Manage Your Spending Habits While Watching Your Weight

Managing your finances is, in some ways, like managing your weight, according to a recent New York Times article.

Taking these three steps can help get your finances, and your body, in shape:

1. Changing your environment to remove food temptations eliminates habitual eating. If you can eat a bag of chips in front of the television and not even realize you finished the bag until it’s gone, you could solve the problem by keeping chips out of the house altogether, or by only eating in the kitchen, at the table, with the television off.
   Changing your environment to eliminate temptations will help you avoid shopping, too. If the Internet tempts you to shop, don’t visit retailers’ websites, and be sure to unsubscribe from online shopping newsletters.It makes sense that if you’re breaking your budget due to certain environmental cues, like the countless opportunities to spend money online, removing those cues will make it easier to cut back on spending.
2. Portion control is the prime ingredient of any diet — you need to be mindful of how much food you’re consuming and keep your portions healthy, not super-sized. Portion control is very similar to budgeting a fixed percentage of your money to different spending categories.If you fail to set aside “portions” of your money for various expenses, you can regularly find yourself reaching the end of the month with less money than you need for certain expenses because you over-indulged in other spending categories.
3. Weight Watchers is a well-known dieting tool that uses a points system for foods to carefully track everything you eat. Most experts recommend tracking all of your spending for a full month to better understand where your money’s going; then you can continue monitoring your spending to ensure you don’t fall off the wagon and blow the budget.

Knowing how much and what you’re eating is a key factor for managing your weight — and it’s no different when it comes to your money. If you don’t even know where you’re spending your money, you can’t figure out how to manage it better. While keeping track of food eaten or money spent can be time-consuming and challenging, it’s one of the best strategies for regaining control.

I’ve applied these tips to both dieting and my finances, and I find they offer good results whichever goal you’re pursuing!

Tags: money management, money spending habits

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