How do you physically, emotionally and realistically STOP spending??

[HerRoyalNotness]

Please tell me the secret. It is out of control. We don't, happily, have debt other than the mortgage. But savings goals are not met, and I feel like I am letting down our family, our security for the future, by being ridiculously frivolous. DH does not give one shiny shit about it, as long as we are not in debt. Everytime I mention it to him, he just say's we're alright, but I'm the one that looks after the money. I can imagine him on turning 65, looking at me like and saying, where did it all go? Too late then, too late.

So confession I've just worked out, embarrasingly, that I've spent (the majority on me and the DC) 620gbp/mth on average on CLOTHES for the last five years. Almost as much as we spent on food, 800/mth (includes alcohol, take outs, nappies). If I'd been able to reduce clothes spending by 50% we could have had 18k in savings.

So how do you do it?! How do you resist? How do you set a budget and actually stick to it?

I know that we are very fortunate btw, I'm not bemoaning our general financial position, I just need to stop with wasting it, otherwise what is the point of earning it? A friend summed me up well a little while ago, instead of an emotional eater, I'm an emotional spender. We are going through a lot of stress at the moment, downturn in work market, moving etc... and I feel a bit depressed, but this is no excuse.

Any tips gratefully received!

(I'm going to add up toy expenditure tomorrow, and will have to hang my head in shame even further)

Oh dear typed a long post and lost it all!

Each time I don't buy something I mentally consider it money I have saved - in the last couple of days I have saved £20 on non essentials that could have ended up coming home with me.

Coming back to this as the hullabaloo of the move is receding. I've been doing well in terms of not spending on clothes. I would have saved 2k in the last month which was handy for our move indeed! I should have started this a year ago as now we are buying a car and have expenses to do with the move, realize we should have been setting aside a moving fund in advance. Happily we found a car, and despite DH wanting to spend 10k more than the budget I set, we spent $500 over which is great going!

Next hurdle is finding a home and kids into school. It is tempting to go out while I'm off work which would invariably led to spends, but I have been more selective. For instance, we are staying in a temporary apartment which is very basically equipped in the kitchen. I made a list of what I needed and bought cheap the items we have coming in the shipment and where I needed the thing myself, eg chopping board, spent a little more as an item to go in the house. I will make do without a couple of things as they were too pricey for what they were. No clothes bought in the last 6 weeks apart from a pair of ugg ballerinas on sale for $20!

Unfortunately when I unpacked my suitcases I have no clue what I was thinking when I packed them, so have very few work blouses. I'll make do with grey marl tees I have for casual, and use a belt to make more interesting.

I did clean out a few bags of clothes before we left and shoes, and was finally able to go through the DC clothes and give a couple of boxes of things to a dear friend who had just had a baby boy. Thank goodness it wasn't a girl otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it!

I think holding on to things comes from my mother regularly clearing out our rooms, throwing things out, giving our things away, as SHE couldn't stand clutter. I put emotional memory in things, especially now with DC and find it hard to let things go, i have all their baby things and special toys still.

sirsugar I used that mentality when talking Dh back to our car budget, I said its a family holiday! One of which we have not had this year. Puts perspective on things, although we still won't get the holiday