10 ways to control your finances

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If by the end of the month you are wondering where all your salary has gone, most likely you have problems with financial self-control. If you want to always be with money, then you should learn to control yourself and your spending. In this article, you will find recommendations on how to get rid of financial problems.

Surely several times a day you spend money on things that you don't really need. A bottle of Coca-Cola from a vending machine, a glass of coffee from an expensive fashionable coffee shop, lunch with colleagues, a new game for your phone … The list goes on. In any case, you spend a couple of hundred (or thousands) rubles on every little thing and immediately forget about it.

The reason for this behavior is the lack of financial self-control. Over and over again, you make small expenses without thinking about the long term. But here's what the lack of self-control threatens:

• you don't get closer to achieving big financial goals;
• you have to borrow money;
• you do not know how much money you will have in a day or in a month;
• you are constantly short of money.

Of course, giving up your usual lifestyle is not easy. Making a long-term plan is harder than just wasting money and indulging in small pleasures. But if you want to live in prosperity and not worry about your own future, you need to be able to control yourself and your spending. Therefore, we will tell you how to gain self-control in matters related to money.

1. Stop making excuses

Every time you come up with an excuse for wasting your money on worthless purchases, you prevent yourself from starting to do financial planning.

When you buy something unnecessary today, you are depriving yourself of something important in the future.

Maybe this is really just a small thing. Maybe you really really want to buy it. Maybe you need a purchase to impress someone.

But if you want to live well, stop making excuses for your impulsive purchases. Just understand: when you buy some bullshit, you are taking a step back on the road to your financial well-being.

2. Before every purchase ask yourself: "Will I live without this thing?"

In order to control your financial life, you have to develop the healthy habit of evaluating every purchase. And it's not about cost now.

Do you really need this thing? Can you do without it? And is there a cheaper analogue? Ask yourself these questions every time you are about to make a purchase.

Financial self-control is the ability to say “no” to things that you would have said “yes” to without hesitation.

Ask yourself: "Will I live without this thing?" If you answer yes, then you don't need to buy anything, it is better to set aside money for more important things. If you answer "no", then ask yourself the following question: "Is there a cheaper analogue?"

This will help you learn to evaluate and accept the consequences of your every decision and action.

3. Use only cash, no credit cards

Usually, credit cards are issued with a very large limit, and this is not without reason: with such a card in hand, it becomes more difficult for a person to control his expenses.

When you don't have real, paper money in your hands, it is easy to ignore what you can actually afford when buying. In such a situation, you only care about one moment: the main thing is that there is enough. In addition, with a card without a limit, it is much easier to get into trouble such as heavy bills or large debts.

The solution to the problem is very simple: use only cash. If you find that you don't have enough cash to make it to next month, consider how you can save. Spend smarter next month.

Financial self-control is like cycling. Learn to control yourself with cash, this is your old bike, which is not a pity. And when you feel confident, you can switch to fancy speed bikes - use credit and debit cards.

4. Visit places where you like to spend money, without a card and with a little cash

Most people have places where they are unlikely to resist the temptation and are more likely to spend a lot of money on what they want without even thinking about the consequences. A cafe. Book store. Electronics store. Clothing store. Everyone has their own weaknesses.

You probably expect advice never to visit such places again. But this does not teach you self-control, but only problem avoidance.

We offer a much smarter recommendation. Visit such tempting places from time to time, but first decide how much you are willing to spend within reasonable limits.

Leave the card at home, you only need a little cash. If you have not decided exactly what you will buy, for the first time go without any money at all and take a closer look. Then go with a specific amount to be paid for the coveted purchase.

This process, especially repeated over and over again, teaches you to resist temptation. And resistance to temptation is the basis of self-control.

5. Focus on participation, not shopping

Busy people often buy things just to keep in touch with their hobby or passion.

For example, a person passionately loves to read, but life has developed in such a way that there is almost always not enough time for deep reading. But he keeps buying books that he would like to read (and hopes to read them sometime later). This is a psychological trap: buying replaces execution.

Do something rather than buy substitutes. If not having enough free time is the problem, start by revising your schedule.

Participation in something interesting to you is an incredibly effective way to get rid of the obsessive desire to spend more and more money on things that replace participation itself. First, read everything from the piled-up pile of books, and only then buy new ones.

6. Choose the right communication format

We all go out to meet other people, spend time outside the home and participate in some kind of social activity. Most often, these meetings take place in clubs, restaurants, shops and other places where you have to spend a lot of money.

For example, you go out with friends for lunch, then go to the movies, and then still decide to look into a bar. And your wallet already lacks a couple of thousand rubles.

Beware of this format of communication. You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a good time with your friends. For example, you can gather at someone's home. Or anywhere else where spending money is not a defining activity, but part of the experience: play football in a nearby park or go for a picnic.

Perhaps some of your friends will refuse such a pastime. Well, this is a great test to determine which of your acquaintances is more interested in going out and spending money, and who wants to chat with you.

7. Keep track of your expenses and revise them periodically

The biggest challenge with tracking spending is that people usually don't have one place to collect data on all their spending and see where the money goes at all.

The solution is simple: track your expenses and write down where you spend every penny. For convenience, you can break down all spending into categories: food, entertainment, clothing, household chemicals, transport, large purchases, utility bills, and so on.

You can use one of the applications to control your personal finances. For the same purposes, a regular notepad and a spreadsheet on a laptop are suitable. Regardless of which tool you choose, the goal remains the same: record your spending every day, sort it by category, and analyze it to see which categories you overspend.

Such a revision of spending is almost always a discovery for the person. Think carefully about the categories of expenses that impressed you the most. Was these purchases really that important to you? Most likely no. What expenses or specific monthly purchases can you completely opt out of? At least a few of these will definitely be found.

8. Automatically transfer money to a savings account

There is one well-known old rule - pay yourself first. This means that the first thing you have to do is pay off debts and save money for the future, and only then decide how to live on the remaining amount.

The easiest way to stick to this rule is to automate the process. As soon as the salary is credited to the card, 10% will be immediately transferred to your savings account. If your bank has such a service, make sure that utility bills and loans can also be paid immediately.

The more operations you can do on the machine, the better.

9. Ask close friends and family for help

A trusted circle of friends and family can be very helpful when it comes to personal change, which includes gaining financial self-control.

At a minimum, they can give you very helpful advice that suits your situation and the qualities you have. They know you. They know almost everything about your business, and sometimes they even know better than you.

In addition, it is always great if there is a person nearby who cares about you, provides support in difficult times. Just talk to someone when a change begins to occur in your life. This is great motivation.

Also, your friends and family can be great role models. Perhaps you have a friend who has achieved the same financial goals that you plan to achieve. Use him as a mentor to follow the same path. Learn from his experience.

10. Don't give up when things don't work out

You can make a mistake once or twice when planning your expenses. You can buy something without thinking. You can make a purchase that you will regret later. You might think that self-control is not about you at all and you shouldn't even start.

Do not worry. Financial progress is a story about the fact that there is at least one backward two steps forward.

The goal is to strive to be better than you were before. If you make a mistake, don't dwell on it. Instead, understand the reasons for your behavior and try to avoid it in the future.