My Top Tips for Spending Bans

Me? Giving advice for spending bans? Hilarious. But, as I have said a few times, I'm really trying to curb my impulse spending in 2022 and why not share what's helping me? I do finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with my spending habits this month!

Use cash

Now that Covid rules have relaxed and shops are accepting cash again, I'm giving cash budgeting a go. Maths is not my strong suit and using my phones calculator is outright embarrassing (thanks, anxiety) so if the prices for items aren't labelled correctly and I only have cash on me, I'm much less likely to pick up lots of items. I could have a tenner on me and I'll think that £4 worth of stuff will add up to £11.56 so I won't risk picking up more!

Delete shopping apps

Pre-spending ban I had around seven shopping apps. I only kept two of them; Boots & H&M. I kept Boots so I could check for their offers and load them onto my Boots card if needed, and I kept H&M as I have a gift card and was unlikely to go to Bluewater to visit the store. I even deleted the Amazon app which is a big deal for me! Most of my impulse buying is done through Amazon - I love me some Prime next day delivery.

Use Honey

If I did end up online shopping, I have the Honey extension installed on Chrome. Honey scours the internet looking for vouchers and discount codes and even applies them to your basket for you. Using Honey earns you Honey Gold which turns into gift cards for various stores. Unfortunately I myself have rarely received any useable codes but it's still worth installing! It's also available as a mobile app.

Earn extra income

I currently use a few ways to earn extra money between pay days. Admittedly the rewards are few and far between but if you've got time to kill, why not earn some extra pennies? My favourite ways are to fill in surveys using YouGov and Attapoll, or earning coins for playing games with Mistplay and PlaySpot.

I have been using YouGov for around a year and finally earned my first £50 this month! I also have a £5 Amazon gift card through Mistplay. 

Good luck with your spending ban!

Until next time,

Saph x