Impulsive spending..

ailz95

I shop whenever I want to - online - I put anything I'd like into my shopping basket. Then I walk away and leave it for several hours or overnight and usually I just empty the basket. It's so satisfying to put everything and anything in the basket and really splurge (the first time my hubby saw me do it he broke into a cold sweat :rotfl:) but it's even more satisfying to take them out again.

It's amazing the things I just know I need and at one time would have bought, that become insignificant later:cool:.

Ailz

Kitty777

As I mentioned before, I seem to be fine online. I am a bit 'OCD' about my bank balance being right. (I don't like the current/available bit to be different) so I tend to get out in cash etc and spend like that..

However the body shop sale (40% off) came down hard on me..opps.

peaceandfreedom

Kitty777 wrote: »

After bills and savings, I have a rough budget of £50-£70 a week.
However, if I am honest I do not know where most of this goes to...I tend to spend it on rubbish.

You are lucky - my monthly 'spends' budget is about £90.

I know you are now planning to write down everything you spend - my advice is to spend some of your money on the YNAB (You Need a Budget) software. It has transformed my budgetting and my spending habits. It seems to have almost completely stopped my impulse buying and if I do impulse-buy, it is very small-scale and I immediately adjust the budget to cater for it.

As an example I have a monthly 'coffee-shop' budget of £10 - so far I have spent £1.95 of it and I will aim to not spend the whole tenner. I have a monthly work-car-park budget of £5 (I only have to pay for parking if I get in too late for the free spaces). But because I've over-spent slightly in another category I've reduced my car park budget to £2. Gives me more of an incentive to get in on time. These are trivial examples just on my 'frivolous' spending budget - the same applies on a larger scale to all areas of expenditure.

Essentially you have an overall budget amount and you must stick to it. You always know where you are against budget and how much you've got left to spend.

There have been a few threads here about YNAB recently - it's addictive and really works.