Are You Susceptible to Impulse Buying? Here’s How to Cope

Impulse buying affects a significant portion of the U.S. population, and has led many Americans to amassing oppressive credit card debt. While most of us regard ourselves as being sensible shoppers, we all have bad habits that can (and often do) lead us to spending more money than we should.

If you are struggling with significant credit card debt, it is extremely important to curb any and all bad spending habits. However, many of us don’t realize that we even have bad spending habits. Here are a few tips for combatting our worst spending impulses.

Don’t visit online retail sites just to “window shop”.

Checking our favorite shopping sites can be an enjoyable pastime, but e-commerce sites were designed to encourage purchasing, and it is very easy to become seduced by products (“I thought they discontinued that color! I need that!”) Unless you planned to purchase and need a specific item, don’t visit online retailers.

Always make shopping lists.

If you’ve struggled with impulse buying in the past, you should never enter any retail outlet without a strategy. When you’re heading to a store (or even shopping online), make a list of vetted purchases, and don’t stray from it.

Use your phone calculator for in-store shopping.

Decide what you are going to spend when you leave the house, and add up the price of the individual items as you add them to your cart. This will help put the little items into perspective --- five or six small purchases can add up to a significant dollar amount once you’re at the register.

Don’t be fooled by “free shipping with a $50 purchase”.

Remember, you’ve made a shopping list for your online purchases, too. All too often, we see that we can get free shipping after a certain dollar amount, and then we wind up spending money – far in excess of the cost of shipping – on items we don’t really need. And still we think it’s a good trade! If the price of all of the items on your shopping list does not amount to the dollar amount that qualifies you for free shipping, just pay for the shipping. If you think you’ve saved $5.99 by spending $9.99 on something you could have easily done without, you’re woefully misguided.

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