Have you ever found yourself browsing the mall out of boredom and walking out with more bags than you can carry? You get home and soon cringe at the pile of stuff thrown across your bed. You hang everything up in your wardrobe or fold it neatly in your drawers with the best intentions, not realising that you might not ever wear any of it.
Maybe you just love a good sale and can’t resist a buy one get one free offer. You walk out with two pairs of whatever you just bought thinking to yourself how great a deal it was even if though you know you didn’t need either of them.
You reach for your credit card, and with a quick tap, you’ve bought a new lipstick to add to the 20 others you have at home in your bathroom drawers.
Your once new car is now seven years old and you might have finally paid it off. You have a spare $300 a month freed up to do whatever you want with it… Maybe you’ll save it up for a rainy day fund or put it towards that holiday you’ve been wanting to take the family on. But some of you will quickly go out and buy another new car with a new repayment to go with it. After all, you’ve grown used to having a car payment so what’s the difference right?
If you can relate to any of the above occasions these could indicate that you may be spending your money without intention.
Of course, when we are bombarded with advertisements wherever we look, it can be hard to recognise problem spending patterns until you stop and consider your spending habits and their impact on your finances and maybe even those close to you.
If you appreciate a new handbag or new camera lens, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We all work hard and deserve something we love or enjoy every now and then – of course, as long as we can afford it. That is, we can pay for it in cash or at least pay off the credit card in full when the payment is due.
But that’s usually not the case.
We can all so easily pull out our credit cards to get that must-have new item today rather than waiting until we save up for it. We justify our spending because we can afford the repayments, but this might not always be the case. Our unintentional spending can overtime blow up into much bigger financial problems.
A new subscription or pair of shoes here and there is manageable, but when spending becomes a regular, impulsive, and unintentional habit we can find ourselves in a financial situation that can be very difficult to get out of.
Take the Minimise With Me Spending Questionaire to see if you might need to get more intentional with your spending habits.