Adam over at ManVsDebt has taken the extreme measure of publicly sharing all of his and his partner’s finances on his blog (with the help of Pocketsmith, a web-based calendar for keeping an eye on your cashflow), including all of his spending, in an attempt to help him stick to a budget. His idea is that by publishing all this data, it will be more difficult not to stick to their budget, with all of his readers looking on helping them keep on the “straight and narrow”.
As I say, this is a particularly extreme way of helping them to achieve their financial goals, but it did get me wondering about how much we’d all alter our spending if we had to publicly display it every month, in the same ways that MPs have to declare their expenses?
If you had to publish a monthly list of everything you spent money on, would it change your spending habits?
If you’re fond of a beer or two, or enjoy a bottle of wine each night, would it shame you in to cutting down? If you’re a 20-a-day smoker, or a fan of even harder drugs, would it make you quit, or at least cut back?
Perhaps you spend a fortune on clothes or love running up massive mobile phone bills, can you justify these?
I know this is largely hypothetical, but it could be a useful exercise to help you identify ways of cutting down unnecessary spending – you may be able to justify it to yourself, but if you couldn’t justify it to your peers, or even your partner, why not cut it out?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
