Stick To The Plan

Finding it hard to stick to the budget plan sometimes? Overspending? Impulse buying? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of these, help is at hand.

We are creatures of habit. According to research, 40% of our actions are automatic. So if we want to change a habit, we need more than just willpower and determination to do that. Here are some suggestions to help you get to the root of your spending habits and impulses, and put some steps in place to make changes.

Laying the foundations

Good spending and saving behaviour will only come from laying good solid foundations. Make sure that you have started with a realistic budget. Otherwise you’re setting yourself up to fail. Make sure that you have accurate figures for

· your bills

· your other expenditure

· your income

Time spent up front to work out your real-life figures is time well spent.

Understand

Understand what is it that you are budgeting or saving for. Have a good reason. This is your motivation. Think hard about your priorities. Ask yourself what is your personal motivation for wanting to make the changes that you’re planning? If your spending is aligned to your priorities, it is less likely that you’ll be distracted, and more likely that you’ll succeed in sticking to your budget.

Affirm

Many people say that writing down an affirmation or encouraging statement works. Its your rock. Your anchor. Your grounding. When times are tough, look at this to remind you of the reason you’re working towards your plan. Think of ways that you have proven in the past that you can overcome challenges. Some people use visual prompts as a source of motivation. They might be saving up for a holiday – a picture of their holiday might just be the thing they need to remind them to stay on track. Put the picture somewhere prominent, where you see it regularly.

Review

Take time to review. Try to match the time you check your budget to your most productive time of day – are you a morning person or a night owl? Set a reminder if necessary and try hard to stick to this routine – it's so much harder to catch up, and to carry out a proper review, if you’ve left it too long or skipped a week.

Target

Set yourself ‘easy wins’ as well as longer-term targets. This shows you that it is possible to reach your targets, and gives you a boost to progress through the plan.

Avoid Temptation

Avoid temptation. Easier said than done. A good start is to unsubscribe from emails containing discount codes and 'special offers’ as often these are for items that are not necessary. Be aware of how social media subtly promotes items for sale. Be aware of how easy it is to be triggered into wandering into shops which you don’t actually need an item from.

Have Fun

We only live once and try to build in some fun, fulfilment and living into what you do. If you do without all the joys of life, you will turn against the budget. See it as ‘self-care’ for the budget to bolster it to work for you long-term. Build in incentives and rewards so that you recognise your achievement and reward it. Don’t go mad - plan the spending in advance and allow for it.

Be A Habit-Changer

Take a good hard look at your day to day life so that you can spot your habits. Choose the ones you want to address (buying coffee when out, shopping online after a drink or two, getting a takeaway every weekend), and then find practical ways to break those habits. Here are a few ideas:

· get yourself a nice re-useable cup and make coffee at home

· introduce a ‘sleep on it’ rule for anything bought online

· shake up your weekend menu planning with a ‘fakeaway’ cooking session

Jam Jar Budgeting

This could be:

· Having physical containers for each category of expense so that you can see how your resources are changing

· Setting up a bank account that automatically takes a set amount from your main account (to pay for certain regular bills)

This method visualises your budget and it also helps develop the good budget habit.

Realism

Be realistic and look at the long term. Sometimes the budget will ‘go west’. Nobody is perfect. Budgeting is a long haul. Don’t worry if things go wrong – go back to the start and begin again – remember that if your heart is in it, you will succeed more than you fail and good habits will form and at worst, things will be getting better.

Saying No

it’s OK to say no (or not today) sometimes. Defend your budget against the curveballs life throws at you. If you can get that message clear in your mind before you get into an unplanned situation where you are tempted to spend, your subconscious may remind you of it!

Pressure

There are influences (and influencers!) are all around us – now more than ever with social media being everywhere. Social media and carefully curated photography and video can be very misleading. Take what you see with a pinch of salt. Consider ‘unfollowing’ people, giving yourself a social media break, or even changing the people you spend time with in real life if they have a particular influence on you.

Support

Have someone someone alongside you to help you stick to your plans, encourage you, hold you accountable and be the voice of your conscience. Plan a regular check-in with them. At the check-in, review the previous month or period, plan for the upcoming one, and review your goals.

If this is not possible, try ‘success tracking’ to acknowledge positive financial actions, so that you are encouraged by being able to see the progress you have made. Get a notebook and write down every time you do something positive with your finances, such as:

· paying a certain amount of money towards a debt

· paying a bill on time

· achieving a savings goal

Celebrate the success. Get a calendar to tick things off. Mark down every day you manage to stick to your budget, or every month you manage to achieve your savings target. This is extremely motivating to see. When you have a ‘winning streak’ of successes, you won’t want to break the streak by letting it lapse.

Triggers

Identify your spending triggers and work on ways to counteract them. Common triggers include:

· Stress

· Boredom

· Sadness

· Anxiety

· Loneliness

· Hunger

· Peer pressure

· Envy

These triggers are real and they need to be addressed. Studies show that walking the aisles of a supermarket with an empty stomach can make us spend up to 60% more on food!

Take time to identify your spending triggers. Make a note of those times where you’ve spent money that wasn’t accounted for in your budget. Think about what was going on in your life at that time and see if there are any common themes. Then think about other ways you might be able to deal with the causes – stress, anxiety, boredom etc. You might consider one of these alternatives:

· going out for a run

· calling a friend for moral support

· or use the desire to go online to make some money rather than spend it

Try to think of alternatives during a period of calm, and make practical plans for how you can opt for them

Put Up Barriers

Make it harder for yourself to impulse buy or deviate from your planned spending. Here are a few ideas:

· leaving your credit card at home

· logging out of all the online shopping sites you use

· taking only the amount of cash that you need out with you

· pre-loading a top-up card with the amount you need

· taking someone along with you on a shopping trip who can remind you of your goals and help to turn you away from impulse spending (aka nag you to not spend).

Bed In New Habits

Come up with a trigger that will start a new good habit. This could be something like making a packed lunch when making breakfast so that you don’t find yourself having to buy an expensive lunch. Our brains are always looking for ways to simplify what we do and an action repeated lots of times will become automatic without having to be specifically thought about.

Get Organised

Use a system to remember to take key actions. This could be:

· a reminder on your phone for key dates

· a regular alarm notifying you to review bills

· a post-it on your mirror to remind you of intentions at the start of the day.

A final thought – changing behaviour is a really tough thing to do – it takes time, and it’s a constant work in progress, so be kind to yourself as you’re trying out some of these suggestions!