I have a spending problem and I need some harsh truths

[helpmepleasepls]

I’m in my mid to late 20s and I just cannot save money to save my life.

I am very lucky to be able to save about £600 a month from my wages. After that and all my outgoings I should have anywhere between £350-£500 a month left.

I just cannot control myself. I don’t know why. I’ve just had my birthday and I’m determine for this year to be different but it seems to happen each month. I just have no idea what I spend it all on. I end up going into my savings and justifying it by saying “I’ll replace it next month”. Obviously I never do.

I’m going to go through my bank statement and identify things that can be canceled, I’ve gone through and cancelled loads of subscriptions and I am going to delete my card from Apple Pay on my computer and all the rest.

I know I need to change but I just don’t know how to. I don’t know what is wrong with me. Please, how do I stop this?

I think I’m going to look at it when I’ve got the spending under control. Walk before I can run and all that 😂

Sign up to You Need A Budget. A subscription is about £90 per year, but it will pay for itself many times over.

It has excellent support videos and its philosophy is based on aligning your spending and saving to your values and goals, it really makes you think about it. It’s also kind of fun!

Yes this is what I’ve done, I’ve sat down and planned out my finances through to December, with birthday and Christmas spends incorporated to the lighter months (September and November 🤣), and a calculation of where my emergency fund will be by the end of the year. It’s quite nice to see that by the end of the year I could be in a totally different place than I am in now.

I’ll take a look if my excel spreadsheet doesn’t work for me, but spending money to not spend money seems a little counter intuitive to me 😂

So what do you plan to do with that £600 instead?

It needs a job... perferably out of your account somehwere far far away in a land of awkward access....

I hear you, and fair enough. But it really does work!

My £600 a month saved? It’s going into a separate bank account (that I have access to but it’s not easy to access, I can’t get into my Santander app 🤣), I can only access it on my laptop so I would have to physically get my laptop, log in and transfer money out if I wanted to spend it.

Then in your mid 30s with no deposit for a house you can moan about how boomers had it so good and ruined it for everyone.

There's having fun and making the most of things and there's having a lifestyle where you're spending a shed load of money but don't even know what you're spending it on.

You can have fun and be sensible with money.

I think that if i could sit here and say “I spent £X on a holiday” that would be different because it’s an experience and travelling is something I really enjoy.

But instead ive just added up my biggest spends - Amazon, boots, TikTok shop, Sephora, and it’s £3,800 in the last twelve months. I feel sick seeing it laid out like that, so that’s a good thing at least - I want to change.

Pile it all up and take a photo:

"All this used to be money"

That's if you still have the stuff of course

The really awful thing is I don’t have a lot of it. It’s so, so bad I know.

This weekend I’m going to go through my cupboard and get out everything I’ve wasted money on. If it can be sold on Vinted I’ll sell it, if not I’ll donate it. I want to move towards a more minimalist lifestyle and I think that will be helpful.

Agree. Plenty of the OP's peers will be using their disposable income in a really smart and sensible way to get ahead in life, instead of spaffing it on TikTok shop and travel.

It's up to the OP if she wants to be left behind or not

I don’t think there’s any need to be so rude.

I know plenty of people my age without a penny in savings because they want to travel. I only know one friend who’s able to purchase a house and that’s thanks to a hefty inheritance from her grandparents, nothing to do with saving.

I have already admitted that I want to change, I’m tackling it head on.

Great idea. You can't buy new stuff unless it is 'old money'.

I just bought a new necklace. But I sold a mulberry bag, two hermès scarves and a belt to buy it.

Then I wanted a watch - so I waited until I had a sale from two more scarves.

You asked for tough love and harsh truths to be fair....

Good for you for recognising it's an issue and doing something about it.

I don’t think it’s a harsh truth though as much as out of touch with what people my age contend with. The average age of a first time buyer is now 34. People are moving out later and later. My manger at work is the same as age me, on a good £10k more than me a year and she still can’t afford to buy a house!

get on money saving expert .com it’s got great advice.

at about your age I realised I was, quite literally in some cases, pissing money away.

have a goal, something like 3000 saved for a nice holiday next year. Get in control of where your money is going, the annual spends like Christmas and birthdays, not just the day to day spends. Go back over a year’s spending. Put £20 (for example) a month into the Christmas fund and so on. Allow yourself fun stuff but know where it’s coming from. I used a budget app for about a year (toshl) to keep accountable.

and, if you can, start some long term saving or add stuff into your pension, it makes such a difference if you do it now.

it’s so much nicer when you know where your mone6 has gone.

You have chosen to focus on house purchasing so let's do that.

When I was younger I (eventually) knuckled down and saved. With no idea if I would ever be able to afford the damn house. Things werent so in reach for my generation either. (worse for yours i do agree)

Because I knew that even if I coukdnt afford the house, having a pot of money was better than no pot of money.

I eventually realised that wasting all my money on persoanl training, coffees, cocktails wasnt going to get me anywhere. So I stopped and did something else knowing that at least I would be a little further ahead than those who didnt bother.

This advice is applicable to you now. You admit yourself you could save £600 but dont.

If this angers you then I dont know what to say.

there are lots of young people making smart choices with their money as a result of what they are learning online/podcasts/audiobooks about personal finance planning. There are also loads who are not....

I am saying it is up to you which group you want to be in.

You asked for harsh truths so I assume you find them motivating in some way.

I'm out to walk the dog. I tried 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve literally said that I’m starting to save the £600 a month?

Perhaps you should ask MNHQ to esit the title to tell people you dont actually want the harsh motivational input you asked for yeaterday because in 24 hours you have completely changed your entire behaviour with money and can now magically save no problem...

Honestly good luck. Genuinely mean it. If a few posts on here is all it took then I really hope that this is it for you now and you can finally save what you want to. 📈🌱

Allocate all your money jobs - so savings, coffee treats or weekly pocket money and once it has gone, you need to wait till next week

never keep money in your current account, pay day comes and all money is allocated to different pocket accounts with titles, coffee, car, mot, Christmas & birthday presents, holiday fund, savings, isa savings, grocery shopping, weekly pocket money

Christ who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?

You know I am right and it angers you.

Itonically that means the harsh input you want is probably doing its job.

If I were you it would make me upset and angry at nyself too

It doesn’t sound to me like your spending is out of control. I thought several things when reading your post:

• your spare money isn’t a huge amount really
• you don’t really want to go travelling or you’d be happy to save for it
• 100£ in boots is easy to spend!!!
• you need a bigger space budget for flippant purchases and aim to save less; eg £200 to spend and £200 to save.