Ways to Stop Impulse Spending

 

Topics that a handful of my girls have asked me to blog about usually revolve around money – how to save, how to stop spending and how to take care of their money. I would always come back to them and say that I couldn’t possibly write about a topic I’m so terrible at myself! I had not given myself enough credit because I know I’ve been doing better in my halt to impulse spending and I’ve actually made changes to the way I save money – Tip #2 is the only way which has worked for me! Today, I want to give a few tips on ways I stopped impulse spending.

1) Stop browsing – Start Searching!

Know what you want before you start shopping online and search for it instead of browsing everything and adding random (usually regret purchases) into your cart. I know it’s hard for women to ‘know what they want’ when it comes to shopping, but taking an honest look at what you need and then intentionally searching for it (physically or online) is a way to stop impulsive buying.

2) Find power in SAVING rather than BUYING

The ability to spend money and purchase can give an empowering feeling to someone and this fuels uncontrollable urges to spend money, on mostly unnecessary items. The swipe of the card, making a transaction or walking away from a cash register after spending money is what fuels impulse buying – it’s usually not the material item that you even care about, it’s the fact that you could make a transaction and you fulfilled your desire to spend. Let’s be honest you already have 3 red nail polishes in similar shades so what made you even consider buying that 4th  bottle in a “crimson” shade?

Using my National Bank app on my phone to make transfers into my savings on-the-go gave me the same feeling of spending. Frequently, every few hours I would put tiny amounts into my savings. It gave me that same rush as impulse spending did! Impulse buying can be lessened by finding power in saving your money rather than spending it.

3) Check out ImpulseSave and their list of 51 ways to save money and stop impulse buying! The list breaks down into different areas where people tend to impulsively spend their money.

Let’s get real, impulse spending can be fun and some can even be a great purchase in the end but most of the time we can all get a bit ridiculous with the impulse purchases. I’ve done it countless amount of times! But.. If it’s within your budget and seems like a good deal – then by all means, go for it! Recognise that not all impulse buying is a bad thing.

In the comments below I’d love to know…. if you have any tips to share around impulse spending

Thank you so much for reading! Let’s all celebrate because it’s nearly the weekend, Woohoo!!

Erica xx

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