Sure changing your attitude to money is still key because if after all said and done you have the attitude of spending everything you earn, you have not made any progress at all. Ladies! Anyone relate to this? You look at your account balance and you go, oh okay, I have money to go shopping.
And for those who claim shopping as some sort of therapy, You say what! Really?! Come on now! Why does it have to be shopping therapy any way? What happened to going for a walk, going for a run, talking to someone, reading a book, writing a book, writing in your dairy, and so on and so forth?
Having good things in life is very okay but it should not have your life or your account in the process. Having good things is great but always have this at the back of your mind: If you can't pay cash for it, you can't afford it. Now this of course does not include your savings in the mix. If you can pay cash for it, let that cash not be coming from your savings unless it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, make a budget for it. Create a sinking fund for every expenses that you want to make and is not in your monthly expenses.
Some of us have actually made a few wins with planning and budgeting but relapsed. So this goes to say that, there is a chance to fall back into bad habits if you do not stay alert to your progress made. Give it time before you can really say that you've got it all under control.
This new trend of loan apps everywhere you turn is a big problem these days for those who are battling with bad spending or bad money habits. The loan apps promising collateral free loans make it so very easy for people to go into debts because you just request for a loan and get it even when you do not earn in any way for you to pay back what you have borrowed and before you know it, it becomes a merry go round of taking from Tom to pay Jack. Let's not even mention their high interest rates.
Some borrowers are even bold enough to not bother about repayments because they think that they are not easily reachable. Some even decide to change their phone sim cards to cut off from messages and calls from these loan sharks.
Sadly too, these loan sharks employ a lot of customer relationship personnel with little or no decency or manners when they need to call for repayments. They can call their customers all sorts of names and send appalling text messages to customers contacts labelling the customer as a thief, a criminal and/or fraudulent. I have had to ask someone on whose behalf such a message was sent to me and I was stunned to discover the amount that made them call him a criminal was so very little that I could not fathom. I mean why seek for loan and loose your self respect in the process? And from people who would normally not dare address you otherwise!
Anyway the story of these loan sharks is for another day soon. Bottom line is to do everything, try everything humanly possible to stay the heck away from anything that would throw you into debts.
True, there are situations that arise where the only way one would think to solve the problem is to borrow. But if you can get an alternative way to address these kind of situations, while focusing on saving money, with time you will certainly become debt free and financially capable.