COMMENT
Fancy A Financial Detox This Month?

By Cliff D'Arcy
January 3, 2006

Although there's no way to be sure, I believe that I find sticking to New Year's resolutions far harder than the average person does.

I think that this is because I have a classic "addictive" personality: if I enjoy doing something, I tend to do it to excess and then struggle to cut back when prudence demands. Also, being a rather weak-willed character, I find it equally hard to begin good habits. Hence, sticking to my annual resolutions is always hard work (although I did well with my financial resolutions in 2005)!

Nevertheless, I'm rather pleased that, last year, I stubbornly stuck to one monetary resolution with excellent results: I underwent a financial detox throughout January 2005. At the end of 2004, I set myself a tough financial challenge: I would attempt to spend as little as possible on top of my usual monthly outgoings during January 2005, which I called extreme budgeting.

Although I didn't set myself a spending target, my goal was to spend nothing during January 2005. Of course, this didn't happen; in fact, I spent just short of £40. However, this included £10 for a pot of paint to redecorate my old house, but I won't have this outlay this month. So, my target this January is to spend, say, less than £30 - or around a pound a day - on top of my usual monthly outgoings.

Naturally, it's not easy to get by on a quid a day, because this means giving up all of life's little luxuries for a while. So, all of my vices and treats go out of the window for a month, which means no smoking, drinking, fast food, takeaways, snacks and so on. Oh well, at least one of my favourite pleasures still costs nothing. I mean, of course, a brisk walk in the fresh air -- what were you thinking?

As you'd expect, this approach -- aided by "Spend-Nothing Days" and "No-Cash-Withdrawal Days" -- isn't for everyone. However, it proved to be a diet for both health and wealth, which is something that I had absentmindedly overlooked. By the beginning of February 2005, my bank balance -- normally a mess in previous post-festive seasons -- was looking rosy.

What's more, thanks to an absence of booze, fags and unhealthy living, I came to realise that I was in much better physical and mental shape. In fact, I was surprised to discover that my weight had dropped by five kilograms (eleven pounds) in just thirty days, and I felt terrific. Remember, I wasn't dieting as such, I was simply going through a financial detox, but the results were just as positive.

So, rather than reading all that old nonsense about "dropping a dress/waist size" in one month through a complicated pseudo-scientific diet devised by some quack, why not use extreme budgeting to give yourself a financial detox? I promise that, by the end of the month, the financial, physical and mental benefits will be absolutely clear.

My spending so far: £1.70 in three days. Only four weeks to go!

Things that you might try living without: cigarettes, alcohol, takeaways and fast food, snacks and nibbles, expensive drinks (Starbucks coffee, fizzy drinks, etc.), newspapers, the Lotto and other gambling, "retail therapy", credit cards and so on.

I hope that better budgeting makes you richer in 2006!

More: Got a post-Christmas financial hangover? Try these Best Buy credit cards, personal loans and bank accounts!