Curb Your Spending To Live Your Best Life

Life is much more than just having all the modern comforts and conveniences. In fact, these things can detract from living the best life we can.

What is living your best life? It simply means getting the most out of life by taking time to do the things that bring you joy. It can be spending more time with your family, slow travel, learning a new skill or helping others less fortunate.

It may seem odd that your spending habits would keep you from living life on your terms, but the reality is that it is easy to get into a cycle of earning and spending and that leaves you less time to do the things that make you happy. When you end up with more money in your pocket then you have more freedom to retire early.

In this article, I will give you some ways to cut back on your spending so you can have more time and freedom to live your best life.

1 – Understand your triggers

Spending is emotional and there is a psychology behind why we overspend. Understanding what your triggers are will help you curb your spending by overcoming the urge.

You can then replace them with different emotional responses by saving money instead. If you’re motivated by saving enough FU money to leave your job and start your own business or simply retire early, then that is a good emotional response to switch to as you can see in this article.

Think about what kinds of moods cause you to shop to make yourself feel better. When you feel that mood coming try to find a substitute that will take your mind off of the feeling so you can move on and not shop as a result.

Image Credit: Simon Cunningham via Flickr CC 2.0 – Curb Your Spending To Live Your Best Life

2 – Track your spending

Take a month and keep track of everything you spend your money on. You can divide your expenses up between recurring and non recurring. Things like rent or mortgage, car payments and credit card payments can all fall under the recurring banner and are tracked automatically.

For non recurring, every time you spend money on food shopping, a coffee, or even a movie needs to be entered into the app or spreadsheet so you can look back at the end of the month and find the obvious areas where you can cut spending.

3 – Stop using credit cards

Yes, you want the points, I get it! But, you end up spending money that is unnecessary. When you use cash you are more aware of when you are spending money so you only spend what you can.

Even if you plan to pay off your purchases as soon as the bill arrives, chances are you are spending on things that you really don’t need just so you can get points.

4 – Make a budget

Now that you can see where your money is going and how much you actually need to just get by, you can make yourself a budget. Make sure to give yourself some wiggle room for some occasional purchases that are for fun and games or even just a wish list item.

If you stick to your budget then you can stop spending so much and have the money you need to actually enjoy the non material things in your life.