What helps you eliminate bad spending habits?

How many times have you made financial mistakes because of bad spending habits ?  Too many to count? Already reached perfection?

Life gives people daily opportunities to use good money management strategies or to ignore them. The good news is that if you have failed, there is always another day to try again at your goals.

Money management strategies can be as challenging for some people as going on a diet. For other people, keeping a budget and sticking to your goals is no problem at all.

Here are a few causes of people who have gotten themselves into bad situations.

1. Poor communication with your significant other about money.
2. Lack of setting realistic goals so spending is much easier.
3. Little or no record keeping so you are unaware of how much you are spending.
4. Allowing yourself to purchase things because you think you deserve them.
5. Lack of career preparation so income levels aren’t what they should be.
6. Taking care of everyone else before you take care of yourself.
7. Failing to look at the consequences of barely meeting your bills from month to month.
8. Little or no savings to rely on in case of emergencies.
9. Being a recreational shopper.
10. Not being able to distinguish between needs or wants.

Here are a few tips to help you break your bad spending habits

1. Leave your credit cards at home. It’s much easier to spend if you take them wih you, so just leave them at home.
2. Limit yourself to 1 or 2 credit card accounts. It’s easier to pay them down if you don’t have so many credit cards.
3. Shop with a list and plan what you are going to buy.
4. Recognize when you are impulse shopping.
5. Go shopping with a friend that knows your goals.
6. Use what you already have in your home.
7. If you need therapy, get it. Don’t using shopping as therapy.
8. Be resourceful and try to do without what you think you want.
9. Remember: No-one ever became rich by spending all of their money.
10. Ask yourself: “Do I really need this?”, “Will I end up wasting this?”, “Is this an extravagance I can easily live without?”

So find out what the real culprit is behind your urge to splurge and recognize it. Read about how to fix your bad spending habits.

Remind yourself daily that money or a lack of it doesn’t determine who you are. Your worth as a person has nothing to do with how much money you have. Once you truly believe this, and money is no longer connected to your sense of self-worth, you open up the psychological barriers that were keeping you from wisely handling the money you do have and limiting your ability to make more. 

Build a library of the best personal finance books out there. Find a great list of books at the Get Rich Slowly blog.

What helps you eliminate bad spending habits?