How do I get rid of the urge to always spend all of my money?

[Jessie21]

I'm well aware I am going to get a lot of flack on this post. All I can say is please be kind, I am trying to sort this out before it gets serious.

I'm 25. I'm in a low paid job (£18k a year) but about halfway through my training to become a solicitor. When I qualify I'll obviously open a lot of doors. I've got to stick it out until qualification.

I live at home. My parents don't ask for rent, they are well off. They ask for me to do my own food shopping and that's about it. I'm well aware that I'm very fortunate in that regard.

The issue is, I'm obviously wanting to start saving for a house and things like that. My first goal is, realistically, a car. I'd love my own little run around instead of sharing with my mum.

But the issue is, as soon as I get any money into my account, I start spending it. I'll always come up with excuses to buy things and regret it at the end of the month.

My monthly wage is £1300 give or take. I have about £250 in monthly outgoings (phone contract, gym, contact lenses, university fees). After that I could, basically, save £700+ a month. But I just don't.

It'll be an excuse - "oh I need more work clothes" or "I need a new makeup sponge" and I'm sick of it. But I just can't break this habit.

I have all the best intentions and then never get round to actually doing any of it.

I've realised this is an issue because I've just received a pretty decent bonus from work - £750 after tax. And my first thought is "oh, what can I buy?"

I need a revision guide for my exams and some flashcards, and thats it. But I'm sat here thinking about all the cult beauty orders or asos orders I could do.

I'm aware I'm a failure - 25 with very few savings and still living at home, but I really want to break that cycle before I'm earning serious amounts of money. What do I do? Any tips? Any advice?

put money into a no access savings account ON payday! Start with a an amount that’s not too crazy first. 400/500 maybe and then the rest is yours to play with.

I'm aware I'll sound like I'm arguing back, I'm not trying to.

When I do this I get anxious - that the amount in my current account is low. Which is so stupid, I know. But I start to panic that it's not accessible (even though it would be, because my savings accounts are both easy access)

First of all, stop thinking of yourself as a failure. You're an intelligent adult in a good position. Well done. It's not a crime to like spending. The only person who is suffering from it is you.

You know what you have to do; set up a monthly saving direct debit to a high interest account that you can't touch. Don't do £700 a month as that's not very sustainable. Maybe £400 a month for now, with another £200 into 'medium term' savings for things like haircuts, holidays and presents, and look into starting a pension.

Don't get obsessive about which account - I tend to just have a look at recommendations by Martin Lewis or something. The important thing is that you can't touch it for at least a year, preferably five years.

It doesn't need to be spend it all or save it all. Decide on a fixed amount to save.. start with say £400 or £500 set up to transfer to a different account ( and there's some good regular saver accounts out there).

Then spend the rest on whatever you want guilt free!

You might find when you see your savings growing you become hooked on saving more.

It's because it's there and available to you. Cheap dopamine hits!

The money should either go into a non-accessible savings account or drawn out in cash on pay day. It won't solve the entire problem but it will make it really bloody difficult to impulse buy.

With a £750 bonus and around £700 leftover a month, you could technically afford a deposit on a finance car or a very cheap runaround with a few months MOT on it already.

Set up a standing order to a savings account that is hard to make withdrawals from (e.g. a LISA). Then the savings outgoing is another bill along with your phone etc.

Leave yourself a set amount of fun money each month so you can still treat yourself.

Get in the habit of saving now otherwise you run the risk of getting into debt and thinking oh well I'll just pay it off when I'm earning more. But you'll likely just spend more as your salary increases.

I've been in your position and ended up £20K in debt, it's horrible. It took that fright to sort myself out.

I’m exactly like this - mine is down to ADHD and poor impulse control. In fact I’ve literally just bought a new television 😅

Honestly the only way I can do it is forcing myself to wait (I’ve been waiting 6 months for the tv and I do actually need it) to see if I still want it.

