How To Avoid Impulse Buying

Impulsive shopping can often be more than just a bad habit, as, over the long-term, it can lead to financial difficulty if you don’t keep better track of your spending. Not only that, but impulsive spending may mean that you end up with a cluttered home, filled with items you never really needed, with a big potential for waste.

Signs You’re an Impulsive Buyer

If you’re wondering whether you have any regular impulsive habits, here are the top signs to look out for.

· You’re always convincing yourself of why you deserve certain purchases

· You enjoy instant gratification

· You use purchases and shopping as a way to improve your mood

· You’re running into financial problems

· You have a lot of items which you wonder why you bought in the first place

· Most of your purchases are on frivolous things

· You struggle to resist items you want when out shopping or browsing online

How to Avoid It

Do any of those sound like you? If so, here’s how to avoid impulse buying.

Think On It

Give yourself a breather and sleep on it when you’re thinking about any purchases, whether large or small. Impulse buying can provide a satisfying feeling in the moment, but the day after, you may be wondering why you purchased at all.

Taking a step back and thinking about whether you really need a certain item will help you determine its worth. If you’re still thinking about it after a few days or longer, and if you’re sure it’s the right purchase, you can then make it less impulsively.

Plan Ahead for Purchases

Planning ahead gives you time to think about what you really need to buy and - more importantly - what you don’t. Planning can be done on whatever basis works for you, such as a monthly plan, a weekly plan, or even a plan for the day before you head out on a shopping trip.

Using discount codes is also a great way to avoid buying things you don’t need and saving money at the same time. By collecting promotional codes for the items you need, you can better plan what to buy ahead of time and avoid too many impulsive purchases at full price. You can find great promo codes for a variety of stores, like using a Target promo code and more.

Make a Monthly Budget

Because impulse buys are not usually factored into monthly budgets or plans, having a strict budget and an understanding of what you can afford for the month can really help to avoid any unnecessary purchases. Impulse buying is easily achieved when you’re not fully aware of how much spare spending money you have for the month, and often you might realize you’ve overspent when purchases have already been made.

Planning out your budget for exactly how much money you have leftover after your outgoings, or at least how much you comfortably want to spend on anything, means that any purchases can take your budget into consideration.

Always take a step back and manage your time and finances in a better way when it comes to your shopping habits in order to best beat impulsive buying.