One of the things I enjoyed in life was seeing something I wanted and buying it for no other reason than the fact that I wanted it. Yes, I was a spendaholic; if spending money was an Olympic sport. I would be the gold medal finalist. It didn't matter to me. If I was at the mall or the bar with my friends. I would make that purchase if I wanted something, and I didn't care. I would eat at restaurants at least five nights a week because I didn't have time to cook a home-cooked meal. I would also pick up my coffee and breakfast on my way to work because I didn't have enough time to sit down and make my own.

When I decided to take control of my life, it took me sitting down with a financial planner who actually cared. Before that meeting, I didn't care why I never had any money as most of the time, when the bank account reached zero. I just pulled out the credit card or waited for the bank account to replenish with my next pay, which in most cases, was only a few days.

I remember sitting down with my financial planner and going over my situation. I had just gotten married, and we were expecting our first child. When I told my planner some information, he just looked at me and said it was time to make some changes. He started asking me a few questions

• How much was my income

• What were my living expenses

• What's important to me about my money?

• Do I have a household budget?

• What goals have I set for myself?

I couldn't answer any of these questions other than with the word no.

When I left his office that day, the financial planner had given me an assignment to track my finances over a period of time, and that's what I did.

In our next meeting, just over a month later. I presented my financial planner with all the information that I had compiled. Watching this guy study the information I gave him was somewhat intimidating.

When he had finished going over the information I had provided, Looking up at me, he told me I had a problem. He then slid a pamphlet across his desk towards me and told me to take this home, read it, and, if I had any questions, send an email.

After exiting his office, I walked towards my car, got in, and glanced at the heading on the pamphlet. The title read Banking Strategies To Cure Over Spending. When I got home, I sat down and read the information I had received.

In essence, this pamphlet provided tips on setting up your bank accounts to help you from overspending, and it was a simple strategy.

Before reading this information, I only had a checking account and a savings account, and that was it. The way this works is like this. You set up accounts in two different banks. You will assign one bank as your primary bank. With this bank, this is where all your income gets deposited, and where you do all your spending from. The other bank is where you will place funds that you will be saving. Using two different banks like this makes it inconvenient to spend money designated for other things.

At your primary bank, you'll have multiple accounts, including one for your income that gets deposited into and two others. One bank account will be for living expenses, and another for spending money. At your savings bank, you'll have two accounts, one for emergency funds and another for saving up for big purchases. Whenever you get paid, most paychecks are now direct deposit. Log into your online banking and transfer the money to the appropriate accounts.

It will look like this

Main Bank

• One account for funds deposited into

• One account for living expenses

• One account used as your casual spending, AKA play money

Savings Bank

• One account saving for a rainy day

• One account saving for purchases

When making purchases unrelated to your living expenses, Use your bank card exclusively or cash withdrawn from your spending account. While this advice may seem straightforward, for me, it was life-changing.

The problem that I thought of was if I implemented this method. Say when I am out, and I don't have enough funds in my spending account to make a purchase. I could select another option that I had available on my bank card and easily use another account that had enough money in it.

The way the banking card system works. Most banks will provide you with options to assign each account to one of three or four selections. These selections are typically checking, savings, credit card, and others.

Now most people don't realize you can control the accounts available to you on your bank card just by asking the bank to do so. Once I decided to implement this strategy. The only bank account selection I had available to use on my bank card was the account that I had designated as my spending account, and that was it. I would also only carry one bank card and nothing else. I would make a cash withdrawal from an ATM. I could only withdraw funds from my spending account because that was all I had available. The same happened when I used my bank card to make a purchase. I only had one option that I could select on the terminal. Now, this could also be a strategy you could implement when traveling in case you lose your bank card or, worse yet, are robbed, as this will restrict the accounts available to them and protect all of your other accounts because, if they can't get to it, they can't take it..

If you decide that a strategy like this might work for you. One of the things you have to watch out for is the service fees you can acquire, so make sure you have the proper bank account for what you want to use it for, and also find out the amount of funds that you need to keep in the account before these service fees are waived

The nice thing about this method is when you log into your online banking, you will see all your accounts and still have full access to them.

A Simple Financial Strategy To Help You To Stop Being A Spendaholic

How Can I Stop Spending Money I Don't Have

By using this strategy, I was able to break my impulse spending habit in a short amount of time. It taught me to start setting money aside for those larger purchases instead of just relying on the credit card and to also say no, to the things I wanted but didn't need

If I were to participate in the Olympics as a spendaholic today, I would undoubtedly end up being the last-place loser. However, I wouldn't mind losing in that particular competition.

Shane Lifeman

Live Free Live Life

How I Stoped Overspending