Ways to have healthier spending habits
The following are ways for you to have healthier spending habits:
1. Set a budget. Unless you actually take the time to determine where your money should be spent, it will be hard to spend it properly. So, take a minute, write down all of your bills you have to pay each month. This includes mortgage, car payments, loans, debts, utilities, etc. Now subtract that from what you earn and look at what is left. Put half of that in savings, and divide the rest amongst food, gas, entertainment, and misc. Only you can know how much you actually need for each, versus how much you typically use frivolously. Part of healthy spending habits means being able to save some money. So, make that a bill you pay to yourself, and never miss it or justify not paying it.
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2. Plan ahead. One of the best ways to have healthier spending habits is to plan ahead. This means plan your menus so you have a list to take to the grocery store, it means remembering things like sunscreen when you go to the pool so you do not have to buy any. It means having a plan that allows you to live by your budget. If you have a limited entertainment fund, and love to socialize and go out, you had better plan some evenings in that involves friends and fun or you will go over your budget and fall into unhealthy spending, meaning spending more than you make.
3. Cut up your credit cards. One of the easiest ways to fall into unhealthy spending habits is to use credit. There are some great advantages to it, including ease and convenience, safety, and of course the rewards programs attached to most credit cards. However, with these advantages comes the power to spend more than you have. So, if you want to have healthier spending habits, you should cut up your credit cards, or at least put them on hold until you are free of debt.
4. Needs versus wants. If you want to have healthier spending habits you have to prioritize your purchases, and determine if they are needs or wants. If you are buying something you can not really afford just because you want it, you will be in a heap of trouble. However, if you actually need it, such as new tires on your car so you can get to work safely, then it is a justified purchase. So, determine if the purchase is a need or a want. If it is a want, wait three days before buying it. You will find that by doing this you will buy it only fifty percent of the time instead of one hundred percent of the time. Those three days gives you a chance to see how it will effect you financially and how you will fare if you do not have it.
5. Check daily. If you check your bank accounts and spending versus income daily you will be far more motivated to work toward healthier spending. It will be depressing to you to see that you can make what you make and never really get any further ahead in life, not pay down debt faster, or have new things, but be the same.
6. Automatic bill pay. A great way to have healthier spending habits is to set up automatic bill pay. This means your bills will be paid no matter what (well as long as there is money to pay them) and you will have to use what is left over for spending.
7. Use cash. This is a great way to stick to a grocery or gas or entertainment budget because once the cash is gone, you can't buy anything else.
8. Avoid shopping when hungry, tired, or depressed. Study after study has shown if you shop when hungry, tired or depressed you will spend more and get less. You will impulse shop, etc. So, only shop when you have your head on straight and you will have healthier spending habits.
