🏃🏼‍♂️ Avoid Impulse Buying

Happy Wednesday, my friends! 🥂

Something we’re hearing regularly from you all is how difficult it can be to decrease impulse purchases.

We got you! Not just for the sake of not buying, but for the purposes of spending intentionally and feeling good about what you spend on.

The best part of cutting back on mindless purchases is having more money to put towards savings. 

AND the best place to put that savings is in a high yield savings (HYSA) account like the one at CIT.

If you’re still working on beefing up your emergency fund or saving for short term goals like travel, check out CIT and get their current offering of 4.65% APY! **

Of course in order to have money to put into that HYSA we’ve gotta find ways to curb those impulse buys!

The 2 things that have worked best for Jen and I are:

1. Practice Pausing. No matter the reason for our impulse spending, a pause ⏸ will ALWAYS help us. It doesn’t have to be long and it doesn’t have to be in a quiet place, just a quick self check-in.

During this pause we can ask:

• What am I about to do? 🤔 

• How do I feel and think about what I’m about to do? 🧐

• Is there an alternative solution that meets my needs without spending money? 💭

2. Create a (Beneficial) Dopamine-Hit List. A literal written list of FREE activities you can do to meet your needs 📝 when tempted to spend unnecessarily.

This list can be a reference during that ‘pause’ we talked about above. The list should include free alternatives for the following situations:

• When I’m celebrating 🙌

• When I DESERVE a treat 😌

• When I need a ‘pick-me-up’ 🤚🏻

• When I’m feeling frumpy 🙃…or any regularly experienced emotion!

• When I’m bored 🥱

• When I’m sad 🥺

But don’t stop there!

Review your 90-day transaction inventory and the times you spent impulsively - look for patterns and consider alternatives to try! 

Some of my (Jill) favorites are: trying a new recipe while listening to some jamzz, DIY-ing the thing I want (I’m in my sourdough era, so fill in the blanks on that one :)), and having friends over instead of going out or to the stores.

What works for me may not work for you, so try things out, fail, try again, refine, and live your best life.

Until next time,

⭐️⭐️ P.S. Want to share all this goodness with your friends AND earn cool Frugal Friends merch?

**Means this is a sponsored or affiliate section. We may earn a small fee or commission when you choose to try one of our sponsor or affiliate partners. But opinions are still 1000% our own.