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I annually work on my home budget every January and my recent walk-through of a major shopping center reminds me how our financial goals can get undermined by the temptation to spend. What are your strategies and tactics to stay on track?
Although I have this habit of buying by impulse, one thing I am worst at is being able to choose something without the help of a close friend who knows me so well to know that although I buying this because it is beautiful but there is every likelihood that after buying it and getting home, I am not going to use it either because it is not my style of fashion or because of the colour.
I have two go-to friends who can always tell me the truth to my face without concern about my feelings, and so those the people I am accountable to.
A few days ago, I told us about how I almost decided to buy a beautiful handbag I saw online not because I needed the handbag at that moment but because I saw how beautiful the bag was and since I have the habit of buying by impulse, I felt that urge to get the bag and of course own the bag to myself.
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I was ready to go as far as breaking my savings box (piggyvest) an app I use for my daily savings, even though I knew that there was a penalty fee if I decided to break the savings box, which involves paying them a percentage of any amount I was going to withdraw.
Well, after many ideas and decisions, I ended up not buying the bag because of the intervention of my friend. Well, this is what happened, like always I chatted up one of my friends and told him how I loved the bag and wanted to buy it but after much back and forth questions from my friend, he asked, "Do you have spare money to buy this bag or it is your savings"? Truthfully, I told him, it was my savings and I was asked not to get it because I could need the money for something else.
Well, I thought about it and saw that he was right, and that was how I ended up not getting the bag, not just the handbag, there are a few other times when I was told NO to my face by my girlfriend when I told her about my intention to get something that wasn't part of the plans I wrote down for this year, although painful but I had to deal with it because they are here to help me reset my brain when I am going astray in my impulse spending habit.
This is my entry to Ladies of Hive Community Contest #169