Learning to live within your means, and making it easy
Learning to live within your means does not mean that you will have to give up everything but the necessities of life. There are ways to spend less money and still enjoy many of the fine things of life. Learning to live within your means begins with a healthy dose of realism. Before you can determine how you will live within your means you must determine what your means are. This involves taking a long hard look at how much money you make, how much you owe on utilities, to creditors and any other bills that you may have, and then deciding how much you can spare.
Because most of us like easy answers to our problems and spending an evening analyzing finances is not an easy answer, most people continue on with poor spending and non-existent saving patterns and find themselves revisiting this place of needing to learn within their means. Fortunately there is a compromise. You can learn how to live within your means and make it easy but it will take a few extra seconds of thought every now and then. Below is a list of very simple suggestions that can help you to save money where you need it. Naturally, living the way that you want to live, while still living within your means, must involve some smart spending and saving. Here are a few tips to get you started:
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- Ask yourself the question, "Is this a need or a want?" before making a purchase. If it is a need hopefully you have shopped around and are confident that you will be paying a fair price. If the thing that you want is not a necessity, you can still make the purchase, but only after you have made a conscious realization that you do not actually need what you are buying. The choice is ultimately yours when it comes to how you spend your money, but if you find yourself constantly mentally defining your purchases as "wants" you may want to take a good hard look at whether or not you are living within your means.
- Consider timing when making a purchase. The majority of us are impulse shoppers. Granted some of us have stronger impulses than others, if you are really honest with yourself you can probably think of a time when you walked into a store intending to buy one thing and left that store with something entirely different. Marketing themes are well aware of this fact and focus many of their advertising techniques on trying to get you to make purchases on the spot. Once you have become emotionally involved in a sale it is very difficult to be persuaded to put an item down and walk away. Knowing that simply walking into a store could seriously compromise your better judgment when trying to live within your means, carefully consider exactly what you will get in that store and remain determined to only buy those things. If you happen across something that you may be interested in buying. Take a few days to think about it and if you still want that item feel free to make a planned trip back to the store to pick up that item. Studies have shown that the majority of impulse buyers where able to change their minds about a purchase and even completely forget about wanting to buy something after waiting three days. Imagine how much money you can save by avoiding the impulse to buy something that you never really wanted in the first place.
- You are not saving any money when you spend it. Sales are only good when you have had your eye on an item and have been waiting for a sale on that particular item to come around. Retailers make millions by discounting items because statistically it is more likely that you will buy more if you think that you are "saving" money, than if something is regular price. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are saving money because the price is reduced.
