Taking control of my spending

Cafe Rouge in St Albans- somewhere I spent money and QT with a friend this month. TOTALLY worth it.

Once again, I logged into my online banking account and *sharp intake of breath* had spent more...at least £100 more than I thought I had. I've always had a bit of a dodgy relationship with money, something I'm working on. Yet it forever frustrates me when I discover that by the 9th of the month I have already gone too far! This post isn't on how I'm planning to be frugal or any quick fixes, it's some ideas for me to prevent my spontaneous spending. This has just tipped me over onto the panic stations setting when it comes to my money situation. And it's only the 9th...

So I'm going to implement a number of strategies:

1. Forgive myself- I've had an expensive month- hen do and some meals out to catch up with friends. They don't happen every month.

2. Cut back for the rest of the month now that those big expenses are done. I have £25 left in my purse from the hen weekend, I'm going to see how long I can make it last.

3. Longer term. I'm going to place an 'impulse spending ban' on the first week of each month. If I want something I'm going to have to wait until next week, by then I will have either decided against it or figured it's worth the investment.

4. Log my spending in a spreadsheet which is labelled with categories so that I can work out where the majority of my money goes- I'm going with food as a guess on this.

5. Again, longer term I am going to implement a budget for each of my main expenses each month, so it should look something like this for July - NB another expensive month...I'm going to Italy. However, forewarned is forearmed, so I will still budget for this.

I should point out that my partner is exceptionally good with money. So we share expenses for mortgage, food, diesel and joint ventures in a separate joint account. That means that in my personal account I only have the money left over after the big main expenses which will either go into the save or spend category. I'm trying to even out the ratio a little bit and think that awareness of where my money goes each month will help me to make some more sensible choices.