Regardless of your position when it comes to financial spending and budgeting, it doesn’t hurt to practice mindful spending habits. Listed below are 8 tips that can help you stop the impulse buying habit and think of ways to spend less and save money.
These days, you can find it easy to pay for almost everything, thanks to mobile wallets, and even one-click online shopping methods. While they may be convenient for those necessities, these benefits take us away from the out of sight of mind mindset.
The good thing is, being mindful when it comes to your financial journey can help you stay within your spending habits and not go beyond it.
At the end of the day, it’s either those purchases are necessary, or, you won’t be even using and needing them after all.
Use A Spending Tracker
Your journey begins with your budget. If you don’t have one yet, then now is the best time to start preparing one. Once you have it in place, try to regularly review all of your incoming and outgoing transactions. It can be daily, weekly, or even monthly – whatever schedule you can sustain and works best for you. This way, you will be able to determine whether you’re overspending and even see where you’re spending your money on.
With that in mind, you can always make adjustments. For instance, if you’ve noticed that you’ve been overspending money for a $10 delivery every lunch, you’ll see that it all adds up at the end of the month. You can also utilize technology for this type of task such as downloading the US Bank Mobile app. This app features a Money Mentorship tab that helps you analyze all of your spending habits and give you a better understanding of where your money goes month after month.
Don’t Use The “One-Click Buying” Feature
For the majority of online retailers, they have enabled this feature to prevent their customers from abandoning their shipping cart. Not only that this feature is super convenient as it helps you get your orders checked-out and paid for instantly, but unfortunately, this feature is also the road that will lead you to impulse buying. As difficult and inconvenient as this may sound, you may want to disable the one-click buying feature. You may also want to delete some online shopping apps at the same time if you buy from your phone most of the time.
Pay With Cash
Using Google Pay and Apple Pay has thankfully made paying for our purchases a lot easier, but digital payments made it more difficult to stop spending impulsively. A study made by a US Bank Cash Behavior has found out that 50% of individuals these days rarely carry enough cash as they have their debit cards, credit cards and/or other modes of digital payment with them instead. Stop this trend – stop for an ATM, withdraw your budget for spending before you go out on your shopping trip. By taking just enough money from your account, your chances of overspending are minimized. If possible and if you can, leave your credit and/or debit card at home.
Come Up With A Shopping List
Before you go out for your weekly shopping errands, make sure that you come up with a list of the things that you need and intend to buy – and make sure that you stick to it! If you go on a grocery shopping trip without a list, you’d find yourself mindlessly going from one aisle to another, adding things to your cart that is unnecessary.
Set Aside A “Guilt-Free” Shopping Money
Finance analysts at Pronto Finance say “being a mindful spender doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not supposed to buy fun things. After all, you’ve worked hard for that money and it’s just right that you get to enjoy it every once in a while.” They advise “set aside money that you can use for your guilt-free shopping trip. This is after you budget your money, and have enough for your bills and other necessary expenses . You may even want to set aside a separate account where you could allocate your spending money and separate it from your savings.”
Think And Pause Before Making A Purchase
You’ve probably heard about people using the phrase “sleep on it” before you even make a huge decision in your life. The same thing applies when you’re making huge purchases. Instead of mindlessly shopping and paying with your credit card as soon as you’ve seen something, pause, and even think again for a day or two and think about that significant purchase. Most of the time, you’ll find yourself not wanting to buy it after giving it some thought. But if you feel that you still wanted to make that purchase after thinking hard about it, then go ahead and do it.
An Accountability Partner Helps
It doesn’t matter who it is – it can be your best friend, your mother, spouse, an identity or someone that you completely trust. Discuss your financial journey with your accountability partner and inform them of your goals and your mindful spending habits. This person will help you get back on track and even might give you a nudge whenever you find yourself in a situation where you’re about to make those unnecessary purchases.
Understand The Things That Matter To You
Getting that latest smartphone model or upgrading to a bigger TV may give you that sense of gratification, but will it make you happy for longer periods, or will it just give you a temporary sense of happiness? If it’s just temporary, then it’s time to back off and save that money or use it for something else. To stop the unnecessary spending habits, always think of the things that are important to you and your financial goals. Whether it be buying a new car or a home, checking off your bucket list and going on a Europe trip, or even a monthly self-care routine might be nice, right?
