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Impulse Buying
One of the easiest ways to hurt your bottom line is to allow yourself to make
impulse purchases.
The average U.S. consumer spends $5,400 on impulse purchases annually, an astonishing number that could be going towards paying off your debt or real-life expenses. That amounts to roughly $450 a month in impulse purchases, according to CNBC.
But what drives those impulse purchases? Your first thought may be obvious: clothes shopping. Believe it or not, though, clothes shopping is not the greatest villain of wasteful spending. It’s actually food. Yes, that’s right: 70 percent of respondents surveyed said food, groceries and eating out, was the biggest culprit of their impulse buys. In terms of squandering your wealth, clothes came in second, with household items coming in third. So how can you limit impulse buys? Well, let’s start with a few easy tricks related to food, since that seems to be the top offender.
You’ve probably heard the old saying “never shop hungry,” and it’s a good one. Hitting the grocery store on an empty stomach is one of the easiest ways to ensure you pick up a bunch of items you don’t need. The average American household throws out almost $650 worth of food every year. Money that could be going towards your debt. We’d definitely advise snacking — or having a full meal — before you go shopping. You’d also be wise to eat before you hit the town for a night out if you’re working on a tight budget. Cooking at home is cheaper (and healthier) than eating out, and it’s tough to avoid spending big money on impulse meals if you’re hungry. One simple way to enjoy the fun and have a full stomach is to eat before you go out and then limit yourself to an appetizer or small dish at whatever restaurant you go to.
These little purchases are easy to overlook but can quickly start to add up. If you designate one day out of the week for grocery shopping you will eliminate these grazing purchases throughout the week.
Clothing and household item impulse buys are a different game and so require a different approach. For any item over a few hundred dollars, the best rule of thumb is to wait two weeks before pulling the trigger. Often a clever ad or sparkly package design can catch your attention and trick you into buying something you really don’t need. But a two week wait time on expensive purchases allows the initial lust of a buy to wear off. It also gives you a chance to shop around for sales and investigate your potential purchase. Say you see a new television or gadget for your home that you spend $400 on, only to find out a week later it’s notorious for unreliability or having technical issues. Now you’ve wasted your money and bought a product that won’t live up to the hype. In this case, patience would have truly been a virtue.
Lastly, don’t hesitate to ask yourself the most important question out there: “Do I really need this or do I just want this?” It’s okay to buy things you want. After all, what’s the point of money if you don’t spend it every now and then? But it’s also important not to make allow emotional buying to become a habit. If weeks go by where you’re making “want” purchases like an expensive dinner, a new pair of headphones, or those $200 jeans that you look so good in, then you find yourself in trouble when you suddenly need to fix your car’s muffler or even pay your
electric bill.
Impulse buys are okay if they are the exception and not the norm. But if you allow them to become a habit, they’ll dissolve your bank account, and no amount of budgeting will ever allow you to crawl out from under your debt.
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