Money Beagle recently offered a series of strategies to help consumers avoid the dreaded impulse buy. The four hints there are filled with good words and true.
Some years ago, SDXB taught me an easy and surprisingly effective anti-impulse buy strategy. When you’re in the store, pick up the object that you covet. Examine it carefully. See if it really, truly has or does whatever you think you want. While you’re turning it over in your hands, consciously ask yourself, “Do I really need this?”
Then, set it back on the shelf and go on about the rest of your shopping. Get everything else you went to the store specifically to buy. Once you have spent some time elsewhere in the store, return to the impulse-buy object.
By the time you get back, nine times out of ten the answer to your question will have coalesced in your mind. And the answer is usually “nope.”
😉