Spend less, save more: you still need to buy stuff

The previous post in this more-than-infrequent series covered working out how much you spend each pay period and what you were spending it on, and making a spending plan. In this post I’ll look at how to stay within your allocated week's spend, some things I found helpful in breaking the impulse buying habit, and ways to better plan your spending.

Buying stuff is fun to do

It can be hard to stick to your budget, especially if you’re used to the thrill of the impulse buy. The plan is to ultimately get the same thrill from saving or paying back debt. Or failing that, that you get a kind of puritanical thrill from your self-control. (YOU HAVE SO MUCH SELF CONTROL, look at you, walking around wielding it like a sword of light.)

The best way to slow or stop over spending if you’re an impulse buyer is to stop putting yourself in situations where you’ll spend. Tell yourself: you have no reason to be in a place where the main purpose is to buy things if you have no money with which to buy anything. For the time being, act as though you can’t be trusted in these temples to consumerism and just avoid the hell out of them. If you have someone who enables overspending (*cough* Mum, Lizzie) avoid going into shops with those people especially.  

This precept goes for op-shopping too. Whatever you’re going to buy may be cheap, but you still if you are spending outside of your budget, you can't afford it.

If, like me, you spend far too much time on the internet, you'll see many pretty shiny things in the world. It is natural to want such things. Instead of actively buying them, why not play a slightly masochistic game of ‘online window shopping’, by filling your basket and then shutting down the browser altogether. This will demonstrate your immense self control and give you the thrill of budget control. Try laughing defiantly while you do this ("ha HA!”).

Perhaps you like looking at nice pottery, or furniture, or beautiful vintage fashions? Can I recommend museums and art galleries as an alternative to shopping? Looking at collections of vintage clothes and crockery in museums and galleries gives me much the same feeling as looking in a shop full of nice second-hand clothes and furniture, but completely removes the risk that I might buy anything - provided I avoid the gift shop.

To the left is a particularly fabulous basket chair I saw at the V&A when I was in London last year. It’s beautiful and amaze and a museum piece. No budgets were harmed in the viewing of this covetable item.

Write it down and walk away

For better or for worse, you’ll never be able to avoid buying things entirely. A few years after my initial decision to buy less stuff I had to deal with the hard reality of this - things wear out, things break, and some of these things are expensive to replace - I’m looking at you, shoes.

The plan is to work out what is a necessity and what is a nice to have - I have a list on Evernote that I update on a regular basis along with the estimated costs of what I 'need' and what I 'want'. Things often appear on my 'need' list and then waft over to 'want' during the course of a week or month. ‘Needs' are bought first, ‘wants' often never - because wanting things can be so fleeting.

I found the best way to break my impulse buying habit was, if I saw something covetable, to write it down and walk away for an hour or so. If it was still vitally important that I buy those shoes, or that bag, or whatever, then I came back. I often find that after the initial flush of discovery has died away, the item in question isn't worth the walk back to the shop.

Op shopping is a different matter. Of course, walking away is always an option - leaving the ownership of a particularly delicious item of tat up to chance. But truth be told, I find that if I'm walking around a shop and holding an item in my hand for any length of time, I suddenly decide that my desire for aforementioned item was nought but a whimsy, and back on the shelf it goes.

Buy once, buy well

If you’re going to the trouble of making mature, responsible spending decisions, you might as well buy something that’s of good quality. Stop buying things because they’re the closest approximation of what you really want, and take the time to research, price compare and weigh-up quality.

The platonic ideal is to buy only top quality goods, with the assumption that they'll last forever. Like me, this might not be an ideal that you can afford most of the time. That’s totally fine. But decide in advance (your need/want list will help) what features you want the item to have, and if you can’t find something that fits the most basic of those requirements, don’t be afraid to go without.

Can I also say that saving up for something and then buying it outright is kind of an amazing feeling. Recently, Shannon and I saved up and bought ourselves a brand-new bed and futon mattress. We knew how much we needed to save for the bed on top of what we are already saving for houses and we saved it! It felt as though it took an age - but lying on that bed is like lying on a beautiful firm cloud of smugness and financial responsibility. TRY IT.

You could also consider whether the thing you want is something you could easily pick up second hand. For example, about five years ago I decided I needed black Doc Marten boots, found a pair on Trade Me for I think $50 max, and they have lasted me forever. They saw me around England, Berlin and Paris and I have never regretted buying them.

Share tips with me on my favourite subject! I have a million more - you can try also reading some posts from 2010 where I talk about wallet feng shui and clawing my way back on to the wagon.

In my next post: food is delicious, I am spending all my money on food. Help.

---

Brief life update

Have I already mentioned that I’ve been feeling quite fragile lately? Because, guys, honestly I have. I am working on it though. It’s tiring.

I also want to take a moment to briefly discuss two recent baking disasters.

The first featured an apricot cake that I attempted to take as a dessert to a friends’ house - the oven switched itself off (as it’s wont to do during periods of extreme haste) and so I was already running late/in a panic. When I tested the cake with my trusty skewer it defo seemed cooked. However, apparently not, which I discovered to my utter chagrin at the moment of truth (i.e. when I attempted to cut a piece and the centre oozed. Cake centres should not ooze). 

The second baking disaster involved a carrot cake I made on Saturday as a late birthday cake for Shannon, and again, I tested the cake with a skewer and everything seemed hunky dory. This time I had iced the cake and we’d sat down with a cup of tea before the oozy centre of the cake was revealed. I wanted to (╯'□')╯︵ ┻━┻

Today I successfully made some muffins tho, so maybe I am winning now. LOOKING GOOD.