Get Ready for a Monthly Financial Detox
We all have a couple of money habits that we can change.
Avoiding unnecessary spending for a month alone will not change your life or make you rich. (And sometimes the extra spending on things is worth it.) But if you have a spending habit that you feel guilty about or want to change, the advantage is that it’s a manageable amount of time that’s still enough to potentially lead to long-term consequences. … change. You can focus on the next four weeks, which in turn can make you realize that you can keep this habit even longer.
“Something happens when you start forming your ridiculously light habit,” said David Kadavi, a podcaster who writes about work and creativity. “You start to feel good. When you enjoy it, you start to enjoy it. When you like it, it’s easy to do. “
And in February there are only 28 days, so everything will be easy.
Detox your spending
The first step is to figure out what you need to give up. Maybe you already know what it is – you feel guilty about all your seamless orders, or you already have a ton of video games that you have yet to roll out. If this isn’t obvious to you, look at your credit card transactions and bank statements from the past few months. You will find something.
Once you do, commit to taking it out of your expenses over the next month. You can write it down in a journal or a note, tell a friend, post a status on Facebook, or whatever. Then figure out what steps you need to take to avoid the purchase.
If it’s a clothing purchase, unsubscribe from retailer newsletters or take a different route home from work that requires you to cross fewer stores. If it’s food, invite your friends over for lunch instead of going outside, or unsubscribe from some Instagram restaurants.
Here’s mine: I refuse orders at Seamless / out-of-home dining. Instead, I’m hoping to cook more at home, which overlaps with one of my other goals for 2018 – learning how to cook my favorite meals.
If you want to raise your rate, you can use an app like Qapital and set a rule that the same amount of money you spend on clothes for a month, for example, is in a savings account. Or, you can reward yourself every day or week that you don’t buy clothes by investing a certain amount in your vacation fund.
So what spending habit can you lose? We’ll check in mid-month and at the end to see how you did. Good luck.