How to Avoid Overspending when Working from Home

Avoiding overspending when working from home should be easy. You’ve dropped the commute, the office lunches, and the coffee on the way in. But after a few weeks, you might end up realizing that it’s not easy.

I’ve been working from home and on the road since 2009, and now that I’m closing in on two decades of experience and still not breaking the bank (on the contrary, I got better and better at managing my finances, including when they fell dramatically due to the “small content website owner purge” that started in late 2022.

However, working from home is something that, I strongly believe, not all people can do. Some simply can’t find the motivation to focus and do what has to be done when so much apparent freedom is all around them. But even for those who are better at this, it’s still a challenge to keep costs low.

Whilst most of us would stay off our personal phones in front of our managers, it’s a lot easier to get distracted when you’re in your own space.

From social media scrolling to impulse buying, being on your phone whilst working can lead to distraction and overspending, without you even being that aware of what you’re doing.

Whilst no one is perfect when it comes to working at home, regular splurging can leave you with items you don’t really need, and a hefty bill that leaves you feeling a twinge of regret when you look at your bank account.

In this post, I will share my top tips for keeping your spending under control.

Keep off social media, or make buying slower

It’s common knowledge that social media is addictive. We’ve all picked up the phone for no reason and ended up on Instagram. The algorithm is built to feed you more of what you like, so the item you glanced at last night follows you around this morning.

However, being able to shop directly from social media means that we’re far more likely to spend, with some studies showing that 65% of us have shopped online through social media, and I can only guess that the numbers are going up.

Still, I think social media takes more blame than it deserves. The real problem is how few steps stand between wanting something and owning it: a saved card, an app on the home screen, a one-tap reorder. So I’d rather add steps than add guilt.

To avoid this, try and keep your phone out of your line of sight. If that’s not possible, then consider using an app that’s designed to help you stay focused.

It might sound counterproductive, but there are some on the market that reward you for staying off your phone or block access to your social accounts during a set time.

Having that pause before you can access your socials might be the jolt you need to put your phone down.

Keep a spending journal

If you’re the sort of person who would stop spending if you could see it all in front of you, then some experts recommend keeping a spending journal.

This isn’t meant to send you into a guilt spiral, but it can help you keep track of what you’re purchasing and how much money you’ve parted with that week.

It’s not necessary to keep a daily spending one – after all, it requires a lot of effort and, just because of that, it’s easy to drop.

What I’d do instead is a one-off statement audit. Pull up the last two or three months of statements and mark everything that grew once you started working from home. Add each category up and see where the damage is – then work on fixing it.

From then on, a monthly check-up is usually enough. If you enjoy this kind of thing and want to do it more often, by all means, do so.

I personally found that once per month is enough – especially after you get into a rhythm and you kind of know everything about your personal finances and expenses, there’s not much else to do.

But definitely do it! I had a period of several months, several years ago, when I no longer did the monthly check-up, and when I finally decided to see how things were, I noticed that I had started overspending in various categories without even realizing it.

The costs that only grow when you work from home

Your audit will point to a few suspects. These are the four I’d check first, because each one grows when you’re home all day.

Delivery apps

This is my biggest struggle, and I will list it first because it might be (or become yours, too). It’s a surprising one that many of my friends keep criticizing me for.

Even though you spend more time at home and waste less time on commutes, which would in theory give you a lot more time to do some healthy cooking, you will usually end up pushing your work hours to a maximum and end up launching that app for a quick meal because, paradoxically, you don’t have time.

If you are obsessed by working as I am, this will become the norm but it shouldn’t. Not only because ordering food is a lot more expensive than taking advantage of your time spent at home and cooking from scratch, but also because it is usually less healthy than foods you can prepare at home.

So just pen the order history in your delivery app, add up three months, and compare it with what those meals would have cost at home.

To make things easier, if you really don’t like to cook (or still have little time left for it) is to look into meal prepping. Cooking in batches that cover at least a few days of your work week will do wonders to your budget and, most likely, your health too.

The home office upgrade spiral

A desk, a chair, a monitor arm, a lamp, then a second monitor. Then a larger desk, a special holder for your headset, new pens, pencils, notebooks and various other things you don’t really need and, in all honesty, you won’t use that much.

I know, I’ve been there. You have your own space now and you want to make it perfect, but there’s the big risk of turning it into a massive drain on your budget.

See that featured photo above? It’s my laptop on a plain wooden table at my village house. I was just as productive there as I am in a fancy coworking space or at my desk at home.

While I agree that you must keep everything comfortable and that you need an environment that helps you stay productive, don’t use this as an excuse to keep spending.

Subscriptions that pile up

This can be a problem even if you’re not working from home, but once you become your own boss, it can get dangerously high.

A streaming service for background noise, a productivity tool from the week you decided to get organized, a second cloud plan, an extra AI service that promises to do all the work for you and much, much more.

A CNET survey found that the average US adult at more than $1,000 a year on subscriptions, with over $200 of that going to services they don’t use.

While I fortunately grew up with things you could own instead of renting, in recent years I started spending more and more of subscriptions without realizing how much money I was wasting.

A quick check helped me reduce $45 in monthly subscriptions that weren’t necessary. And while that might not seem like an awful lot of money, it adds up. Plus, it never makes sense to spend money on things you don’t use or need.

Winter heating and electricity

This is something you have to prepare for. Your heating (and maybe the AC during the summer) will now work much differently than they did when you were not spending entire days at home.

You should stay comfortable at all times, but also know that comfortable can also mean a Celsius degree lower or higher, depending on the season – you won’t feel it, but the savings might be substantial.

In some places employers or tax rules contribute to home-working costs, so check before you absorb the difference.

Acknowledge your triggers and find an alternative

Often, we spend because of something we’re feeling, rather than actually needing an item.

Perhaps you’re jealous of a friend’s bag/clothes/lifestyle, or you’re feeling sad and are looking for something to cheer you up – whatever the reason, try to acknowledge it and pause before you hit buy.

At a home desk, I’d add a few more suspects: boredom between calls, the three o’clock slump, a meeting that went badly, and the “I worked all day, I deserve this” order. Loneliness belongs on the list too, because a parcel at the door is a small event in a quiet day.

Think about if there’s anything else you could do that would make you feel better, or take a break and go for a walk to shake up your perspective.

If you still want the item in a couple of days, then consider buying it – that way, you’re more likely to have made a considered purchase, rather than an emotional one.