What Dieting Can Teach Us About Saving Money

If you’re like me, you’ve tried to lose weight at some point in your life – whether it’s for health reasons, an upcoming big event, or simply to minimize the “fright-factor” of getting back into your bikini after a long, cold winter.

We’ll do whatever it talks to shed the unwanted pounds and admittedly, we’ve all been lured in by the crazy fad diets — The Cabbage Soup Diet, The Grapefruit Diet, Low Fat, Low Carb, The Zone, Slim Fast, South Beach, the rumored Hollywood Tapeworm diet and Atkins (where we send our bodies into Ketosis for gosh sakes)! They promise miracles over night – lose 10 pounds in 10 days, eat whatever you what and still lose weight, easy, effortless and guaranteed.

The net effect – they don’t work. You’ve heard the saying … “If it’s too good to be true it probably is.” So what can dieting teach us about saving money …?

What Doesn’t Work:

• Diet fact: Fad diets don’t work because they tend to focus on eating a single food item and no long-term behaviors are put in place. You need a well balanced diet to succeed.

• Saving money fact: The same is true. Get rich quick schemes don’t work. You need to review all facets of your life to find ways to save and make long-term attitude and behavior changes to make saving money a regular part of your daily life.

• Diet fact: Starvation diets don’t work. You force yourself to go without and then as the desires for food intensify you often binge – eating more than you would have if you would have just allowed yourself some small indulgences. When you binge you then feel guilty and could then slip into the dreaded binge and purge syndrome. Bad.

• Saving money fact: Total deprivation does not work when trying to save money or reduce spending because the same binge tendencies will arise. The result will be “binge shopping” in the form of a shopping spree. The same guilty feelings quickly arise and then you’re left with lots of stuff that sits around collecting dust until we purge our possessions at a yard sale or the nearest Salvation Army drop off.

• Diet fact: The closest eater who secretly stashes food and eats when no one’s watching … has a problem.

• Saving money fact: Secretly buying stuff and stashing it in the back closet or under the bed and not admitting to our shopping “indisgressions” is equally harmful.

What Does Work:

• Diet fact: Everything in moderation is the way to go. Eat what you want but be sensible. There’s nothing you can’t eat, it’s just about how much of everything you eat.

• Saving money fact: Apply the same principle. Buy what you need but be “centsible”.

• Diet fact: Many mini meals are beneficial as you are consistently feeding your system to minimize the highs and lows and mentally you don’t feel deprived because you are always eating.

• Saving money fact: Many mini savings add up. Tuck away a little at a time and be consistent in terms of feeding the savings account. A little cut here and savings there becomes effortless and you don’t miss the money that was frivolously wasted.

• Diet fact: Tracking what you eat on a daily basis helps you see where you veered off course and what you can cut out to improve your weight loss.

• Saving money fact: Track your spending on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and you can see where you can cut spending and save more.

• Diet fact: It’s easier to be successful when you have a “buddy” who’s trying to lose weight with you or a support system to keep you motivated and in check.

• Saving money fact: Support systems are equally as powerful here. Make saving money a family thing.

There are a lot of parallels between dieting and saving money. In short, it’s about keeping your eye on the prize and saving becomes a snap! Have you heard the diet saying “Thin feels better than fat tastes”? It’s the same basic principle. Focus on the desired savings goal and end benefit (being a stay-at-home mom, early retirement, buying a home, etc.) which so outweighs the impulse purchases and makes saving money something that happens almost without thought when you are focused on the prize!

Here’s to many mini meals on the savings front!