Don't Take Cash/Pay Advances - Charge Yourself Interest.

I know this is obvious, but it helps to be reminded: Don't take cash advances if you can help it. Cash loans can turn into evil temptors/temptresses. Having cold hard cash in advance is so alluring. And if you have a spending addiction, it gets very easy to keep going to your local friendly cash-chequing place and get an advance on your next paycheck. Think about how much interest you're paying them. I know from hard experience that, once you start doing this a few times, you start spending the next paycheque sooner - even before you get it. This is the surest way to financial debts as well as personal problems with those that care about you. Use one credit card maximum, and only for emergencies or big ticket items - where you know that you'll be paying it off by the end of the month, before your credit card company charges you interest on the purchase.

Now that said, I know how damn hard all this is to do if you do have an addiction. As a starting point, the next time you're about to spend cash on something you don't absolutely need, turn around, turn away from wherever you were going. Either put the entire amount into some form of savings (piggy bank rather than bank), including the amount of service charge the cheque-cashing place would have docked you.

If you have no discipline, hand your money over to a trusted friend or relative. Or put it in a "one way" piggy bank. Then, every other day, don't spend your money if you don't have to. If you can go one day without spending money, you can go two. Obviously, you can't keep this up forever, but try to never spend money two days in a row for anything other than, say, parking, toll booths, or emergencies. It gives you some structure to work with, something most of us spending addicts have trouble establishing.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://smackeroonies.blogspot.com

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