Stop Impulse Buys by NOT Doing This One Thing

Shopping is a fact of life. You need to eat, clothe yourself and furnish a home. For some people, shopping isn’t a problem – they buy what they need and move on. For others, being in a store leads to impulse buys and, later, regret. Regret because you couldn’t afford it or regret because you really didn’t need or even want it after all. If this sounds familiar, here’s one simple shopping rule to live by:

Don’t pick it up.

You can examine it, of course, but don’t put it in your cart or walk around with it. Why? Because you begin to feel ownership of it and this makes it even harder to part with. Economists called it loss aversion – that losing something is more powerful than gaining something. So if it’s in your cart or your arms, in a sense, it is yours and, thus, harder to give up.

The next time you’re trawling the aisles of Target or the grocery store, if you come across something that’s not on your list that’s tempting you – leave it where it is. If, when you’re ready to check out you still think it’s a good idea, go back and retrieve it. Chances are you may not even remember what it was.