WHEN I said on my last blog that I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, it wasn't completely true.

While I didn't make any official resolutions, I did decide to cut back on the number of Lottery scratchcards I buy.

For some reason I've always been quite lucky with the Lottery.

I've been buying scratchcards regularly for about five years, and it's grown into a bit of a habit, but I seem to win more often than not.

Once I won £100, twice I have won £50, and at least a dozen times I have won prizes of between £10 and £20.

Once I won on eight scratchcards in a row, trading one winning card in for another.

The eighth won me five pounds, which I decided to keep instead of trading in for yet another one.

To be honest I think the newsagent was fed up of me by then as well.

At Christmas I bought several festive-themed scratchcards as stocking fillers for family and friends, and only two out of the six didn't win.

The biggest win went to my girlfriend's mum; she got a tenner and I immediately got into her good books, which was nice.

I win so often in fact, that it's become a running joke in my family.

I regularly call my mum and start the conversation with: "Mum, you know I always win on scratchcards?"

"Oh, not again," she replies, frustrated at my luck and her lack of it.

In contrast I very rarely play the actual main Lotto game - I thought I would give that up after getting five numbers and winning £2,000 on only my second go two years ago.

I considered giving it up after only winning a tenner on my first go, but in hindsight I'm glad I played again.

But, even despite my good fortune, I've decided to cut back on buying scratchcards for the sake of my finances.

In the long run it's probably more sensible to save the money for grown up things like a mortgage and a better car instead of buying hundreds of bits of card, many of which will only end up in the bin.

Plus my luck's bound to run out sooner or later...

So far this year I've been really good, and I've only bought one scratchcard.

I won £10.