There are usually only 2 ways to deal with personal finances that have gone out of control, one of which is increasing the overall income of your household whereas the other would be employing some budgeting strategies.
Of course, the former can be much more difficult, especially if you’re already working one job, so finding a side-hustle or second employment becomes significantly more difficult.
On top of this, even if you do manage to do it, it’s an excruciatingly long process, and soon you’ll find that you’re hemorrhaging money at a faster pace than you’re making it.
This is why it’s much easier to figure out where all this extra money is going and what you can do to prevent it from happening.
You also can’t completely stop spending money, as you’ll still have your living expenses to take care of, so make sure to make the cuts where it’ll count.
Examine your finances
The first step to spending less money is actually figuring out where all your money is going.
Naturally, you can’t keep track of this if you just do all the calculations in your head, so you’ll need some tools to organize everything.
However, it’s not that complicated, and considering all your bank, credit card, and debt data are available online, you can just export it into a spreadsheet where you’ll have a better view of all your expenses.
This way you can do a thorough examination of your spending and even create a system that will continuously monitor all your expenses and income.
Several apps already exist that can make this process fully automated, and all you’ve got to do is link your bank account to them while they do all the heavy lifting.
Once you’ve got it figured out, you can then focus on repurposing some of the money you’ve been spending previously and get back in control of your finances.
Work out a budget that fits you
One of the best ways to curb your overspending is to give yourself a monthly budget to work with, as you won’t have any extra money to throw away on meaningless purchases.
Of course, this does imply that you already have a good grasp of all your bank accounts and credit cards, and with the help of organizing software, you could sort out your spending and create income expectations for the following month.
In fact, you can update your budget on the go if you already have a smartphone, making it easier to keep track of exactly how much you have left.
The most popular template people tend to choose is the 50/30/20, although you could let the highly-advanced software figure it out for you.
Through apps like personal capital, you can even implement spending triggers, which will notify you when you begin overspending on a certain category of product.
Set some goals to work towards
We all have that one thing we’ve wanted for a longer period of time, but couldn’t afford due to our finances being all out of order.
Thankfully, with some proper management, those times are long gone, and if you choose to stop overspending on pointless purchases, you may be able to make your dreams come true.
It goes without saying that the goals you’re working towards should be at least somewhat realistic because high expectations can be detrimental to your emotional health if you can’t achieve them in the desired time.
Because of this, you’ll want to have a budgeting plan that sets aside a certain amount of money every month, preferably a percentage of the disposable income you’ll have left, which will help you save up for the goal you set.
Naturally, this does require a fair amount of discipline and patience most of all, especially if it’s a longer-term goal we’re talking about, so you must first figure out whether you already have the means to achieve said goal.
You should always keep track of your progress, as it’ll let you know exactly how much longer you’ll have to adhere to the budgeting plan you’ve set up, while also keeping you motivated to work towards your goals.
Stay off social media
While this does sound unrelated, it’s easy to figure out why it’s so important if you just look at how social media works these days.
If you’ve been scrolling through Facebook or Instagram recently, you may have noticed the dozens of ads that pop up every couple of seconds.
These ads are targeted and they will change depending on your spending habits, purposely to lure you into spending your money on a product that you were merely interested in for a short while.
On top of this, being exposed to someone else’s lavish lifestyle can push you into spending a little extra of your own money as well.
This can be extremely damaging to your finances, especially if the spending is way above what you’ve already set to spend this month.