Could This Surprising Technique Actually Help You Cut Spending?

Trying to cut spending can seem like a real drag. Obviously, you know you want more money in your checking account. But, actually reducing what you spend on purchases may seem like a constant sacrifice with no immediate upside.

The good news is there's a creative approach you could try that just might help you make a meaningful difference in the amount you put on your credit cards each month.

Try out guilt-free spending when you save

If you want to meaningfully cut your spending, you may want to do something a little counterintuitive. You may want to keep a little bit of the amount you can cut. Specifically, you may want to "reward" yourself by allowing yourself guilt-free spending of around 10% to 20% of what you manage to save when you come in under budget.

Say, for example, that your grocery budget is $800 a month and you're able to clip coupons, make a meal plan, and shop the sale flyers so you only spend $650 during a month. You'd have $150 in savings to do other things with. To reward yourself, you could allow yourself to enjoy guilt-free spending of 10% to 20% of that amount, so have $15 or $30 to enjoy a little indulgence. Then, you could put the remaining $135 or $120 into a savings account or brokerage account or toward whatever long- or short-term goals you're working on.

This approach could work well if you have a hard time motivating yourself to save for long-term goals like retirement or something else decades in the future. You'll get an immediate, tangible reward when you're able to come in under budget so may be a lot more incentivized to make some sacrifices or do a little extra work to find that savings now.

Find an approach that works for you

Rewarding yourself with some of what you save is one way to make cutting spending a lot more fun. But there are others too.

For example, you could challenge your spouse to see who can have the most no-spend days in a month. Those are days when you don't buy anything, or don't buy anything except for absolute essentials. Or you could print out a picture of your long-term goals, like a photo of a lake house you want to buy, and tape it to your credit cards so you must see it every time you pull them out to purchase anything at all.

The key is, if you don't find it really motivating to reduce spending for big goals (and many people don't), you need to find some technique to get you motivated and excited about slashing your costs. That way, you won't feel as if you're depriving yourself or being forced to make unsustainable cuts. Just like deprivation diets don't work, setting up your financial life to feel like you're constantly deprived is likely to lead to failure in the long run.

Why not try out one of these techniques today to see if they work for you? You may just find the approach that can make cutting spending actually seem like a more fun prospect, so you can make a meaningful difference in how big your expenditures are -- and how much you have left for important things.