Feeling good every time you shop is a natural and normal feeling. However, when you start having addictive behaviors toward shopping, you should start looking for ways to stop this addiction.
Compulsive spending or more familiarly known as a ‘shopping addiction,’ is often influenced by mood or external factors. In general, what is meant by compulsive spending is a habit that is owned by a person and makes them unconsciously shop or make unnecessary expenses.
People who have this type of personality are very vulnerable to being trapped in debt and loans because they have gone too far. They also tend to hide their shopping habits from those closest to them.
It is very important for those of you who think that you’ve crossed the border and tend to act impulsively when shopping, to change your spending habits.
Keep on reading to know the 8 effective ways you can do it, to overcome compulsive spending habits!
1. Distinguish Primary and Consumptive Needs
Compulsive spending is often done by someone who goes shopping without paying attention to the benefit of things they buy, or how much money they spend during one course of shopping.
Usually, this is done because they do not understand the concepts of primary and consumptive needs. As a result, every time they want to buy something, they will just buy it right away.
To shake off your bad habit, you need to start distinguishing which goods are included as primary needs and consumptive needs. If there is a desire to shop for consumptive needs or things that are not necessary, hold on to that desire until at least all primary needs are met.
Primary needs must be made a financial priority and must be purchased first before allocating your finances to consumptive needs. That way, the risk of going into debt because there’s no more money left for basic needs won’t happen.
2. Change Mindset About Shopping Habits
Another way to get rid of the attitude of compulsive spending is to change the mindset about spending and shopping habits. Always prioritize your primary needs when shopping.
Afterward, prioritize some of your income for saving or investing, this is also important to be included in your list.
Only when all of these needs have been met, you can use the remaining money to meet your tertiary or consumptive needs.
3. Create a Shopping List
Create a shopping list and purchase only the items on the list when you visit the store. You have to be firm with your goals when you go shopping and only buy things that are written on the list.
This is quite simple and easy to do but at the same time effective to overcome the habit of compulsive spending.
Most importantly, you must have a strong commitment and intention to follow through only with the shopping list.
4. Try to Only Carry Cash When Shopping
As much as possible, avoid using credit cards when shopping. This is important to avoid debt habits. However, you also shouldn’t be wasteful and must be able to control expenses when carrying cash.
5. Unfollow and Unsubscribe Online Store Accounts
In today’s digital era, the influencing factors of advertisements or content that we see on social media can greatly affect the behavior of compulsive spending. By looking at attractive product photos, you may want to immediately purchase it even though you don’t need it.
As a preventive measure, you should stop following online shop social media accounts or unsubscribing from brands that often send advertisements to your email.
6. Swap Offline Shopping with Online Shopping
Nowadays shopping can be done easily with your gadget and the internet. The easy way to do shopping will not only give you benefits in terms of effectiveness but also can help to reign your spending as well.
Products at online stores are usually much more affordable because the vendor does not have to pay for physical store expenses, not to mention you don’t have to scan through the product list.
For quick and effective shopping, you just need to search for what you need and put it in the cart and move on to the payment.
Temu is one of the best go-to shopping platforms to utilize when purchasing for all your needs. From home appliances, and electronics, to pet necessities, Temu allows consumers to choose various products according to their needs! Site-wide deals and promos are also made available to be enjoyed by consumers.
Worry not about whether Temu has a good quality product or not because you can see tons of good reviews of Temu on its platform, and most customers are on a rave about their wonderful shopping experience!
7. Make a Simple Note of Your Expenses
Many shopaholics don’t know how to keep personal financial records. While in actuality these records are important so that you can track how you spend your money. By understanding your personal finances, you can budget for current needs while planning for long-term goals.
8. Set Future Financial Targets
You can also protect yourself from the threat of compulsive spending by having a financial target that you want to achieve within a certain time.
When you have a bigger goal you want to achieve, it is easier for you to reign your shopping desire and thus you can use the remaining money you have left for saving instead.
These are some things you can apply to overcome compulsive spending habits. Everyone has the ability to manage their spending habits so that their expenses can be well-maintained.
But most importantly, you should always be wise every time you shop, and don’t forget to apply the series of tips above!
