In my universe, eating out is a special event.

Even if I could afford to eat out in a good restaurant every evening, I wouldn’t.

Aside from the effects on my waistline and my life expectancy, restaurants would lose their appeal. That would be a shame because I really enjoy eating out.

The things that feel like rewards for a job well done or an effort made should be protected. If we overuse these reward systems, we become habituated. That means we don’t notice them anymore, we take them for granted. In addition, if I eat out all the time, eating at home will start to feel like I’m depriving myself of pleasure, when the opposite is true. I love cooking and serving a really good meal around my own table.

That said, when I go out for a meal, I expect to get good value, and there are a number of things I bear in mind before I reserve, and once I’m in the restaurant, to ensure that my money is well spent.

I’ve had a lot of discussions with people who are trying to get a handle on their finances. Most are willing to make significant efforts to change the way they think about spending money, but there are two blind spots that people can have trouble getting around.

The first blind spot is a belief that none of the savings opportunities will work for them.

“Well I’m sure this would save lots of people money, but in my case…”

I can run though a huge list of things and they can respond that it’s just not possible for them because they’ve already looked at this and in their specific situation it’s just not going to help. They apply this to every suggestion and end up trying to convince me that there’s really nothing to be done.

The second blind spot is the set of purchases that your subconscious really wants, that it considers justified and deserved reward. Your mind guides you away from these areas and so you avoid thinking about them too much. Things like cigarettes and alcohol, but also chocolate bars and lattes on the way to work.

Here’s how to think about these savings opportunities…

I mentioned in my last article that supermarkets are some of the most advanced businesses in the world when it comes to manipulating customer behavior to increase sales.

When you walk into a supermarket, you are surrounded by techniques and tactics all of which are designed to get you to buy stuff you don’t need in quantities you’ll never use.

Knowing these techniques is one half of the battle. Forewarned is forearmed. The second half of the battle are the strategies you should employ when shopping in a supermarket to make sure that you only buy what you need.

Let’s take a look at the strategies that work.

One of the most variable budget items is your grocery shopping. It can grow out of control or shrink dramatically depending on the month, your mood and even what time you shop.

Supermarkets encourage spending. Every single aspect of their design is chosen to make shoppers buy more stuff. Shopping when you’re trying to keep to a budget is like walking into the lion’s den. You need a plan to escape unscathed.

In this article, I’ll explain the techniques, strategies and trickery at work when you enter a supermarket.

Once you understand the manipulation it becomes easier to ignore. Follow-up articles will discuss different ways you can dramatically save on your shopping.

Read on for a list of all the supermarket tricks that trick you into buying more than you need.

A simple question with a complicated answer wrapped in a simple wrapper. How much money does it actually take to be able to make decisions without worrying about the impact on your finances?

How much money does it take before you can tell yourself you are financially independent?

The one-month detailed spending tracker is the first step in the Spending Diagnosis Toolkit. It is an exercise where, for one month, you monitor every single penny or cent that you spend, regardless of how small. You want to track your spending in every detail to build a picture of how and where you use your money. This will allow you to deliberately adjust your behavior to control your spending.

There are two parts of the day that are opposites. The early morning and the late evening. They bring out different facets of our character, and if the person we are in the morning could confront the person we are in the evening, an interesting discussion would occur!

I’ve written about the conflict between these two people before.

But the morning person has a superpower – (s)he’s not easily distracted. If you can organize yourself, get up very early and get yourself to work before the rest of the world rises, you’re tapping into a superpower.

But how do you adjust a lifestyle to take advantage of this period of super-productive time when everything about your habits and your routines makes it so very difficult?

A common question when you start tracking your spending is: How do I choose which budget categories to use?

Some categories are very obvious, but overall you can end up with too many categories, or categories that are less useful in your attempts to adjust your spending. Since this is the source of all the information you use to control your spending, it’s important to get it right.

Remember: Recording your spending is only a tool, and you need to make that tool as useful as possible.

It’s one of those terms that sounds unambiguously good – of course we would want that! But what is Financial Independence? What does it actually mean? If we’re going to aim for something we should be precise in how it is defined.

Financial Independence typically means having the freedom to not work. It means that if you choose to work, you do so for reasons other than having to pay your bills or fund your lifestyle.

The first step in changing your spending is to understand where your money is going. To do this, you need to spend a little time to measure your spending.

You perhaps feel that you already have a fairly good handle on this. After all, every time you spend money, you have to pull out that credit card or count some cash. In fact, we’re notoriously bad at understanding our spending because of all sorts of psychological shortcomings common to us all.

Taking a methodical, calculated look at your spending can reveal surprising things. It’s an exercise worth doing regularly.

Not just money, but hassle too!

After going through the exercise of finding the cheapest airline tickets to my destination, I was faced with a simple problem.

We had far too much luggage. It was going to cost us a huge premium over the plane tickets to get our stuff to where we were going.

How does an exercise like budgeting miraculously transform your monthly finances from a source of anxiety and stress into a solid platform for achieving your goals as an individual or as a family?

The short answer is that it doesn’t. Budgeting, and it’s bigger sibling, Financial Planning, are merely tools. Properly applied, these tools allow you to take control of your finances by organizing how you will earn and spend money. They allow you to identify opportunities for recurring savings and give you a way to plan your way out of a financial deficit, or into a position of financial strength.

Let’s take a closer look at the process and how it can help transform your financial situation.