I understand and thanks to this forum have been working on myself and my finances for years.
  To truly succeed at staying on a budget, you do have a budget? I highly recommend  working on overcoming  emotional barriers, whether they’re based on life’s anxiety-factors or emotional traumas.
  There is no greater enemy to your health or finances than high stress.
Many people initially succeed at implementing a budget — but then fall back into  old habits…
Why? Because the emotional barriers were never overcome in the first place.
  keep working ,one day at a time   CeeCee Ok, i have a spending problem and i was wondering if anyone knows something i can do.
If i don’t figure out something it may ruin my marriage.
The thing is that i don’t go out and buy expensive things or anything.
But i think that i am doing good and next thing i know, my car payment is gone.

I have a spending problem, too.
It’s a hard one to deal with, but I’ll tell you two things that I did that had a PROFOUND impact: 1.
I tracked my spending for 3 months– saved every receipt and wrote out every other non-receipted purchase/payment on an envelope that also held all the receipts.
I have to say, I was SHOCKED at how fat the envelope got and how much money I was spending.
All those little amounts here and there really added up quite quickly.
I was spending WAY more than I thought I was.
Anyway, I then simply sorted the receipts: Bills, Household Expenses, Personal Purchases, Medical, Gas & Car, Dining out.
Guess which two were the highest? Hint– it was not the bills! 2.
I started (and I’m really embarrassed to admit that I got into the habit of NOT doing this) to track my spending in the checkbook register.
You know, write a check, write it down in the register.
Get cash for the ATM, write it down in the register.
Make a debit purchase, write it down…
There’s nothing like seeing my balance draining out to slooooooow down the spending on my end.
I found myself getting pinchey and stingy.
If that’s what it takes to get financially healthy, I’ll take it! And I’ve reduced quite significantly the number of overdraft charges I was getting because I now know down to the last penny how much money I actually have.
I know this should be very obvious, but I thought I was keeping a pretty good loosey-goosey mental track of things, and of course, by checking my balances online.
It’s not enough, at least not for me! Esp since some banks like to play games.
Granted, it’s still my fault, but the damage could be much less if the banks didn’t have certain practices.
It really helps to actually see where you’re spending money and how much, kind of like keeping a food diary when you’re trying to lose weight– it’s no longer a guessing game or an estimating game, it’s cold hard facts.
This would be a pretty good place to start because it’ll allow you to not only see what your particular weakness(es) may be, but also perhaps give you an “a-ha!” moment about why you spend.
I waste money when I’m stressed, sad, happy, and bored.
So, knowing that gives me an opportunity to see what else I can do about my stress levels, sadness, happiness, and boredom.
Anyway, then, you’ll have to make decisions about what you can cut out (or what you NEED to cut out), what you can reduce, and what you can’t go without (for example, gas, or your monthly bus pass).
It’s not necessary I don’t think to track for 3 months.
I just did because it took me that long to feel “strong enough” to look inside the envelops and analyze my spending habits.
HOpe this at least gets you started in the right direction– you may find other methods work better, like the envelope method.
Tina re: Ok, i have a spending problem and i was wondering if anyone knows something i can do.
If i don’t figure out something it may ruin my marriage.
The thing is that i don’t go out and buy expensive things or anything.
But i think that i am doing good and next thing i know, my car payment is gone.