Do you try every month to stop spending, but when the month ends find that you’ve spent more than you brought
in…again? Trust us, you’re not alone. Many people try each month to stop spending what they don’t have, but although it isn’t too difficult, it also isn’t exactly easy. Here’s a quick look at a few things that might be behind your spending and how to overcome them.
Multiple Credit Cards
If the issue you have is that you have multiple credit cards and you use these more than cash, it’s not just a matter of having a method of payment, and you may need a company like Hawkeye Associates to get you out of it. When you use credit cards instead of cash, you’re essentially borrowing money from the credit card company. They charge interest on that money, so right away you’re spending more than you think. Then, you have to keep up with multiple payments (one for each credit card) at multiple times of the month.
Debt consolidation may be one way to deal with this. This is where you get a loan from a company like the one mentioned above to pay off your other debts. It allows you to pay a single bill each month while also spending less money to pay your debt down because the interest rates are typically lower than those associated with credit cards.
Emotional Spending
Some people have an issue with emotional spending. These can be either sad or happy emotions. An example might be that your dog just died or your friend moved away so you go shopping to cheer yourself up. Happy occasions also trigger shopping because you don’t tend to be focused on the future. While shopping can help you to deal with or avoid sadness, or seem to enhance your happy feelings, you still need to be aware of what you spend. Look for other ways to deal with your emotions that will allow you to remain within your budget.
Stress Spending
Stress spending is a bit different from emotional spending because we do it when we’re stressed as opposed to when our emotions are at peaks and valleys. It’s easy for us to become accustomed to things and it might be more than a bit difficult to accept that we’re experiencing things like pandemics and financial hardship.
When we’re under a lot of stress, a quick relief can be a wonderful thing, and spending can give us that quick relief. However, we need to remember that there’s a difference between spending and overspending. Overspending can actually lead to even more stress. Try other things to lower your stress levels. Try yoga, go for a walk, take a nap. There are plenty of free stress relief activities out there.
Shopping Addiction
Shopping addiction – aka compulsive buying disorder – is an extremely common trigger for overspending. When you can’t control shopping for and buying things you don’t need, you’re essentially inviting a bit of financial trouble. If this sounds like you, you might try avoiding shopping areas if you can. If you’re meeting up with a friend, go to a park or restaurant as opposed to the mall. Also, when you do need to go shopping, make sure to take a list and use it. If something isn’t on your list, don’t buy it. If you see something in the shops that you like, write it down or take a picture of it and think about buying it at a later time.
Those are a few common triggers and how to deal with them. Hopefully, this will give you more of an understanding of why you spend and how to overcome it so you can still have a bit of money at the end of the month.
This pandemic made me spend more money than I usually do. I know it should be the opposite, but things happened and I needed to fix the house, pay more for electricity and food since I work from home now. It’s hard to save nowadays. But sometimes I didn’t spend money on certain things like an air cooler. That was a waste of money.