9 Simple Ways to Stop Impulse Buying

Meg Favreau — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:00:24 +0000

Ah, the impulse purchase — that momentary thriller, that ruiner of budgets. The impulse buy is a nefarious beast. No matter how good we are at saving and living frugally, sometimes, it can be hard to resist that impulse purchase. But fear not! These nine strategies can help. (See also: Is Instant Gratification Financially Responsible?)

1. Follow the Time Rule

I've seen this defined as something as small as the "one hour rule" and as big as the "30 day rule," but the idea is the same — when you see something that you want, make yourself wait a certain amount of time before purchasing it. The longer you can go, the better. If you still strongly want to make the purchase at the end of the time period, only consider doing so then.

2. Don't Shop When Upset

It's easy to look for a product (whether it's food, clothing, or something else) to cheer you up when you're unhappy. One of my worst impulse purchases ever happened at a liquor store. While I was there picking up a bottle of wine for a friend's party, I recieved a call with some bad news. Now, I'm a bit of a cocktail geek — if I'm going to have a drink, I want to enjoy something with good, interesting ingredients — and in an effort to cheer myself up, I purchased three kinds of liqueurs I had been wanting to add to my bar. Oops.

3. Consider Changing How and Where You Shop

One of the things I love about shopping online is that it's much easier to ignore extraneous items — I go to Amazon, put what I need in my cart, and check out. But I know if I try on clothing in a store, I'm much more likely to happen upon a dress that I suddenly really want. The solution? Except for groceries, pharmacy items, and thrift-store finds, I rarely shop in physical stores.

4. Don't Shop With the Wrong People

If you have impulse-happy shopping buddies, it can be easy to let them convince you that all the outfits you just tried on look greaaaat, and you should TOTALLY buy them. If you want to shop socially, do it with people who have also frugal spending habits (and if they happen to be able to tell you when a dress really looks great on you, well, all the better).

5. Give Yourself a Splurge Budget

You're much less likely to make big impulse purchases if you allow yourself some smaller discretionary spending. Whether it's budgeting for one new clothing item a month, allowing yourself a fancy coffee every now and again, or giving yourself spend-it-however-you-want cash, give yourself some room so you don't feel like a penny-pinching miser.

6. Only Buy Things You Can Return

If you really have a problem with impulse purchases, at the very least, buy from stores with good return policies. One impulse spender Nora wrote about made herself take a three-day "Do I really need it?" cooling-off period after a purchase, and then would return several items she bought.

7. Remember to Not Be Fooled by Sales

Sales with huge markdowns can make impulse purchases very tempting. I tend to think of products I've bought on sale as falling into two categories — "I really wanted this" and "Oh, I could use this!" The trick is to only buy things in the first category. For years, half my shoe collection was made up of shoes I only sort of liked, but had found on sale. Remember, if you see a product on sale, you will always save more money if you don't buy it at all.

8. Keep a List of Things You Really Want or Need

That way, if you do see them on sale, you can buy them with confidence.

9. Don't Give Yourself Access to Your Money

Whether it's leaving your credit cards at home or freezing them in a block of ice, you can't make impulse purchases if you don't have the money to do so.

How do you curb impulse spending?

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This article is from Meg Favreau of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

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