I give myself £200 a month that I can blow on clothes/make up/what ever else I want at that moment, and put the rest into a savings account that takes a few days to withdraw from, or has a penalty charge if I withdraw early.

Monzo is really useful because you can set up different pots for necessary outgoings, frivolous things and savings. I’m sure there are other banks with similar functions.

But it is down to really forcing yourself to stop in that moment, take a breather and then decide if you really do need it.

Make sure you don’t have any card details saved to your phone so you need to physically get up and find your card to input details. That definitely helps slow me down.

I would recommend asking your parents to set up a separate account and that you set up a standing order from your account to the new account for the day after you are paid. This way, the money won't be available for you to spend from your own account and over time you will save up the money for your deposit. Good luck.

Well then put it in an easy access account. But then you’ll justify dipping into it. With all due respect @Jessie21 its either in YOUR savings or spent at ASOS (in which case you definitely don’t have it!) so its the best case scenario to put it in a savings you can’t touch and pretend it doesn’t exist

I’m a bit like this too OP, a few years older and I have 2 kids. Extremely fortunate to have a car but I am absolutely shit at saving. I have £1k emergency fund I don’t touch. Does your bank go the ‘round up the change’ thing? I’m with bank of Scotland and at the end of each day, it rounds up to the nearest £5 and the change goes into savings, so if I had £383.94, it would round up the £3.94. This was the only way I was able to save £1k as I didn’t see the extra odd pennies drop from my account. I’m not sure about other banks but this was set up in the branch. It might be a starting point - I now try save £5 a week.

You are not a failure! I qualified as a solicitor when I was 29. I was in debt too at the time and have since realised that my credit card debt was always from frivolous purchases I didn’t need ( think fake tan and clothes). I bitterly regret I was so bad with money when I was younger as we could have a bigger house now if I had put money into savings or property instead.

OK well managing anxiety is a bit different.

Do you know why you feel like that?

I can feel anxious about having money I haven't spent because it's an ongoing decision- every day I have to decide not to spend it. I feel more comfortable once I've got rid of it. This is quite dysfunctional! For me it helps to have it visible in an online ISA but not accessible. I've made the decision and can't touch it.

Set up a direct debit into a savings account uk go out on the day you get paid, then you can’t talk yourself out of it. No need to save the fill £700, maybe start with £500 and see how you go on.

Would it help to have different "pots" of money to allocate for different spends? I have a starling account for this purpose, I transfer money to it and divvy it up into each saving space. So when I want a takeaway, I transfer the cash from my "eating out" space. You can even order bank cards for each space but that's too much juggling for me.

Maybe something like this would help you with spending and saving.

I also think it worth chatting with your parents about money management, see if they can help you.

Thanks everyone

I think part of my issue is that I'm on such a shit wage I feel like there's no point in saving - I'll never be able to afford a house or monthly car payment on what I'm on. Hopefully it'll increase soon but I'm also at a company who's apparently known for low wages.

I wish I knew why I got anxious. I think it's because my parents made a big deal when I was younger about always having a large amount in their bank accounts ready to go, but they also had much higher wages than I do right now

You’re certainly not a failure. Are you spending to make yourself feel good? Are you nervous about the future independence you are saving for or excited about it? Perhaps consider these things. I recall being a bit younger than you saving for my first home, and mentally allocating the funds which worked well for me. So not buying yet another jacket because that money could pay for eg pillows one day etc
Set up a standing order into a savings account to come out on the day you’re paid. Allow yourself a certain amount of fun money each month. And treat your parents to a meal out or something else they would enjoy every now and then, they sound great

You’re basically addicted to the dopamine.

Try to replicate the dopamine hit you currently get from spending, but with savings instead.

Set yourself mini savings goals that you can regularly check up ion (eg with Monzo) - hitting the next £50 or £100, or even just rounding up to the next £10. Check the amounts often - even if you’re just seeing pennies of interest accruing. The idea is to make saving your go-to check-in when you are boarded and pick up your phone, rather than shopping.

