The Art of Resisting an Impulse Purchase

Posted on April 18, 2007

How do you resist something that is studied, designed, and manufactured to grab your attention, cause you to stop, and then purchase the item? Short of never leaving your house and turning off your TV, it can be quite difficult and require a lot of discipline. My girlfriend and I are currently trying to save and have had to employ numerous strategies to resist impulse purchases. Some the techniques we use are:

1. Never buying a large item with a credit card without being able to pay the balance off immediately.
2. Resist options that include no interest for X amount of time without planning to purchase it and having enough in the bank to pay outright for it.
3. Limit carefree trips to the mall to a minimum.
4. Shop for groceries in large, planned trips and buy meats and relevant items in bulk, thereby reducing trips to grocery store to a minimum.
5. Turn off one click buying on Amazon.com and related sites.
6. Discuss purchases with significant other allowing one another to discuss validity of purchase. Sometimes hearing yourself talk about the necessity (or lack there of) out loud can let you know it is an unnecessary purchase.

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