Change Jar Savings - Old School Finances – Day 6

April 6 – 13

It has been a busy week with work and home; I was finally able to get some cash. I have been able to discover some benefits already. I have been only using my local bank to do transactions. This effectively brought my accounts from 5 down to one. By working with cash means less even time spent balancing and reconciling the checkbook. This in itself is a godsend.

The second benefit is that we are spending less. It was too easy to pull out the checkbook or one of the cards to pay for something. We are now looking at whether we really need something or if it can wait. Most things we were buying on the cards were more impulse items.

I had always thought I was good with impulse buying. I knew from working in the grocery industry how strong the marketing is to get you to impulse buy. I knew how the stores were going after those extra dollars. But I have come to realize that while I was good at the checkout and the junk that they try to sell you there, the fact is that the more you even go into a store the more you impulse buy.

My daughter is good at dragging me to the store to get diapers, clothes for the grandkids, etc. Then once in there she finds all these thing that my wife and I should buy. Most of them are not needed. The first step was telling her I have no cash. I purposely left the cards and checkbook at home. So I couldn’t buy her or the grandkids things if I wanted too. This in itself has saved me money.

But where the impulse buying was really hitting me is going to the grocery store because we are out of… (fill in the blank). We would rarely buy just that item. It seemed that you cannot walk out of a Wal-Mart without dropping $100.00, even if you were just picking up milk. Or going into the grocery store, the milk became a loaf of bread, cereal, something for supper… Realizing how many extra trips are going to get these stray items has controlled spending.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com