How to curb overspending

It’s really important to develop good spending habits as a teenager! Most people carry bad spending habits they develop as teens into the future. In fact, these spending habits tend to get worse with age and can cause major issues. For instance, it could prevent you from retiring or accumulating savings.

Bad habits are difficult to break. After all, they are practices that have been repeated over an over again for an extended period of time. However, becoming better at managing spending is simple once you are able to determine the difference between wants and needs.

Most people who struggle with poor spending habits don’t have a good grasp on what they want versus what they actually need and consequently end up having financial issues for the rest of their life.

So what are needs? Needs are things that are necessary in life or things that would make life extremely uncomfortable to live without. For example, food, clothing, and shelter are classified as needs. On the other hand, wants can include the newest pair of shoes or a brand new bike. There is a huge difference between needing a new book-bag for school and wanting a $200 designer purse.

Overall, there is nothing wrong with having wants, but it is important to control them. Giving in to too many wants can be dangerous later on, when wants grow and become more expensive. The real issue is that as people begin to spend more money on unnecessary items, they begin to spend money uncontrollably, especially on items they can’t actually afford.