Impulse Buying

claire1a

I too am a massive impulse buyer, First it was clothes, then household items and now it's food (Getting cheaper!)

I have a spreadsheet ive made with spilts my wage into "pots" (however all my money is in one account - S123 so I can earn interest on it). I have:
£100 that goes into insurance (House and all car things inc MOT), £100 Holiday fund (This also includes xmas, easter and big events like friends weddings)
£40 Beauty/clothing
£40 Health (dentist, opticians, percriptions)
£40 celebrations (Presents for friends/ family birthdays/anniversarys)
£40 petrol
£20 cat (instead of insurance)
£10 house (cleaning products/garden things)
£5 craft

What I tend to do is pay by CC (to get my reward points) and them move the money in teh individual pots into a CC pot (Needs to tally up) anything left in the individual pots then moves to next month.

I have 2 years in teh spreadsheet so I can see that holiday I go on in June 2016, which will cost £... Will take Zxmonths of saving (£100) whilst still having money for xmas etc. It helps to see what is happening the months in advance and how much I need to put aside.

After these pots (and my bills are taken off) then I divide the amount by 4/5(weeks in the month) and this is my food/spending money.

Oviously everyone has different amounts in the pots and different pots but I do find it useful to have this many as these are all the big areas of spending in my life.

This is how I have managed to pay off £5000 debt in two years!!! Every spare penny out of these pots went to pay it off!

Yes i Still impulse buy but can see that if i buy x gig ticket this month it means i'll be z in debt in three months and only afford £100 for all my xmas prezzies....

Basically how much do you earn in a year - a years worth of bills - annual/ monthly needs such as insurace, holidays xmas = play money (in a rudementary sense).

You might now have more money then you did when you were having to watch the pennies but unless you have the same, if not more in savings then what you have on youre credit cards then you are still in debt and still need to watch the pennies.

After paying my last CC off yesterday I know my next task is to build up £500 emergancy fund, followed by 3 months wages (just incase). Yes i miss out on some things but it hurts to know i have spent £1000s on clothes and I cannot even fit into most of them! My life is def not better for it but knowing that I managed to save to go to Florida for my 30th in March, whist still being on track to pay off all my debts was!!!!

Good luck with curbing the impulses and i'll be happily writing down any tips given (I need to stop buying food as I think I can live off my stocks for several months now!!!!)

Jo3y83

The methods that worked for me were to cut up all my credit cards - this way you cannot spend on them any longer and know that whatever you pay off them will never mount back up - the balance will only go down at this point!

On payday pay money onto your cards, loans, etc, and draw out cash from your bank account that will need to last you the month. Then divide this month into 4 envelopes and label each one with dates covering a week, i.e. "22-29 Jul" and enter the amount on the front of the envelope. Put the money in it and seal. You should have 4 envelopes for each month (this will cover your spending for travel, food, etc, for the week). Do not open the next envelope until the date has been reached. Works an absolute treat for me.

Leave your debit card at home. You'll be suprised what you don't spend when cold hard cash is all you have - it's not as easy to part with.

Give it a go

Sharon87

Jo3y83 wrote: »

The methods that worked for me were to cut up all my credit cards - this way you cannot spend on them any longer and know that whatever you pay off them will never mount back up - the balance will only go down at this point!

On payday pay money onto your cards, loans, etc, and draw out cash from your bank account that will need to last you the month. Then divide this month into 4 envelopes and label each one with dates covering a week, i.e. "22-29 Jul" and enter the amount on the front of the envelope. Put the money in it and seal. You should have 4 envelopes for each month (this will cover your spending for travel, food, etc, for the week). Do not open the next envelope until the date has been reached. Works an absolute treat for me.

Leave your debit card at home. You'll be suprised what you don't spend when cold hard cash is all you have - it's not as easy to part with.

Give it a go

I can't do the cash thing though. For example, transport, I either use my oyster card or my contactless card - depending on if I get a travelcard or not. I do what the poster above you does as well and get 'rewards' or cashback when I use certain cards - my Natwest account I get 1% back on contactless payments - hence why I use it instead of an oyster card sometimes.

I find having cash tends to make me lose track of what I'm spending. Paying on my debit card, I can look back at what I've spent and know how much things are costing me a month. I've started using YNAB, so will use this instead of the cash route.

Teacher2

Sharon87 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice Teacher2

"I did start a while back either unsubscribing from shops email lists or at least diverting all future emails from them into another folder in my inbox, so I wouldn't be tempted, but I'm getting a few again, so maybe should do this for the other companies.

I remember a time I saw an email with a 'Schuh' sale. So I went on it had a look, decided not to buy this pair of converse I liked. Went onto other websites and with their 'target' advertising and using cookies, the advert was those pair of shoes I wanted! I kept seeing the same advert for those shoes for months, steadily going down in price. But I did resist that! Mostly because I didn't want to give in to the new way of advertising!"

