Done it again!!

Valentina2

Hi,
If you haven´t got good will power, my advice would be to stay out of the shops and don´t look at online shops. If you need to buy anything, write it down and only look for that item/s in the shops, nothing else.
Don´t wait until the new year to start to budget, once you have bought your christmas presents, you can start straightaway, otherwise you migth be tempted to have one more shopping spree before you start and of course, the more you spend, the more debt to clear. I´d advise starting a spending diary too.
Good luck!

freda

Hmm.

Its not the spending, imho, that is the problem here.

You should be able to allow a set amount for xmas presents, necessary clothes (i.e. winter coat) and some 'treat' money (i.e. money saved from your ents budget etc).

However, the way to allow for this spending is not to wait till you need the coat, or xmas comes along, and then worry about it. The way to do it is to work out how much you're going to spend in a whole year, and divide it by 12. Then SAVE this much every month into a savings account. When the bill comes in, the money is there and waiting to be spent.

ING, Sainsburys, Cahoot (I think) all do savings accounts where you can name specific 'pots' within one account. For example I have things like:

Christmas/birthdays - £20 per month goes in here
Car MOT, tax, maintenance, insurance - £70 per month goes in here
Saving for holiday - £20 per month goes in here
Emergency fund - £50 per month goes in here till I get to £500. This is for things like the washing machine breaking down, boiler blowing etc.
Baby fund - £25 per month goes in here for when I need to buy baby things next spring
New tv fund - have known for a year now that tv will need replacing fairly soon so have been saving a set amount each month so we can afford a new tv in the jan sales.

If you do this, then you are in control. You KNOW how much you have to spend at any given time, you can plan for it. Then there is no guilt, just good money management.

melaniec_2

you could also only use cash that way you can see that your money is going down

KatrinaC_2

bride2be2006 wrote:

Please can anyone give me some good advice on how to keep motivated and just wondered if anyone else has had the same problem?

Everyone has lapses - the important thing is to remember that it is a set-back, not the end of the road (blatantly taken from Weightwatchers... )

Think about how rubbish you feel right now and from tomorrow onwards make sure that everytime you pick up an item you want rather than need remember what it feels like when you do overspend.

Chin up!

Kat

bride2be2006

Thanks for your good advice everyone, I am going to be good from now on and I am going to give OH my debit card and ask him to give me my budgeted amount each week so I have no temptation - oh and I am cutting up my credit cards too!