Ten Useful Strategies for Learning Financial Self-Control

Trent Hamm

Yesterday 2:00pm

If you’re anything like me, you’re incredibly tempted several times a day to spend money on something that you don’t really need.

This post originally appeared on The Simple Dollar.

Maybe it’s a bottle of Gatorade at the convenience store or out of a vending machine. Maybe it’s an online purchase. Maybe it’s another $5 in tokens for whatever your favorite mobile game is. Maybe it’s a latte from Starbucks. Maybe it’s a lunch out with some of your coworkers. Maybe it’s the bill for your Netflix subscription.

Whatever it is, you spend a few dollars on it–or maybe a few more than a few dollars. And then you forget about it.

This happens again and again and again throughout the month, and by the end of the month, you’re wondering where all of the money went.

“How can we possibly be broke? How can we be making this much money and not saving anything?”

The reason that this is happening can be summed up in three simple words: lack of self-control. Over and over again, you make the short-term choice in a given spending situation without considering the long-term choice. Making the long-term choice is harder, but over the course of your life it’s almost always the better choice–self-control is what helps you to make that long-term choice.

Breaking out of a routine in which you constantly make those short-term choices is quite hard. It’s easy to become very accustomed to having the little pleasures that you want as soon as you want them.

If you’re reading this article, though, you’ve become aware of the dark side of lacking self-control. At the end of the day, you’re left with very little. You’re not making any progress toward any big goals and you’re quite possibly sinking in a pit of credit card debt to boot. You’re unsure where all of the money is going, but you’re also very unsure of your own behavior.

You feel out of control. You have big long-term goals, but they’re just constantly undermined by the short-term choices you make (most of which you basically forget about) and the sense that money (and, in a smaller sense, time) is just vanishing.

What do you do?

Here are ten things you can do. These strategies have bailed me–and many others–out of a great deal of financial trouble over the years. They’ve helped us gain a lot of self-control over the years and restored a sense of being back in the driver’s seat of our financial lives, actually moving toward the financial goals we have for ourselves.

Give these strategies a sincere shot. You’ll be glad you did.

Strategy #1 – Stop Making Excuses

Here’s the cold, hard truth: every single time you buy something that you don’t need, you undercut your future. You take away dollars from getting control over your financial situation and planning for your future and instead give them to something you happen to want in the moment.

Whenever you try to justify that choice, you’re making an excuse for why you can’t get your financial life straight. Maybe it’s just a small thing. Maybe it’s something you really, really, really want. Maybe you have to buy it to impress somebody.

In the end, though, it all comes back to the same cold, hard truth: you chose a short term, forgettable desire over building a financial future for yourself.

If you truly want to have a strong financial future for yourself, stop making excuses for choosing that short-term desire. Stop justifying it. Start realizing that every time you make that choice, it is a setback in terms of your financial future.

Yes, sometimes it’s going to be a good choice to listen to your short term voice and go ahead with it, but the times when that is a good choice are few and far between when your financial house is in disorder and your financial future is in doubt. Stop making excuses. Start making better choices every time you spend a time.