Finances: Avoiding Impulse Buying
One of my friends was complaining to me yesterday that she is completely mired in credit card debt. A few minutes later, when I inquired about what she was doing on the weekend, she told me she was going shopping for shoes.
Just like you can’t store 5 cubic feet of stuff in 3 cubic feet of space, you can’t spend more than you bring in without incurring debt. And for most of us, we go into debt for spur-of-the-moment purchases.
How many times have you purchased something without really thinking it through, just to figure out that you really didn’t need it when you got home? Every one of us has done it. And this sort of impulse buying causes us not only to spend money we don’t need to, but then not extract the value of our money when we dispose of the item that we never really wanted to begin with. (And if you never dispose of it, you end up with a house full of clutter that sucks our energy and life…but that’s another article.
How to avoid impulse buying
Avoiding impulse buying is fairly simple. Most impulses are the result of not thinking things through. If you can think about what you are doing, you can avoid most impulse buys.
Have a list and stick to it
If you need something, write it down before you go to the store. And once you’re in the store, if it’s not on the list, don’t buy it. No exceptions.
Create a “think about it” list
If you see something while shopping that you think you’d like to have, put it on a “think about it” list. Give yourself 30 days, and if you still want it, go for it. Most times, you won’t want the item.
Set ground rules BEFORE going into the store.
Make sure your children understand what you are buying in a store. In my family, any begging/whining will cause an immediate departure from the store, and my daughter knows it. She knows that there are times when we will buy things for her, and times when we won’t. We go over the rules before we go into the store, so she knows.
Never shop for recreation
Retail therapy doesn’t work. If you are bored, take up a new hobby, or read a book, or exercise. Shopping won’t fill the void, and will only lead to piles of stuff that doesn’t really make you feel good for a long time.
Photo by zizzybaloobah
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