Ditching the cards

heybigspender2006

Hello! and ta very much!

moggins

It really does work a lot better when you only have cash. It makes spending all that money seem very real and question whether you really need to make that purchase when you can see actual money shrinking in your purse. It never seems quite so real when you flash the plastic.

It does make me wonder if this is a deliberate manoever by the banks to get us to spend more, need more and apply for more loans and debt. They discourage us from using cheques and real money by making it harder and harder to get our hands on actual cash by shutting branches and charging us for taking our own money out.

heybigspender2006

I know what you mean, it makes me really mad to have to pay £1.70 every time I want to draw money out

hattie_pea

you could always get cashback at the supermarket if you pay for your weekly shp with a debit card...is a little bit more secure that ATM's - I know so many people who have had their cards cloned recently after using apparently fine looking cash machines

FrankieM

I think I might start this...the thing is that I shop on line cause I use money off codes and I have a tesco mastercard so that I can get extra clubcard points.
I'm starting to wonder though if it is worthwhile because I've found that since I got the card about 3 months ago I've overspent every month.
Do other people find themselves in this situation too?
Those of you who do use a card to shop online etc...how do you manage to NOT overspend?
Do you just use the card for online and cash for everything else?

Stompa

I must admit I'd be quite happy if we could get rid of cash entirely. I'd much prefer to use a credit card for everything - much simpler IMO.

Debt_Free_Chick

I'm with Stompa - though I rarely use a credit card and normally use my debit card.

If you're struggling to budget using cards, then you need to track what you spend on the card. You can either do this in a simple cash book (old fashioned lined Cash Analysis book), a simple spreadsheet or a package like MS Money. The advantage with Money is that all the hard work in designing the appearance and reports has been done for you - with a spreadsheet, you'd need to this yourself.

I can tell instantly what I have ... more so than my bank account, even though I have online banking. My Money file takes into account the £15 I just spent at the village shop, which won't appear on my online bank statement until tomorrow.

Another advantage with Money is that you set your budget up in there, too. Let's say you have a budget of £200 for food. Each time you buy food (on your card, or cash) you enter the purchase into Money. At any time during the month, you look at your budget and it tells you how much you have left to spend on food, that month, to stay within your budget!

And if you're a frivolous spender (not that we have any of those on OS ) then you can run reports over any number of months to see where you've been spending.

Worth trying to get a copy of Money IMO - around £25 retail, but I understand you can get it on eBay (usual caveats apply) for about £12.

Cheers

FrankieM

How do you not overspend though???
I find that its those little purchases that really add up...and my OH thinks a tenner here and there is nothing!

Stompa

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

I'm with Stompa - though I rarely use a credit card and normally use my debit card.

Yes, but if you pay off your credit card in full by DD then it acts like a 'delayed action' debit card.

Debt_Free_Chick

Stompa wrote:

Yes, but if you pay off your credit card in full by DD then it acts like a 'delayed action' debit card.

Agreed - but we have a joint account for all household bills and I have very little "personal" spending. I really should diesel on my CC though ... especially as it's set up to pay off the full amount each month. I have to admit to being not fully organised here