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 pop into a shop for one thing and leave with a bunch of things you never intended to purchase. Impulse spending is one of the largest challenges to building savings, and it can sabotage 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 allocated for extras each month can help you fight the temptation to purchase items impulsively. When you see something you want to buy, take a break—pause for 24 hours before making a purchase. This gives you time to think about whether you truly want it or if it’s just an impulse. More often than not, you’ll find that the urge online financial advisor to purchase disappears, and you’ll keep your money in your pocket.

Another great tip is to reduce opportunities for temptation. If internet shopping is your downfall, unsubscribe from promotional emails and delete stored payment info 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 succumbing to spontaneous purchases. Changing your spending habits may take time, but the long-term rewards—more savings and less financial stress—are well worth the effort.