How to Stop Impulse Buying: 12 Tips to Curb Your Spending and Shop Intentionally

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The enemy of our monthly budget and simple living is impulse buying. Retail marketers are trained in sneaky tactics that influence our urge to buy. Our personalities, mindsets, and moods can also lead to impulse shopping. In an article in Psychology Today, psychologist Ian Zimmerman said impulse buying is often connected to anxiety, unhappiness, and the desire for social acceptance.

No matter your trigger, it’s important to become more intentional about your spending habits. Imagine how much better off your finances would be if you saved every dollar you carelessly spent on stuff you don’t really need. Furthermore, impulse buying prevents you from creating good and lasting financial habits. If you teach yourself how to save and be intentional with your money at a young age, those habits will carry on with you throughout your life and allow you to save money for important financial goals.

If impulse buying has been busting your monthly budget – creating further financial stress, here are 12 simple tips to beat the urge and shop more intentionally. Choose the method that works best for you, or use them all together to reach your goal.

1. Don’t go to the mall except for necessities

Stay away from shopping malls unless necessary. You only get the urge to buy on impulse if you are in a shopping area. So, prevent the urge from happening in the first place by not going to the mall. Only go to a store if you need to buy a specific thing. Once you are done with your shopping, get out of the store as soon as possible. Don’t just walk around window shopping for entertainment, or you will be tempted into impulse buying.

Don’t use shopping as a past time if you are bored or looking for some fun. Find other creative ways to have fun. Many people treat shopping like a hobby or a stress-reliever, or something to do to pass their time on the weekends. Others use shopping as a cure for a bad mood.

If you surround yourself with temptations of things that you may want to buy, you are likely to give into that urge and buy something you don’t need. Instead, spend your time in places that you can enjoy, but that do not involve retail.

2. Avoid visiting online shopping websites

Online shopping can be dangerous because of its convenience. You are able to see hundreds of items – one after another very quickly from the comfort of your home. Also, online retailers want buying to be as simple as the click of a button. They target their marketing towards products you have purchased in the past, hoping you will want to buy a similar product or the same product again.

If you have something in mind that you need, take time to go to the store physically, and actually pick it up or try it on to make sure it is exactly what you are looking for.

Also, remove all your financial information from online sites to prevent making impulse buying so effortless.

3. Always shop with a list and plan for your purchases

Whether you are shopping for groceries, holiday gifts, or other things, never go shopping without a list if you are struggling with impulse buying. If something is not on your list, don’t buy it. It really is that simple.

Create a strict list before you go shopping and only include the things that you need. Making a list before you go shopping is important. If you can make it a habit to stick to that list, you’ll eliminate a lot of impulse buying and overspending.

For other purchases, make it a habit to plan for them, save for them, and shop around for the best deals available. Going through this process ensures that your purchases are more intentional, and less on impulse. Plan ahead for big purchases that you know are coming up in the months ahead and look for ways to save money.

4. Ask yourself if it’s worth buying

Before you reach for your debit/credit card or hit the purchase button if you are shopping online, take a moment to ask yourself a little question: Is this worth it?

When you buy something, you not only buy that with your money, but also with the hours of your life that you spent earning that money. If it’s a pair of fancy shoes or a jacket that cost the equivalent of an entire day’s pay, and you are already stressed out about debt, by all means – walk away!

5. Find free ways to reward yourself

Often, you may feel like you want to treat yourself for achieving a goal or accomplishing something great by buying yourself a present of some sort.

Of course, you should celebrate your accomplishment and reward yourself. But find other ways to do so that won’t cost you much money or any money at all but are equally effective and enjoyable.

6. Declutter your home to reevaluate what you own

If you are an impulse buyer, decluttering your home will help you shift your perspective. Once you get rid of the unnecessary, unloved, and unwanted stuff from your home, and take time to organize your possessions, you might realize that you already have everything you need at home.

By going through your things and sorting them out, you will know exactly what you own. This way, next time you want to buy something without any pre-planning, you will remember that you already have several of them, and you don’t need to spend money on buying extra to create clutter in your home.

7. Always shop with cash money and avoid credit cards

Always use cash for shopping and carry a small amount of cash money in your wallet. Using credit cards can be dangerous because you may develop an “I’ll buy the thing now and worry about it later” mindset. The problem is, when that “later” comes, you will probably regret spending the money because you won’t be able to pay your bill on time, thus adding more to your debt. That will increase your financial stress as well.

Using your credit card for impulse purchases only adds more to your final cost — in the form of interest — to something you didn’t need to buy in the first place. Therefore, don’t carry your credit cards in your wallet while shopping to avoid easy access to impulse buying. Instead, use cash.

8. Take time to do some research before your purchases

If you like something in the store and really want to buy it, there is a good chance that you may get a better deal on that item somewhere else, especially if you are making a big purchase.

Before buying a big ticket item without any prior planning, you should pause and take a deep breath. Remind yourself to do some research first and try out products before you commit to the one that you want to buy. This will help prevent buyer’s remorse or having to deal with a store’s strict return policy.

9. Ask some essential questions

Before you buy anything, ask yourself a series of questions: Is this purchase going to add value to your life? Is it going to improve your lifestyle in some meaningful way? Are you going to make this purchase only to feel better? Does it help you meet one of your life-goals? Do you already own something similar that can do the job for you? Do you have space for this thing in your home? Will it simplify your life?

These are useful questions to help you evaluate the value of a purchase, and why you are making it.

10. Remember your important life-goals

Prioritizing your life-goals and keeping them in mind is important. Whether your goals are financial or otherwise, think about them before wasting money. Perhaps you are trying to save a certain amount of money to build an emergency fund, or trying to save for your retirement, or you want to get out of your debt and live a debt-free life.

Keep your savings goals in mind, and remember that your small impulse purchases add up to a lot of money in the long-run, and can prevent you from meeting your important life-goals. So, before making any impulse purchase, ask yourself: “Is the item I am buying more important than reaching my goals?” It probably isn’t!

11. Track your daily or weekly spending

Take time to track your daily or weekly expenses to avoid any overspending. Don’t wait until the end of the month to analyze your spending and see if you could stick to your monthly budget.

When you take note of what you spend each day or each week, those unnecessary impulse purchases stick out like a sore thumb.

12. Give yourself time before deciding to buy

The feeling of instant gratification is what leads so many of us to buy things on impulse. But pressing pause on buying is often all it takes to realize what we are craving for is not something we must have to have.

Some people implement a 30-day waiting period – delaying a purchase for about a month, and some give themselves a week or two. When you take a few days of waiting period before making a purchase, many times the urge will pass and you can just cross the item off the list.

Final Thoughts

I’m not saying that you can’t treat yourself every once in a while. But it’s important to be mindful of your budget and your “needs” versus your “wants.” Setting aside a small amount of your budget as an occasional impulse fund can give you a manageable and responsible outlet for spontaneous purchases.

If you don’t control your impulse purchases, curb your spending, and shop intentionally, you may create long-term financial problems and unnecessary stress for you and your family. Following these useful tips should help you be more intentional with how you spend your money and what you buy so you can simplify your life and focus on what matters most.

You may also like to read: 7 Meaningful Ways to Spend Your Money