SmartyPig

• ‘Skip your morning latte at the coffee shop, make one at home and save $1,200 a year!’
• ‘Don’t drive to work and pay for parking, catch public transport instead and save $1,300 a year!’
• ‘Join a local library, it’s free and you’ll save money borrowing the books that you would normally buy!’

We’ve all read tips and tricks like this to improve our saving habits and whilst I agree with them in principle, many of the regular suggestions require me to cut back on things I consider necessities. Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that I will not suffer any dire consequences if I do not have my morning coffee on my way to work, but the lack of a morning caffeine boost will result in the replacement of my bubbly and delightful morning personality with an irritable and confused grump – something that no one wants to endure.

So I find myself at an impasse, I would like to make small changes to my lifestyle in order to achieve a large financial reward but I find it very hard to give up the little things that make daily life more enjoyable i.e. my necessities.

So I have done what all good movie characters do when they can’t make a decision, I wrote a list.

I wrote down all purchases I made in a month, big and small and categorised them into the following groups; ‘Can’t Get Out of Paying It, As much As I Would Like To’, ‘Shouldn’t Be a Necessity But It Really Is’ and ‘Like Having It but Probably Could Go Without It If I Have To’.

Can’t Get Out of Paying It, As much As I Would Like To:
This is the section for your bills, public transport costs, petrol, rent/mortgage payments and grocery bills. All the things that you have to pay for if you would like to maintain a lifestyle that includes the modern comforts of a home, food and electricity.

Shouldn’t Be a Necessity But It Really Is:
I tried to be as ruthless as I could in this section, but I am not going to deny who I am (dramatic, I know). In this section I included – morning latte at the coffee shop, Pay TV, Friday night drinks after work and my monthly magazine subscription.

Like Having It but Probably Could Go Without It If I Have To:
These are the items that I purchase out of convenience and if I spent additional time organising myself I could avoid unnecessary spending. Buying my lunch at work, going out for breakfast on Sunday or catching a cab home if I work late are all examples of things that I can avoid doing in order to save a little extra cash.

I admit that old habits die hard and I’m not going to completely eradicate these purchases and behaviours immediately. However, from now on I will try to be more conscious of my ‘Like Having it But Probably Could Go Without It If I Have To’ spending and hopefully my bank balance will improve.