How to fall in love with saving money

JoJoC

Did you decide to stay in Iceland Cathy?

Haha

Just popping into say hi and see how everyone's getting on

cathybird

hi all! Back from Norway. Back at work too. I hope everyone's been well. The North of England and Scotland are both even more beautiful than I remembered. Norway was also majestically lovely, as everyone says, but not the cheapest of places so am not sure I have managed to save any money in June but have not yet sat down to do all the sums. It's roughly halfway through the year, so a good time to reflect. Am going to get right back into it though For some reason I've come back from my trip full of enthusiasm for moneysaving, ha ha! No idea why, but yay.

cathybird

hi JoJoC - thanks for the reminder. I don't feel quite back from my holiday yet! I hope things are well with you? ...

JoJoC

Hi Cathy, sounds like you had a fab to
Ensure! Where did you visit in Scotland?

I've heard Norway is expensive, although it's not so bad for a trip. I wouldn't like to be spending that kind of money over a long period of time?!

Life is good for me right now, thanks. I've got a renewed sense of drive, motivation and enthusiasm for saving. Long may it continue!

Hope you manage to save something this month, even just a wee cheeky tenner to keep motivation up!

cathybird

hi JoJoC! Glad to hear you've got your mojo back Mine is sort of back too - lots to sit down and work out and I need to plan for the rest of the year.

I have been reading a book called "Willpower", by Baumeister and Tierney, which I bought in the airport in Oslo - they didn't have many English language books, not surprisingly, but they had this, and it looked interesting. It contains some excellent tips for developing more self-control, including a very good chapter on dieting, suggesting that diets really don't work in the long-term but offering two (to me) extremely helpful suggestions. 1) Don't put yourself in temptation's way - don't "seat yourself next to the dessert trolley", don't leave snacks where you can see them (which might seem obvious, but I'm not sure how many people actually do think to refrain from doing this) and 2) procrastination can help: studies suggest that saying to yourself, "I can have that chocolate cake if I really want, I'll just put it off till a bit later" is a much better technique than telling yourself you can't have it at all. Telling yourself you can have something later seems to partly satisfy the craving to have it without eating away at your self-control, and if you wait the impulse often passes anyway.

It strikes me that this is also a very helpful suggestion for spending. My vow not to buy any books for a year didn't last, because I find it too hard to resist the temptation altogether. But the postponement thing works, as I have found anyway with Amazon's wish list. Many times after I've put books on the list I have never gone back to buy them. If I see them on the list later, I often don't want them - the urge is gone.

Of course it helps to avoid temptation by not looking on Amazon to start with.

These things might seem obvious but I hadn't specifically thought to use procrastination as a technique before and from now on I am going to deploy it more strategically. "I can buy books. Just not right now."

Eco_Miser

Hi Cathy,
You've asked in the past how I manage to be so frugal. Reading your post I realise part of the answer is that I'm a procrastinator. I find leaving spending to another day so easy that I often never buy whatever it was I was looking at.

cathybird

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Hi Cathy,
You've asked in the past how I manage to be so frugal. Reading your post I realise part of the answer is that I'm a procrastinator. I find leaving spending to another day so easy that I often never buy whatever it was I was looking at.

Oh well that's interesting, Eco Miser So it's not just iron-clad self-control per se? ... Although that is clearly part of it I also get the impression that with spending you are someone who doesn't particularly put yourself in temptation's way either.

I used the procrastinating technique today with some chocolate - I wanted some, then thought to myself, "I'll get it a bit later." Then I never did. I just forgot about it.

Lomcevak

But the postponement thing works, as I have found anyway with Amazon's wish list. Many times after I've put books on the list I have never gone back to buy them. If I see them on the list later, I often don't want them - the urge is gone.

I think the Amazon wishlist is great too - I like browsing Amazon from time to time, and my wishlist is full of things I might once have purchased on impulse.

I skim through it occasionally and push anything that I would still actually like to a second 'real' wishlist, that's useful just because a few family members use it for Christmas/Birthday, but very little makes it across. Almost everything would have just ended up on a shelf (with the occasional 'what was I thinking' )

cathybird

hi Lomcevak, well I didn't know you could even make more than one wishlist on Amazon I think I'll stick with the one for now as if I set up a second one I might treat that as a "real" wishlist too and start buying items on it. I put two books on the wishlist today and have since more or less forgotten about them.

I'm sure my progress with this won't be perfect but it is so far proving quite a useful technique.

I must be way behind with the records, having been away so long, and must sit down and do the sums - my signature is way out of date.

I hope everyone else is having a good and moneysaving weekend.

cathybird

Another thing: I said at the start of June that I wanted to save £3,000 in the next three months, which in fact I need to do to meet my £12,000 goal on the "Save £12,000 for 2014" thread, but I don't think after my trip away that I saved much in June at all, so my goal was (again) quite unrealistic, and if a goal starts to look unrealistic, it's easy to give up on it - not that I've done that, but the temptation is there.

This reminds me of something else in the book "Willpower", which is that most people apparently set unrealistic goals to lose weight (along with the fact that dieting tends not to work in the long-term anyway). The book reckons William Hill the bookies have a standing bet, open to anyone who wants to lose weight, that they won't. The person placing the bet can name their own goal weight and (I think) the time they want to take to achieve it in. Even so, the bookies apparently win 80 per cent of the time! I wonder if it would be similar with savings goals? ... :eek: