A few things you can yell at yourself in the mirror if you're spending is depleting your savings.

If you’ve found yourself trapped in a spend-nado (felt wrong as soon as I said it), unnecessarily tapping ‘complete purchase’ a little too often, we’ve come to your aid. 

We’ve collated some tactful pep-talk affirmations to get you started. 

1. Take a hike, Susan.

I know your name probably isn’t Susan, it just sounded more commanding when nomenclature was involved. 

Put on appropriate footwear and go for a walk when you find yourself tempted to dip into your savings; remove yourself from your computer, put down your phone and get outdoors to see if it was just sheer impulse. 

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2. Wait a minute - or 1440.

Another way to combat withdrawing from your savings is time. Can this purchase wait 24 hours? Find a distraction (hello Netflix) and revisit and reassess tomorrow.  

3. Give me three good reasons.

Can you list at least three good reasons as to why you should buy this item? 

‘Because I want it’ isn’t permitted.

In the words of Marie Kondo, ‘does [enter pending purchase here] spark joy?’. 

Does it, Susan?

4. It’s time to go… Apple Pay.

Removing Apple Pay and leaving the house without your wallet is a sure way of honing back spending.

Same goes for saved card details online - the more effort and less convenient it is to spend money, the less inclined you’ll be to do it. 

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5. I know, I’ll make a list.

Write a shopping list before you go grocery shopping and stick to it with some old fashioned self discipline. 

No loitering around the snack section. 

6. Get SMART. 

That being a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely (SMART) goal. 

Once you have something to work towards, you’re more inclined to stay on track. 

Saving for a girls trip to Ibiza in August will be more motivating than saving for a goal simply labeled ‘holiday’. 

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7. Shopper’s block.

Installing a blocker on sites that regularly lure you in will restrict you from temptation.

Similarly, stashing your money in locked pots or manually saving money into Chip out of your spending account will keep it out of sight, out of mind.

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8. Can I phone a friend?

Have a trusted, responsible friend, family member or workplace proximity associate hold you accountable.

They’ll often talk sense into you, tell you what you don’t want to hear, and that you already have that item in a slightly different colour. 

Ask them to be your voice of reason if you can’t be your own, or allow  them to point out vices that you may be blind to.  

9. Check yo’ balance, before you wreck yo’self. 

Check your bank balance; can you actually afford this?

As Jay Z once said, if you can’t afford to buy it twice, you can’t afford it. 

10. Make payday save day. 

Before you succumb to the spending rampage that payday invokes, set up a Payday Put Away save within the app, so you are saving a bit more money that your regular autosaves when you have more money available. 

11. Well, something is better than nothing. 

Skipping a Chip autosave, or not saving. £1 is better than £0. If you saved even £5 a week, you’ll have an extra £260 in a year's time.
Free yourself from the belief that you have to have to save a lot to save at all. 

Every penny counts, friends. 

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12. Perform some browser hygiene. 

Clear your cache and browser history to deter those pesky retargeted ads. 

There’s nothing like your amazon basket haunting you when you’re at work. 

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13. Where’s a red pen?

Check your transaction history for regular outgoings and identify expenses that are hindering your saving capacity. 

Can you make less trips to the grocery store, cancel app subscriptions you’re not using, go down to a smaller phone data plan now that you’re mainly using wifi? 

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