We’ve all done it. I used to swear blind over my New Year’s Eve vodka that this year I’ll stick to my resolution. They have included:
“Starting tomorrow – no more chocolate”
“I’ll go to the gym four times a week and I’m going to drop a dress size by Valentine’s Day”
“No more buying crap, I’m sick of being broke”
Most years, by the 4th of January, I was left with about 37cents in my purse because I’d spent the last of my cash on a family sized box of chocolate biscuits and a bottle of wine to wash them down with. That was the old me. Having a baby made me surprisingly money-conscious. I’m slowly but surely weaning myself off my Visa card and I’ve discovered this new thing called Saving that did not exist in my pre-baby vocabulary.
I can’t help anyone drop a dress size, turn down a glass of vino with the girls to hit the gym or stop watching the soaps on the Telly. What I can do is help make sure there is more than a cobweb in your purse the day before payday.
All you need to do is make a small change every week and this time next year you’ll have enough cash to cover the Christmas shopping without panic and maybe even something left over for the January sales…
This week – Write it down.
If Santa didn’t leave a pocket sized diary in your Christmas stocking this year then treat yourself to one in the January sales. Mine lives in my handbag and I write down everything I spend. Yes, everything, even if it’s only a euro.
Think about it, you pop into town for an hour to grab something for dinner. You park your car in the pay parking car-park, lets estimate parking at €2, go to the supermarket to get groceries, throw in a magazine for lets say €4, at the till pick up a chocolate bar for another €2. If your meal ingredients cost €12 then you’d probably count in your head that you spent €12 on dinner. You actually spent €20.
Before you jump down my throat, there is nothing wrong with treating yourself to a magazine or chocolate and sometimes you have to park in a pay park area if there isn’t any free parking available. Just be honest with yourself, write down everything so you can see exactly how much you spend in a week on treats or non essentials. It might be better to do a big shop once a week and save on the trips to town or buy a multipack of chocolate bars instead of grabbing a bar or two at the till…
Next week – How to make extra cash in January
Great post - writing things down really helped me to get my spending under control. I never bothered to count the cost of the odd lunchtime trip to Tesco for a magazine, a Coke, a box of herbal teabags (can't drink the black tea provided for free in the office - Boo!), but it turned out that most of them were adding up to about a tenner each.
ReplyDeleteNow I make a list before I go, try not to buy random stuff I don't need, and I applied for a clubcard because I am actually spending enough that it's worth earning points.
Thanks Ellen, glad you like it. The easiest way to start saving money is to make little changes each week :-)
ReplyDelete