This Is One of Dave Ramsey’s Best Tips Ever for Cutting Spending

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Could cutting spending be as simple as making this change with your phone? 

Most people only have so much income to go around. This means when you spend too much of it, you don’t have enough left to put into a savings account or brokerage firm in order to accomplish your financial objectives.

Cutting spending can make it so you’re able to do things with your money that you need to, like save up a down payment for a house or for retirement. But it can be difficult to make sustainable changes that allow you to reduce your outflows.

To that end, finance expert Dave Ramsey offers some suggestions on how to spend less — and one particular tip can be especially useful for many people because it’s so simple to implement and it can make a lasting difference. Here’s what it is.

This Dave Ramsey tip can help you cut spending

If you want a quick, easy way to reduce your spending, Ramsey says that doing something as simple as deleting some apps could do the trick.

“Take shopping apps off your phone,” Ramsey suggests. “Don’t freak out. We aren’t saying you should never ever shop online. But when you take those store apps off your phone, you build a barrier between you and mindless scroll-shopping.”

As Ramsey explained, these apps are designed to make purchasing items effortless. Often, you don’t even have to sign into your account when you open the app, much less enter your credit card and shipping details. The app is sitting right there on your phone or mobile device and once you open it up, you can end up making a purchase without ever stopping to pause even for a second to consider whether doing so is actually worth it.

“With those apps, your thumbs can just tap-tap-tap things you don’t really even need into your cart and into your mailbox,” Ramsey explains. “But you’ll think twice before getting on the laptop to buy that new sweater if you’ve got to get up off the couch to make it happen.”

More mindful purchasing can make all the difference

Ramsey’s tip is a great one, because it’s not complicated and it really is likely to affect how much you end up buying. It’s kind of a similar concept to removing your stored credit card from your internet browser or online accounts.

Removing the apps, or removing your payment information, slows down your buying process and creates a barrier so you have to stop and ask yourself if an item is worth it. Just taking a few extra seconds and a few extra steps can be enough to cause you to reconsider a purchase before it’s too late and you end up buying something you don’t really need in the end.

Now, you may decide that you do want to follow through and buy whatever it was that caught your attention. But by doing so mindfully and overcoming some extra hurdles to do it, you’re more likely not to end up regretting your impulse purchase since it won’t really be an impulse buy anymore.

You have nothing to lose by deleting your shopping apps and giving Ramsey’s advice a try, so take them off your phone today. If you find yourself annoyed by not having them there, you can always add them back. But it’s much more likely you’ll be grateful to have the added cash in your bank account that comes from more mindful spending and you’ll decide to leave them off your phone forever.

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