Start selling stuff on Vinted, and when something sells put the money straight into your savings and check for the impact on the savings target.

It sound a bit sad but it really works because it’s replicating the same “hit” you are currently getting from spending, using the same types of behaviours and the same frequency.

It's actually a bit silly, in terms of financial management, to keep large savings in a current account. The interest rates are much lower so you're losing out, and as you're learning it's very difficult to budget. It would be even less of a good decision for you since you live with your parents - you don't need to worry about having an emergency fund if the boiler breaks down, for example.

Sometimes the best way to overcome anxiety about a thing is to write down all the rational reasons you should do it (to refer back to when you start to second guess yourself) and then just do it. Not doing something because you're scared of it is a great way to ensure you never do it.

I meant to add a savings account like the Monzo one where you can easily look at the interest accumulating is also very motivating.

I moved to nationwide and Lloyds because I'd heard a lot of bad things about Monzo 😩

I'm going to divide the bonus in half, put half into my Lloyds savings and half into my nationwide savings. I think part of it is just becoming more comfortable with a lower current account balance

Perhaps you need a mindset shift too. You have no rent or other big bills. Someone on £40k takes home £3,330 a month after tax. With nursery fees and rent/mortgage plus council tax, ebergy bills etc they could well be left with less than £750 a month in disposable cash. (£1500 on housing, £1k on nursery, maybe more depending on where you live.

I'd echo others and say have a budget for fun money and when it's gone, it's gone. Banks like Monzo and starling are good for having pots so you can hide your money away and hopefully get addicted to seeing the numbers rise.

ETA, I saw you say you heard bad things about Monzo. I have it and honestly it's changed my savings life.

Save up for the car, make tangible goals. You don't need a "car payment" you need to save £Xthousand to buy it outright. You'll feel amazing when you do this and be planning your next big save.

It's the reward your brain wants, reversing it from "yay, new stuff" to "yay, look at those savings growing....go me!"

I'm trying with the car, it just feels so unobtainable - I'd need around £7.5k to get a decent one that won't just keep breaking down (I'm on an automatic licence too which doesn't help!), and that feels out of reach because it's half of my monthly wage

*yearly wage not monthly wage 🤦🏻‍♀️

Stop telling yourself you’ll never earn a good wage. Tell yourself if you find your current employer to be a poor payer then you will find another employer.

Set up a long term plan for your financial goals. Not pie in the sky ‘I want a car and house one day’. Identify a car and house you want and work out exactly how you are going to get them. How much do you need to save, how much interest can you earn on your savings, how long will you need to save for? Having a concrete plan with defined actions can be very motivating.

Don’t have an all or nothing attitude. Allow yourself some money each month to spend freely, put some in an ‘emergency fund’ with a minimum amount eg aim to always keep it at £750 and put some into a savings account that you can’t easily access (this will be in line with your long term plan above).

Also think about why you panic that you can’t access your savings. Write down your exact fears about what you think could happen and then assess whether that is likely to happen or are you catastrophising? You live with your parents and have a roof over your head, as long as you can meet your £250 commitments and food and travel to work and back you don’t need to worry about anything else, nothing else is essential. Having an emergency fund of say 3-6 months worth of expenses set up can help ease your anxiety. Have you thought about taking out income protection insurance? They could also help ease your anxiety that you can access your savings as you’ll have that policy to fall back on.

I’ve also found it useful to come off social media, if you use them you are being bombarded with influencers and marketing and adverts constantly making it more difficult to control spending. But if you want to keep using SM then perhaps every time you see something you want to buy (have been influenced to buy) add it to a wish list (I use notes in my
phone) rather than buying it straight away. Then wait one month and see if you still really want it.
If you do then buy it out of your ‘free spending’ money the following month without any guilt. If you don’t have enough to buy it in one go, set up a little savings pot to save towards it.