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Most people make the mistake of thinking that accomplishing financial goals (and goals in general!) is all about willpower.
“I’ll be strong and stay on budget when we go out to eat.”
“I’m just going to look when I get to the store.”
“I can stick to my budget, even if I go to the farm and ranch store and look at the cute flannel shirts on sale.”
Just me on that one? Not going to lie, I love my flannel shirts!
Seriously, nobody has that much willpower. I sure don’t! It may seem like some people wake up one morning and decide to change their whole life and just grit their teeth and push through.
And they must just be better at it all than the rest of us normal people who buy all the things and have trouble sticking to our budgets and getting out of debt.
Want to know a secret?
Even the people who seem to have it all together struggle with willpower.
Instead of relying on willpower, what they do is set themselves up for success. They have systems that they’ve put in place to help them accomplish their goals.
So if you tend to overspend on groceries, order your groceries so you aren’t buying candy bars in the checkout line instead! This is something I’ve been doing lately, and I love it!
Ya’ll are familiar with my rants about going to the grocery store. I really think this is my favorite solution so far. I can avoid going in, it’s so much quicker, and because I’m using an app to shop it’s really easy to make sure I’m not going over budget as well as avoid making impulse purchases.
Seriously, the app is amazing! It keeps a running total for you, and you can add and subtract things from your cart. You can totally avoid the embarrassment of standing at the cash register realizing you added something up wrong and now you’re short on money.
Another system that has worked really well for me is the envelope system. In this system you place the amount of money you’ve budgeted for each category in an envelope. When the money is gone, you’re done spending.
So if you budget fifty dollars for eating out, once you’ve spent that money you don’t get to eat out anymore. This works so well because you can easily tell if you have money to spend on something before you spend it. The envelopes do all the work of keeping you on budget.
One of my other favorite tricks is to use willpower for short amounts of time so you don’t have to use it for long amounts of time.
This is a tip I discovered when I started trying to eat healthier. If I kept junk food in the house it was only a matter of time until I ended up eating it. I just didn’t have the willpower to not eat the chocolate when I saw it every single time I opened my cupboard.
So, I stopped buying it.
I know, it was such a duh moment. But, all I had to do was have willpower for the 45 minutes or so that I was at the store and then I was safe for the rest of the week!
You can apply this tip to finances just as easily!
Trying to save money?
Transfer it to your savings account as soon as you get paid. If you need to, open an account at another bank and deposit the money there. Then it’s not as easy to just login and transfer it back to the checking account where it will get spent.
A few minutes of willpower removes the need for ongoing willpower, it’s super simple but crazy effective!
Sometimes though, nothing seems to work.
You aren’t superwoman. You aren’t going to have perfect willpower all the time, it’s just not possible. Everybody has days when they just don’t have the energy that they need to power through.
Maybe your baby was up all night or you had (another) fight with your spouse over money.
You’re feeling bad and of course you want to feel better. So off you go to the mall to get a treat.
Oooh and while you’re there, there’s a great sale going on! So you buy some new jeans, then you stop and get some yummy smelling candles, and some lotion, and before you know it you’ve spent fifty or a hundred dollars trying to make yourself feel better.
And the crazy thing is, IT WORKS.
Buying things triggers all sorts of pleasure centers in your brain. It actually feels good. The problem is, it’s a short term high. Your problems are still there and you probably made them worse with your shopping spree.
Make a plan for hard days.
Bad days are going to happen, unfortunately nobody is immune to that. The trick is to have a plan in place for those bad days.
Instead of making yourself feel better by going and blowing your budget, have a treat at home to replace the high you would get from spending money.
For example, I keep some fancy apple cider mix in my cupboards. When I have a rough day and need to feel better I make myself a hot mug of apple cider, and pull out my biggest, fluffiest quilt. I curl up under it with my mug of cider and my baby and we watch Netflix. I feel a lot better and there’s no guilt from blowing my budget shopping.
Maybe your thing is facials. Stock up on some masks and get you a fancy face roller. Light some candles and treat yourself to an at home spa and bubble bath.
Whatever your thing is, make that your go to fix instead of spending money.
When you’re trying to come up with a replacement for your bad habits try to find something that the very idea of it just puts a smile on your face. If it’s something you look forward to and really love, it will be so much easier to replace your spending habit.
Here’s the thing, it’s totally normal to mess up! It happens to everybody. Yes, even the people who seem like they have it all together have bad days. They eat all the cookies or they blow the grocery budget. The difference is that instead of punishing themselves and giving up, they wake up the next morning and keep working.
So you went over the grocery budget by $30. Figure out where you went off track and then make a plan to fix it for your next shopping trip.
No matter what, don’t give up. It’s all about progress, not perfection.
What are your favorite tips to stay on budget when you’re short on willpower? Comment and share with me!
