The trick for me to reduce impulse buys is to see if I want to buy the thing 3 days in a row. If I kept thinking about buying the thing on the third day, I’ll buy it.
For me if i want something but i’m not sure if i should buy it. I just forget about it. If i want it again in the future i think about it but forget it again. After that i might think about it again and get it that time. XD
I do just about the same thing, but force myself to put an equal amount of money into long term savings before I actually buy it. If I’m not willing to spend twice the price on something, do I really need it?
You just made me think. What was the last thing I bought impulsively? I generally don’t like spending money.
A pocket calculator for €2.65. I have a phone. I don’t need it. But now I have a calculator, always ready in pocket.
Stupidest one? Probably A4 sticker sheets of DVD labels. They were cheaper than regular A4 paper because nobody wanted that. I mean, you can carefully peel it in one piece, and if you tape it over, you got nice stickers. How many? Well, it’s 500 sheets of 6 labels each, so 3,000 DVD labels. That was like €1.70.
It was one of those 99+% discount sales. Usually this label paper is around €0.60/sheet (A4), which would land this at €300.
My pattern is I’ll find something new that I want and I’ll order it, but before it arrives I’ll research absolutely everything about it—specs, reviews, unboxing videos—that I’ll squeeze every drop of joy out of the purchase before I even have it…
This is what I do especially if it’s expensive. If I find myself researching it more and more, it means I really want it and will very likely use it a lot. If I lose interest on day one it’s not worth it.
And then you’re left with the anxiety if you made the right purchase as you wait for it to arrive on your doorstep and a tinge of lingering regret if it doesn’t 100% meet your expectations.
Or like, buyers remorse but before you even have The Thing because you impulse bought The Thing and THEN started down a deep research rabbit hole about The Thing and found out that you could definitely get a Thing that meets your needs much better than The Thing you bought except The Thing hasn’t even arrived yet.
The first page I look at on a website is the return policy.
I had to start forcing myself to do the research beforehand. It truly ruined any joy i might have gotten out of The Thing when I just sat there researching The Thing about a day after The Thing was ordered and slowly realized it wasn’t the correct Thing.
I just default to buying the best possible Thing that I can so when I do the research it turns out that all other Things are inferior anyways. (I still did not need The Thing)
Hey I do that too! Sometimes I pair it with researching thing, selecting the thing, then putting off buying so long that the new thing came out so then I have double the research and no thing.
Thank god I am terrified of spending money. I impulsively do really stupid shit all the time but my fucked relationship with finance and value keeps the frivolous shopping at bay.
Human brains are amazing. You can’t really focus on the differences in the two drawings because it’s too small (at least I can’t). But you still see it smiling in the left and unhappy in the right frame.
a road bike: opened up a whole new world of exploring while exhausting myself
gardening tools: made gardening fun, which is a good way to exhaust myself and see progress. And it’s something I can always do in a free minute without prep
a phone with a 2.4" screen (Unihertz Atom): stopped me from doomscrolling all the time. Now I only use my phone to actually keep in contact or gather info I really need right now.
Oh, god, my soul vibrated with this. I don’t drive, and I’m waiting for an upcoming surgery, so in the meantime I can barely function, but I have the style personality of a Y2k heroin clown, and a closet [flat surfaces in the bedroom] full of ridiculous secondhand-site clothing that screams at me for the day I’m “normal” enough to wear it. Cause I’ll definitely, totally want to leave the house when I’m healthier, right?..Right?
I’m so glad I inspired your reply, this is the kind of personal and relatable I’m hoping to find. Y2k heroin clown is exactly the wardrobe I’m trying to build! Maybe you will wanna get out when you feel better, those outfits are you speaking to yourself! I’m spending my days mostly indoors waiting for my Mom to get surgeries! She has a few things in her wardrobe for when life gives us a little more. Mostly though, she buys super comfy clothing for what today brings. And me, I get a lot of handiwork done so I mostly have comfy jeans and sturdy sneakers.
I’ve been buying a ton of shit since I moved into a rental. It feels like it might be impulsive, but I get stuff with utility that will last 5-10 years
While this is probably a joke I’ll answer it seriously.
The trick with tricking your own brain is not to make something impossible. It is to make something annoying enough that you have time to consider not doing it. For your specific example if I struggled with buying too many things on Amazon I would probably attempt the following (depending on how pissed at myself I was). Each assuming the previous has failed to curb the behavior
uninstall the app
block the site using a browser extension
block the site in my router
Nothing stops you from undoing any of these other than how annoying it would be to undo it. Hopefully by the time you are half way through undoing it you realize you don’t actually need a new guitar pedal. You just want to enjoy your hobby again so maybe it’s time to join an online community
But like with all things in life, experiment and find what works for you
Or at least unsubscribe from Prime. That way you can still order stuff in case of emergency, but they bombard you with so many “come back to Prime!” messages that you remember how obnoxious they are.
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