Spendthrift help

givememoney

Someone close to me has a real problem with hanging onto money.

He decides he desparately wants something, buys it, uses it a few times then sells it, losing money.

Has anyone here been in this mind set and managed to get themselves away from spend, spend, spend onto save, save, save.

He needs to save money not this merry go-round of wasting his hard earned cash.

Any tips would be helpful

Tixy

Hi
Does he want to change his habits and want to start saving more? Or does he see nothing wrong with how he manages his money?

givememoney

Yes he does want to change but seems incapable of doing so.

Tixy

What are his triggers for spending? e.g does he impulse by in the shops? - if so could he leave his cards at home and just take a small amount of cash to the shop?
Or is it that he just tends to spend up to his overdraft limit each month - in which case what about setting up a standing order to a savings account to go out as soon as he is paid?
If he tends to impulse by online - is it because he is bored?
Does he spend time online reading about all the new fancy electronics, phones, games etc that come out - and if so could he try avoiding these sites?

Different things work for different people - can he motivate himself by working out how much he 'lost' last year with this type of spending - and imagine what he could do with that money instead (a holiday, a car, put it towards a house deposit etc)?

Some people use the system of writing down what they want and then not buying it for a week. Then in a week considering if they still really want it. I think that works well for things like impulse buys of clothes/ shoes, what is his spending - is it thinnkgs like electronics/gadgets etc?

givememoney

Tixy wrote: »

Different things work for different people - can he motivate himself by working out how much he 'lost' last year with this type of spending - and imagine what he could do with that money instead (a holiday, a car, put it towards a house deposit etc)?

Some people use the system of writing down what they want and then not buying it for a week. Then in a week considering if they still really want it. I think that works well for things like impulse buys of clothes/ shoes, what is his spending - is it thinnkgs like electronics/gadgets etc?

Hi Tixy

I think these two points you made could be helpful i'll pass this on.

It isn't clothes it is electrical goods and gadgets mainly plus musical equipment.

quintwins

another idea is he works out how many hrs he would have to work to afford these items, and if he sold them on how many hrs/days he would lose