Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission, at no additional cost to you! See our disclaimer for details.
If you want to finally stop spending money on things you don’t need, than this article may be the most important post you will read all year.
You’ve been struggling to stop spending so much money.
You go through cycles of spending, budgeting, and saving… all to circle back to spending too much.
Let’s face it. It is hard to stop bad habits! It isn’t fun to quit or change your lifestyle cold turkey.
In this article I am going to show you five secrets that can massively change how you view your spending habits. If you want to save money, get out of debt, or just plain stop spending so much, you need these 5 secrets!
The 5 ways to stop spending money on things you don’t need are:
- Unsubscribe and Unfollow
- Track Your Income and Expenses
- Use The 72 Hour Rule
- Get Your Partner’s Approval
- Have Budget Meetings
Let’s dive into each of these secrets and you’ll discover how you can take control of your life and fianlly improve your financial situation!
1. Unsubscribe and Unfollow
You may have heard this tip before, but it is transformational!
Right now, go open your email and take 20 minutes to unsubscribe to as many marketing emails as you can.
Here’s the deal: Companies have marketing teams for a reason!
Social media and websites track your data. They track what you look up and search for. They specifically learn how you shop and find ways to make you buy more!
That is just how marketing works! The more you buy, the more companies profit.
So, this first tip is that, if you deal with spontaneous spending, it’s likely because you’re frequently reeled in from some of these marketing attempts!
Thing is, it really is not the biggest deal if you miss out on a sale! So many companies and businesses have sales every week, or at least every month. Therefore, go right now and unsubscribe!
Next, go over to your social media, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever be. Go unfollow all your favorite stores and whatever on the platform that you find give you that itch to spend.
There are ads that you can request to not be shown to you and you can unfollow accounts.
2. Track Your Income and Expenses
This first tip will not only change how you spend your money, but will improve your entire spending lifestyle!
First, start tracking your income and expenses. Note that it is so important to be honest with yourself about your spending history!
So there is an amazing movement and community of women who are trying to achieve a life of financial freedom. If you are part of the Free Life Movement, you can use your printables to track your income and track your expenses.
However, if you don’t have those fun printables, I encourage you to at least get a free money tracking app like Personal Capital to track your income and expenses!
Along with this, it is critical to be honest with yourself. Thing is, if you don’t have full control over your money now, chances are that you’ll struggle to have full control over stopping your spending money later on!
Do you know how much money you earn each month? Do you fully know how much you spend each month? Knowing these are foundational to curbing your spending habits!
3. Use The 72-Hour Rule
There are multiple “spending rules” out there, but I have found this one to be the most effective!
This rule can be very helpful for you, especially if you want to buy something right now! Key with this rule is you can put all your items in your cart but you must wait at least three days to make the purchase.
For me, I typically use this rule if the purchase is over $30.
4. Get Your Partner’s Approval
Although some of you may not be a fan of this tip, it is very helpful for two reasons:
First, having honest and open communication with your spouse (or accountability partner) is great to establish and build trust.
Second, this can really help you curb your spending habits!
How this works is you agree with your partner to discuss with them in the future whenever you plan on spending more than a set amount of money. This could be $30, $50, $100, or whatever you decide.
This tip alone is typically enough to make you not want to spend but also it could eventually help you to realize why you’re spending. Your partner may question why you need that new pair of jeans or they may question why you need that pair of shoes.
If this could help you to cut back on your spending just a little bit more, it is worth trying out!
5. Have Budget Meetings
I always encourage everyone to have regular budgeting meetings with a spouse or your partner.
Some people have an accountability partner as well, which could be a family member or friend.
Budget meetings are usually once a month. They are super easy and all you need to do is quickly review your income and your expenses in the next month.
This will give you a great idea of how much you spent the previous month and give you a great plan for the month ahead. You’re able to see if are you on track with your goals or you’re able to have someone else reflect on your spending history.
This could help you realize what it is that you can improve or change. This also really helps you with your spouse to make sure that you both are on track with your budgets.
This, again, helps to unify you and your partner (and/or family) and to prevent financial fights! Being very open with your spouse or partner about your spending helps you to reduce your spontaneous spending.
Final Thoughts
I have struggled with spending pretty much my whole life.
It wasn’t until I had a structured plan in place with all the resources and tools that I needed to stop this terrible habit! These tools and resources are jam-packed into the Free Life Workbook, which is a really neat resource that any woman can hugely benefit from.
This workbook is curated specifically for women and created to help you curb your spontaneous spending, get control over your money, and achieve some crazy awesome financial goals!
It’s a massive book of printables, charts, guides, and tools you need to help you escape this habit and look toward the future of financial abundance!
Whether if your goal is to pay off your debt or achieve something as incredible as financial freedom, the Free Life Movement is an awesome community of women who are looking to achieve some insanely awesome money goals!
Hopefully these five secrets will make an impact on your spontaneous spending and help you get control over over money!