I have every sympathy with the 'trying to unsubscribe'. I have given up with some sites as they make it impossible. My son downloaded 'Ghostery' ad/cookie blocking for me which helps but it also causes its own problems as some sites like C4 won't load if the cookies are blocked. I, too, find I am bombarded with ads when I click on a site. I just have to use the delete button! I do think, however, that when you become actively conscious about trying to save money and not giving in to temptation, that helps in itself. It gives you just that bit of resistence you need.

Sharon87

So a month later, YNAB didn't really work for me, I can never seem to stick to clocking every spend, my life just gets too busy!

I have cut back on impulse spending this month, but still get the occasional urge to want to spend but have so far resisted - well mostly. I have impulse bought small things, like a takeaway when I felt ill and didn't want to cook! but there have been a lot less impulse purchases.

It may take me some time to completely change my attitude. I am needing to move house in October, so maybe this will force me to change, my rent will probably go up as well when I move!

I had a rubbish wage month this month, but next month I'm getting a lot of money. I've done a budget and after all bills/food/transport and £100 for general spend and what I've bought on my credit card this month, I have over £400 left, which will go towards emergency savings/credit card debt.

I have found ways to still have a life without spending lots of money - I took advantage of the 2 cinema tickets for 1000 nectar points and I have a cineworld voucher too from my clubcard points. I am also using my Tesco credit card for general spends and paying it off in full every month so I can earn even more clubcard points to go towards entertainment. It also ensures I use less of my overdraft until I can pay it off completely, therefore paying less interest on it!

So I've made changes, but still have changes to make...

Tyrone_Black

I've tried to change my mindset a bit and sort of... impulse save? If I identify an unnecessary spend, I congratulate myself for not going through with it and putting a little more money in my savings. I think I could easily save £50 a month just in more sensible buying decisions, probably more. That's my motivation.

hanb

Sharon87 wrote: »

I have found ways to still have a life without spending lots of money - I took advantage of the 2 cinema tickets for 1000 nectar points and I have a cineworld voucher too from my clubcard points.

Hi, just saw this and thought I'd mention the meerkat movies if you don't already know about it? I know it's still a spend but it's saving us a fortune as film lovers! I bought an insurance policy for a few days in this country (total cost £2.16) through compare the market. I've now got 12 months 241 cinema tickets and luckily, in Bristol, there's an independent cinema that charges way less than the big chains and still accepts the voucher. We went to watch mission impossible last week for £3.75 for the 2 of us! So although I'm still spending, it's a very cheap night out to keep our sanity

Sharon87

I don't go to the cinema that often, so probably not worth doing the compare the market option. I tend to use nectar points or clubcard points when I go cinema instead.

I am trying to cut back on buying lunches at work, so I am improving in buying things to take to work. I have a drawer at work where I leave the snacks and then take a main meal each day. Well most days! Instead of spending £4-£6 a day on lunch plus snacks, I maybe spend £15 a week including snacks.

Brightspark87

determined_new_ms wrote: »

OP really sorry but it sounds to me like you haven't *quite* had your LBM yet. I spent years *thinking* I was playing off my debt but was just spending on my cc each month also - so debt went down a bit, up a bit, stayed the same alot etc etc.

Then New Year's day sitting with my best friend and her husband and we were discussing resolutions and I realised I had as much debt as I had had in April the previous year when my nan had passed away and I was given some money which paid paid off the majority of my debts. I made the decision then and there I was going to pay it all off.

But in order to do this I changed the way I used my money. I spent less than £100 on clothes that year, grocery spends reduced drastically, we stopped going out as much (reduced by about 90% of things that cost money to do), looked for lots of free events and things to do, we did go to a festival that year but we raised the cash to do it from selling things and it really was on a shoe string. I think we took 90% of food to eat, drinks and only spent about £10 each.

It sounds like your income means you can afford the lifestyle you are living but you can't without sacrificing clearing your debts and therefore accruing interest each month.

Everyone's lifestyle is different, I live in a small town, near the beach and countryside with my partner. It sounds like you are single living in London? And I'm probably a bit older than you! However there are threads by people living in London who have managed to clear debt and still be young and single and have fun. Look up London Girl's thread for inspiration

I did too! Only moved to the west country late July. You can do it!

nkkingston

I found with internet shopping I could curb a lot of impulse buys by saving the links somewhere. Make an effort to make it into window shopping, not actual shopping. I like Pinterest - I can 'pin' a picture of what I want to buy in a folder and get a little vicarious rush without spending any money on the item. I'm still sharing that I like that object, that it represents my personality in some way, without having to own it. I can either go back the next day and decide if I really want it, or go back when I've got an amazon voucher or a bit of birthday money and have a look through for what I like best - I usually find I end up pruning a lot of old pins because actually, once that initial flush of desire is passed, I don't want it anyway.