Impulse Spending: How to Break the Habit and Boost Your Savings

Impulse Spending: How to Break the Habit and Boost Your Savings

Blog Article

We’ve all experienced it—you go to the shop for one thing and end up leaving with a basket filled with products you never intended to purchase. Buying on impulse is one of the biggest barriers to building savings, and it can quickly derail your budget if you’re not careful. The good news is that overcoming spontaneous purchases is possible, and with a little discipline and a few helpful tricks, you can start saving more money and making wiser spending decisions. The key is to understand the causes behind your spending and shift those behaviors with positive, money-saving behaviours.

The first step to reducing impulsive buying is to create a budget and follow it. Knowing exactly how much money you have available for discretionary spending each month can help you fight the temptation to make unplanned buys. When you see something you want to buy, take a break—pause for 24 free online financial money advice hours before making a purchase. This gives you time to think about whether you truly want it or if it’s just an unnecessary desire. More often than not, you’ll find that the desire to buy fades, and you’ll avoid spending money needlessly.

Another useful idea is to limit your exposure to temptation. If buying online is your challenge, remove yourself from mailing lists and remove saved payment details from your favourite shopping websites. If you tend to buy without thinking in person, shop without credit cards and shop with cash instead. By creating barriers to spending, you’ll have more time to consider what you’re buying and avoid falling into the impulse spending trap. Breaking the habit may take time, but the benefits over time—increased financial security and reduced money anxiety—are worth the discipline.