It's so easy to say I'm not going to spend more than a specific amount of money on eating out lunch or buying coffee from a coffee shop. I began thinking how to stick to my goals, and this is what I came up with. I'll make my example buying coffee out. One of my sons thinks this is a problem area for me. He even hinted about needing an intervention. Bill, I hope you like this idea.
At the beginning of each month, I'll either buy a gift card to my favorite coffee shop or download my budgeted amount onto my app. The nice thing about apps is you can usually earn points for free coffee or treats. If I use up my gift card in the first week, I'm out of luck. I figure there will be a learning curve to this, but I will learn and stick to a budget.
Do you see yourself trying this? Maybe it's not coffee or lunch out, but what about the donut shop or ice cream shop?
Another thing I plan to do is experiment with coffee recipes. If you've guessed I'm not a purist, you're right. I have no problem making coffee fun. Please share your thoughts below and thanks for stopping by my back porch.
On a rainy day in France, Tim and I found a local coffee shop. We dried off and ordered in French. I can't tell you exactly what we ordered, but it was delicious.
Hello Jackie!
ReplyDeleteYears ago, we got in a bad financial bind and we started doing the Dave Ramsey program. It was wonderful and I felt so in control instead of like everything was going down the drain. I saved for vacation, school clothes and Christmas instead of waiting until the last minute to see how much we had in the account.
I remember Dave claiming that people who use cash instead of credit, spend less. He gave an example that the avg. person spent $4 cash compared to $6 credit at McDonald's per meal. (This was years ago. I'm sure it's higher now.) When all you have in your wallet is $22 to last the rest of the week for food, and it's only Tues., you choose not to spend it.
That was probably the biggest change for us. Just using cash made me aware of my spending habits.