Here’s what works for me. First of all, I do all my banking online. If you don’t have a bank account this won’t help. But just in case you do.You hear all the horror stories of hackers getting your password and your account number and stealing your money but I haven’t had a problem like that in 4 years and I actually rarely hear of any examples of that. You might want to look into online banking if you use a debit card or write checks. If you do, you can easily see where you spent your money each month. It shows your debit purchases and also all the checks you wrote. You can see your daily balance too.
And you can see these things ANY time you like, day or night, 24-7. And there are MANY more features of online banking. Oh yeah, you can pay monthly bills with online banking. You can set it up so every monthly bill is automatically deducted from your checking account each month. This helps so you don’t forget to pay bills. No more paper bills, no writing checks and wasting stamps.
Another thing I do is try keep ALL my receipts. I keep as many receipts as I can starting with the first of each month and every receipt during the whole month. Each receipt I keep I throw in a drawer and at the end of each month I take them all out, get a pad of paper and go through them one by one. Here’s what I write: Most receipts have the merchants name, the amount spent, and the item you purchased. So I list those three things on the paper. I group together the merchants and how much I spent there and on what. Example: if you go to the same market several times each month then write down the stores name and each purchase there and how much you spent each time. If you go to the same coffee shop several times a month then each time you go their get a receipt and under that heading, write down what you bought there each time and how much you spent,. If you bought a pair of shoes, then write down the name of the store and how much you spent. If you bought a pair of scissors at the drugstore keep the receipt and write it down with all the other purchases on the pad of paper. This might sound confusing…but it’s not hard.
So now you have written down in black and white almost exactly where all your money went each month. You can easily see where you wasted money or spent too much. And you do this whole thing to be able see where you can cut costs. For example: did you really need to go out to Starbucks 10 times last month? Did you really need to buy four cartons of ice cream during one month? Did you really need to buy three cd’s last month? Maybe stick to buying one a month. Could you have gotten those same shoes $ 10.00 cheaper somewhere else? Do you really need to buy the best shampoo at the salon when you can get it at a tenth of the price at the dollar store? Looking through your pad of paper with all these lists, how many were impulse buys? What impulse buys can you stop yourself from making the next time?
And while we’re on the subject, here’s a tip I learned from some expert on TV. Next time you have the urge to want to make a big purchase or make some impulse purchase, stop yourself before you buy it and wait 24 hours.Try to think to yourself: “Do I really need this”? “Would I still be OK in my life if I didn’t have this item”? “If I buy this item will I still be able to afford necessities for the month”? “Can I get this cheaper If I wait for sales”? Anyway… good luck.
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