The desire to spend money, whether on snacks or buying new things, can indeed tempt anyone. The difference is, some are easily tempted and some manage to hold back the temptation. Which one are you?
Because those who can control themselves from emotional spending already know how to avoid being tempted, in this article, Jago will reveal the 5 surefire ways to control the spending urges to those who are still struggling.
Why Should We be Able to Control Spending and Avoid Being Wasteful?
A wasteful attitude is the biggest enemy of financial stability and has significant damaging long-term effects:
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Sacrificing Future Security: Wastefulness spends the money that should be allocated for financial goals like an emergency fund or retirement savings. Every impulsive purchase means you're sacrificing your financial security, for instance, when facing unexpected events like being laid off or falling ill.
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Hindering Asset Growth: Money spent impulsively is money lost; it doesn't have the chance to grow through investment. Yet, that money could help you achieve financial freedom much faster.
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Creating Stress and Debt: Wasteful habits often result in increasing consumptive debt. This directly creates anxiety, stress, and a loss of complete control over your money.
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Failing to Achieve Big Goals: A wasteful attitude makes long-term goals like buying a house, continuing education, or early retirement feel increasingly distant. Every unnecessary expense means extending the time you need to achieve those dream targets.
How to Control Spending Urges with These 5 Surefire Ways
1. Find out where the spending urges come from
You are the one who understands yourself the most. If you always fall into the temptation to spend money, you can start to find out why.
Is it because you like to go to the mall, look at various items on display in online stores or wait for a discount? If you fall into this category, you can start practicing self-limiting or replace those activities with activities that don’t cost you money.
If it turns out that your emotional spending is more influenced by external factors, such as peer pressure, you can give suggestions for the next activity that doesn’t require spending a lot of money. For example, cooking at home together will be more exciting and touching than always going out to eat at a restaurant.
An easy way to find out how your money is spent is through the Jago application. Through the “Spend Analysis” feature with its machine learning capabilities, you will be able to see all transaction records organized by month and neatly grouped by category.
2. Plan expenses from the start and don't break the rule
Sorting out expenses or needs at the beginning will be very helpful and not make you tempted. In order to be awesome at managing expenses, you can start using the Jago application because in it there is a feature that will be very useful, namely "Pocket".
To separate spending on snacks and shopping, you can create a Snack Pocket and a Shopping Pocket. Amazingly, you can enter how much money to put in both Pockets. The numbers don’t have to be the same.
The important thing is, if the money has been used up, it means that the budget for snacks and shopping is no longer available for that month. You can’t break the rule and give exceptions by adding money, if you want to successfully control your spending urges.
3. Hide your balance
It’s really dangerous if you see a large balance, the temptation to spend immediately arises. Money will always be spent on shopping. What if you have the option of being able to hide your balance? You will no longer be easily tempted.
Well, the cool thing is that in the Jago application, you can hide your balance (a surefire way that many people are looking for), so you can save yourself from the temptation to spend. To hide the balance, you can look for the eye icon and just click on the eye so that it is hidden.
4. Securing savings from yourself
In order not to be extravagant, you can put money into flexible savings, savings that will give you results.
By not wasting money, you will get profits. Isn’t it amazing? Try Jago’s Locked Pocket. With a Pocket that is locked, you can no longer withdraw money at any time.
What if you don’t have a lot of money? It doesn’t matter. You can start small. Intention is more important. Because you can already lock Rp 100k in a Locked Pocket, and locking time can be as short as 14 days.
5. Always remember the bigger financial goal
What is your big goal in life? Is there a financial goal that you want to achieve in the short or long term? Examples of financial goals are buying a house, building your child’s education funds, and saving money for retirement.
It is important to always remember the bigger goal because this goal can be used as motivation when you are about to squander money on momentary pleasures.
To secure money so that it is first put into savings, take advantage of the Auto-budgeting feature available in the Jago application. Set the amount you want to save and set the time to transfer the money to the Saving Pocket from the source Pocket. Money will move automatically according to your rules.
What do you think, Jagoans? Let’s start applying the 5 surefire ways above. Prove to yourself that extravagant habits can disappear over time.
