Get Rid of Shopping Boredom With These Tricks
I have a bad habit. On Saturday nights, after a few glasses of Chablis and a night of idleness, I tour my Amazon wishlist looking for something to buy. It’s an expensive habit that has filled my home with cheap books, expensive Gundam models, and a few E-Mount lenses that I haven’t had time to use yet. Reddit colleague xsp4rrow has a similar problem that rears its head when they get bored.
I don’t regret any of these purchases, but I wish I didn’t make them without guilt or anxiety running through me days after I clicked the buy button, especially when I bought them simply because I also felt a little blazy. If you find yourself in a boat like this a lot, here are some ways to kill – or at least shorten – your boring shopping habit:
Find out why you are buying
I’m sure you made an impulse purchase when you were having a bad day. Whether it’s a slice of pizza or a new video game, emotional shopping is usually not the best way to deal with unpleasant feelings. Out-of-the-box shopping is often associated with a little emotional excitement, and understanding the root reasons for your trip to Zara can make you feel better than a pair of pants.
In a bad mood? Meditation, exercise, or just sleeping will likely improve your mood. Keeping a gratitude journal can help you see what you truly own or value in life and can help you gauge your impulsive shopping habits.
Make shopping difficult
The best way to get rid of addiction is to avoid it completely. If your job is not related to occasional trips to Amazon and the like, you can block these sites from your life with a simple browser extension .
StayFocusd is a Chrome extension that allows you to customize access to approved and blocked sites for a specified period of time. You can set it up so you can access Amazon for 30 minutes from 9am to 5pm, or block impulse buying sites for six out of seven days a week. It’s a great tool for tackling social media addiction, but it also proves to be useful for suddenly killing midnight eBay trips.
Plan your purchases
While you may want this three-piece suit in the same week that Nintendo Switch is back in stock, making a few big purchases isn’t easy on the wallet. If so, you should consider planning for larger purchases. Just open your calendar or to-do app, enter the item you want, and set a date that works for you and fits your budget.
Perhaps it is the day after the lease expires, or the day before you get paid. Either way, you know you’ll be ready to make that purchase, and turn that impulsive purchase into a smart decision that you can adjust or abandon when the time comes. You can pair this suit for an enjoyable evening with your partner, or take your new console to a friend’s house and chat. Turning a purchase into an experience can help you value your purchase more and keep you satisfied for longer.
Use the envelope trick
Saving on big purchases is harder if you keep spending money on small items. At the same time, impulsive purchases of large purchases can ruin your finances and make you anxious and stressed about money.
This is where the envelope saving method works wonders. Are you saving up for a new, more durable sofa? Take an envelope, write down your goal and your desired savings amount, and put some cash in it every week. This can be a fixed regular deposit ($ 10 is paid into my envelope weekly) or whatever you have in your pocket at the end of the day. I recommend betting on the same recurring investment so you can plan ahead and calculate your completion date.
You can also create a digital envelope if you don’t want to keep bills under the mattress. Betterment , an online investment company, allows you to create savings accounts for specific purposes, automatically handles recurring deposits on a fairly flexible schedule. While it focuses on long-term savings plans, it will provide you with an estimate of when you will reach your short-term savings goals and allow you to cash out whenever you want.
Ask someone knowledgeable
Oftentimes, a purchase can be influenced by a different opinion if you ask the right person. When I was hunting for a car, desperate to feel the open road, I asked Jalopnik ‘s Kristen Lee about the possibility of owning a car in New York.
Lee, a rare example of a city dweller with a car, explained the pros and cons, ultimately suggesting that my use cases are better suited if I sometimes rent one for certain trips. While it’s not nearly as sexy as owning my own Miata, an expert opinion has definitely saved me over a few thousand dollars.