Saver
Are you committed to saving? Many people allocate a portion of their income to be deposited in their retirement fund, but what about other saving goals? If you allocate a portion of your income to go into a savings account, rather than sending it all to your everyday account, you will be less likely to spend it. It is not what you make, but what you keep that counts! List saving categories here…
The Cash Diet
If you set yourself a cash budget at the beginning of each week, and take out that amount in cash and then stick to not taking out any more – you will certainly prevent overspending. Spending cash is a very different experience to just swiping a card. Your awareness and money consciousness is raised significantly. Try it and see! Watching your notes disappear from your wallet is a great wake up call.
Shopping
Here is an idea for you… make shopping alone a habit. Have a shopping focus. It may seem counter intuitive that you could save by planning to shop. But really what I mean here is that you make a plan to shop alone, rather than to shop with friends. This way you are less likely to succumb to peer pressure (you know, when your friends almost form a cheer squad to make you absolutely love that dress). If realistically you do buy clothes once a month, simply shopping for clothes alone once a month can lead to you spending less. Think of creating a capsule wardrobe. This is great for saving money and most of your clothes will go with one another so it’s also less time trying to put outfits together in the morning (viva! that extra five minutes to press the snooze button!). On a related note, of course, if you are a parent, don’t bring your kids with you to the grocery store, it is pretty much guaranteed that they will beg for goodies at the sweet counter.
Happy shopping, saving and building your nest egg!
