Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck and never having enough money to do the things that are important to you? In this blog post. I’ll be sharing 7 money habits that are keeping you broke. When you know better, you can do better.
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7 Money Habits That Are Keeping You Broke
Do you always find yourself running out of money in the week leading up to payday? Do you find yourself counting down the days until your next payment from your employer? There’s a reason for this. The secret is in your money habits. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing 7 money habits that are keeping you broke. When you know better, you can do better.
1) You Don’t Know How Much It Costs To Be You
I think perhaps one of the biggest money mistakes that I see people make is not having a clear picture and understanding of what it costs to be them. If I ask you, how much does it cost to be you, do you know the answer?
A lot of times we have a brief idea or a rough understanding of this cost, but we don’t have a clue pound for pound. This is a dangerous position to be in. It’s important to know how much it costs, and I mean really costs to be you.
Do you know how much you spend on food every month? How about travel and toiletries? It’s important that we know exactly how much it costs to live the life you’re currently living, because if you don’t know this information you’ll never gain financial control.
But how do I do this Tolu I hear you ask?
A zero-based budget will help you with this. A zero-based budget is where you write out all of your expenses and subtract it from your income. Keep adding to your expenses until you reach the value zero. This means every penny and pound has been given an assignment. This doesn’t mean you spend all your money, some of the allocations should also go towards, saving investing, paying off debt etc.
You can download a free copy of my zero-based budget template here, drop me an email if you have any questions, or book yourself in for a coaching call if you need any help.
2) You try to keep up with the Jones’
One sure-fire way to ensure that you never have enough money is to keep up with the Joneses. Being consumed and concerned with what other people are doing and how they are spending their money, is a guaranteed way to lose your money.
The reality is we are all on different journeys and will take different lengths of time to reach our destination. Spending time focusing on what your neighbours are doing will only make it take longer for you to reach your destination.
Don’t allow social media, peer pressure, or FOMO to make you spend money that you have no business spending. Instead, commit to managing your finances responsibly and don’t succumb to peer pressure.
3) You Don’t Practise Delayed Gratification
Self-denial is probably one of the greatest acts of self-love. Learn to say no to yourself sometimes – your bank balance will thank you for this. Thanks to advertising we are constantly being bombarded with messages telling us all the things we need to buy. Social Media only makes the problem 100 times worse. Learning to practise delayed gratification will save you so much money in the long run. Don’t fall for the low-hanging fruit, instead learn to say no to yourself.
There’s nothing wrong with saving up to buy something that you want, applying the 72 hour rule. If you’re not familiar with the rule, the idea is basically if there’s something you want to buy, wait 72 hours before making the purchase. If after 72 hours you still want to make that purchase, then go right ahead. You’re less likely to regret the purchase by doing this.
4) You Get Sucked Into Sales And Special Offers
I don’t know why we say we’re “saving money” when we buy something on special offer. We’re not saving money, we’re spending money. So if there’s an item you want to buy that originally costs £100 and you manage to buy it for £75, you haven’t saved £25, you’ve spent £75.
Moreover, it’s only a good deal if you actually needed to buy it. Stores are notorious for promoting these irresistible offers to us. You went to buy an SD card for your camera but the offer for a new camera was just irresistible so you had to buy it. Well actually, you didn’t need to buy it all. Don’t fall prey to these marketing tactics and you’ll save so much more of your money.
5) You Spend Other People’s Money
Stop swipe-swiping that credit card like it’s going out of fashion. The trouble with buying things on credit, or even paying using your card in general is that you don’t really feel it as much. Because it’s a piece of plastic you don’t really feel like you’re spending money. It hurts more to part with £100 cash vs. tapping your credit card.
Additionally, research has proven that we spend a lot more on shopping when we use our credit card vs. pay with cash. Stop spending other people’s money and you’ll find yourself spending a lot less. It’s so much easier to spend money when it’s not yours.
6) You Finance Things And Purchase Things On Credit
The other day my laptop died and I needed to buy a replacement. I wanted to buy a MacBook pro, but the truth is, I don’t currently have MacBook Pro money. I opted for an HP Pavillion, it’s definitely not fancy but it was something I could afford.
The old Tolu would have purchased the MacBook Pro on my credit card without even giving it a second thought. The new Tolu is determined not to take on any unnecessary consumer debt. I looked at how much the HP Pavillion would be if I took on a monthly contract, I was shocked to see how much more I’d pay for it. The offer said 9 months free and then payment. However when I looked at the small print the £15 monthly payments added up to £500 – a £125 markup. Daylight robbery I tell you!
That’s how these companies get you, these small monthly payments, over the long-run end up costing you so much more than the item would if you bought it outright. If you can’t pay cash for it, you can’t afford it. Adopt that approach with your spending and you’ll save yourself so much money on a monthly basis.
7) Not Saving Or Setting Yourself A Savings Goal
The reality is, if you don’t make plans for your money, someone else will. Set yourself clear short, medium, and long-term financial goals and you’ll find that you stop spending money on unnecessary things.
Having a clear goal gives you something to work towards and aim for and allows you to remain focused on your journey. If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived at your destination? Failure to plan really is planning for failure.
If you need help with goal setting check out this blog post where I outline steps to creating SMART goals along with examples.
So these are some of the money habits that are keeping you broke. You may be able to relate to one or many of them. The beauty of habits is that they can be changed and you can create new habits at any point in time.
As 2020 swiftly draws to a close, there’s no better time to start creating new money habits than now.
Can you relate to or identify with any of these money habits mentioned in this post? Let me know in the comments section below.
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If you enjoyed this post, ’7 Money Habits That Are Keeping You Broke′ then you will also enjoy my other blog posts on similar topics. Check them out below:
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