Are you wasteful? You don’t know how to manage your money and you end up spending it on anything even if you don’t need it? If the answers to both questions are yes, pay attention to the following Money Investors article. On this occasion, we give you the keys that will help you to manage your income much better, to stop spending senseless and, therefore, to be able to save a little more.
If you want to know how to avoid spending money unnecessarily, pay attention to the following tips.
Table of Contents
Evaluate your expenses, the first strategy to save money
To start better managing your income and avoid spending money unnecessarily, it is important that you previously evaluate your expenses. What do you usually spend money on? That is the main question you will have to answer. Hobbies, activities, clothing, or other items can be the main culprits for unnecessary spending. The objective is to check if you are really allocating too much money to discretionary expenses, that is, to those that are not fixed such as rent or basic services that are the same month to month.
To be able to evaluate your expenses, you must carry out the following tasks:
- Review your expenses for the last three months, both for the bank card and the cash spent.
- Find out what% these expenses represent by dividing them into fixed and discretionary.
- Save all your receipts to keep track of what you spend on a daily basis, so the quarterly registration will be much easier for you to do.
- If you need it, you can download the Fintonic application, so that you can plan your budgets and evaluate your expenses.
The goal is to answer questions like: do I spend more than I earn? In a few days, I spend all the income? Is it hard for me to make ends meet? These are some of the keys that will make you reflect on what you are spending and see how much money you spend on unnecessary expenses.
Tricks to save money every day
Once you have evaluated your expenses in the last three months and know how much money you spend on unnecessary expenses, it is time to change your habits in order to avoid wasting your income senseless.
- To do this, we suggest you create a budget, which you must follow to the letter. To generate it, you must determine what your fixed expenses are (rent and basic services, transport, food, health, various expenses such as having a pet or going out to dinner once a month…), so as not to spend more money than you do not have .
- Another thing you should keep in mind is setting goals when shopping. It is very easy to spend mindlessly when you do the shopping or go out to buy the jeans you need. The important thing is not to spend more, so check what you really need, make a list and stick to it, especially in food. As for clothes or other vices, you must control your impulses.
- And precisely, not getting carried away when buying is another of the habits that you should redirect. Try to resist the temptation and ask yourself two basic questions: “Do I need it?” And” is it within my budget? ” If the answer is no, stay away from what you were going to buy and so you can save that money for something you really need.
- Do you eat out every day? Reduce your expenses by preparing your food and taking it to work. Although they seem insignificant expenses, they are the most noticeable. As well as coffee, tobacco and other vices.
- Credit cards … NO! They can be dangerous if you are unable to manage your money, so we strongly discourage them. The best thing is to opt for debit cards, which discount the money spent at the moment. With credit, it will happen that you will spend what you do not have, but it will be discounted the following month, something that can be dangerous and that can lead to major debt problems.
To avoid unnecessary spending, the idea is to limit your expenses and this will only be achieved if you do your part and change your habits. Try spending only what you need in a month and you will see how your savings account increases little by little.
How to stop being wasteful
Although it is very important that you try to change your habits and reduce your unnecessary expenses by yourself, sometimes the lack of control requires an external agent who can reorder your accounts and your ideas. However, the first thing you should do is be aware that you are a compulsive shopper who spends more than you have without being able to avoid it.
Compulsive shopping can cause serious problems, such as anxiety, depression or loneliness, and they often occur within these contexts as well. In this case, you will need to see a therapist, since compulsive shopping is often considered an addiction. The same happens with gambling addiction or gambling, another of the agents that can cause a useless waste of money. For all these cases, doing therapy will help you obtain healthy alternatives that will help you deal with the different emotional problems that lead to unnecessary spending of money. Ask for help!
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