Shocked at my spending

RG2015

B0bbyEwing,

You are raising some very valid points, both her and on your other thread.

The issue is budgeting, planning, managing money, achieving life goals, surviving the cost of living crisis.....etc.

People are different, and different approaches to budgeting will work or not work for other people. Indeed the Debt-free-wannabe board may have better conversations for some people. The issue of spending addiction may also be addressed there and on other boards.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe

Exodi

I don't think this is so much budgeting as it is discipline. Knowing where every single penny goes, doesn't solve the problem of overspending.

Spending £380 on McDonalds drinks in the six months between Jan to July works out to £2.08 per day... which is about the price of a drink. You don't need a fancy budget spreadsheet or app to tell you that buying a McDonalds drink every single day is not the most financially sensible idea. Unless you're one of those people that would spend £4 or whatever to get a £2.50 drink delivered - which is even worse!

Similarly £534 on takeaways... if we assume a takeaway is about £20 this averages out to about 1 takeaway per week. Oddly I'd say this is less of a problem than the McDonalds drink fiasco, but room to change that to once every 2 weeks.

£1600 on Bingo in six months is just under £10 per day. While discretionary spending is relative, if you are not on a pretty decent wage, this could indicate the start of a gambling addiction.

GTR_King

My advice & what I do.

at start of the month I put my money into separate accounts 
Bills
Rent
Car 
Food 

what’s left is to spend how I please works for me & never been in debt

So each month check your online or paper bank statements see what you spend your money on & see where to cut down on things  

Exodi

GTR_King said:

My advice & what I do.

at start of the month I put my money into separate accounts 
Bills
Rent
Car 
Food 

what’s left is to spend how I please works for me & never been in debt

So each month check your online or paper bank statements see what you spend your money on & see where to cut down on things  

No savings?

Standingstrong

My advice is that you need to live by your means. 

As it sounds like your not and it’s a never ending circle 

Say by the Motto “if you don’t have it you can’t have it” 

you’ll have to grin and bare it for a while try save around 2-5K  max. 

cut back on the stuff you don’t need for a while and put the money into a instant access savers account or an ISA.

You’ll get there I have faith 

overspender22

Thanks everyone, these suggestions are all super helpful genuinely. I went to bingo tonight, haven’t been for a couple of weeks as I’ve tried to cut back on all my spending. 

Withdrew £20 cash and only took that with me, that covered playing bingo plus my drinks and even a bite to eat. I won £7 which then allowed me to play on some machines without spending more than I came with. 

It might sound stupid but I feel pleased that I managed to control how much I wanted to spend and not feel deprived. 

in other areas I’ve tried to set myself a weekly amount for food shopping and takeaways as one amount and so far so good. 

I’m not on a terrible wage but also not in a position where even cutting back spending dramatically would allow me to save hundreds each month, but every little helps. 

AntoMac

Very well done on the Bingo spend. That’s a big saving since you have been averaging over £200 per month on it this year. 

Do you have a way of putting a bit of what you would normally have spent ‘out of reach’?

phillw

Standingstrong said:

“if you don’t have it you can’t have it” 

This never worked for me, because I could always pay for the things that I was wasting money on.

Takeaways are just something that I don't even want these days, it's cheaper and healthier to cook for yourself.

The best things in life are free....

Standingstrong

phillw said:

Standingstrong said:

“if you don’t have it you can’t have it” 

This never worked for me, because I could always pay for the things that I was wasting money on.

Takeaways are just something that I don't even want these days, it's cheaper and healthier to cook for yourself.

The best things in life are free....

This has worked for me. Sorry that it hasn’t worked for yourself.

As per saying previously , cut back on the stuff you don’t need. And concentrate on saving. Open a rainy day account and start adding £50-200 a month or even £50 per week it all adds up.