Do you spend when you are tired? When you have a bad day at work? When you have an argument? When you are stressed? And so on. The thing with emotional spending is the feeling isn’t cured by the spending. We can often end up feeling WORSE because we beat ourselves up for buying shit we didn’t need plus the spending never removes the feeling we had in the first place. Spending in this way doesn’t actually solve our problems.
Here are some tips to finally kick your emotional spending habit.
1. Identify your emotional spending triggers
Start paying attention to when you’re spending. In order to stop the emotional spending we really need to understand why we do it. Without understanding WHY, we can fall into the same cycle over and over. I know this is exactly what happened to me. I racked up and paid off debt each time but I never worked on why and so it just kept happening. Mine is when I am tired and I haven’t been making time for myself. And I find myself buying shit!
Tough love here… Stop saying “I deserve it.” What you actually deserve is to be financially secure.
2. Create a pause or barrier
Stop the automatic behaviour.
- Unlink your card and PayPal details- one click anyone?!
- Sleep on it
- Add it to a basket (to look at later… not a pass to add things to a basket to buy. I saw you!)
- Have takeaway style dinners in the freezer
- Unfollow accounts that prompt you to splurge.
- Unsubscribe from store email lists. There’s always something new landing in the email inbox that you “just need to buy”. Out of sight, out of mind.
- Implement a 48 hour rule
I love this last tip and it makes me snort laugh every time I go to check my Amazon wish list. There are ALWAYS things on the list where I think WTF?! When did I add that? Why did I add that? Or when I tell myself I’ll check out that thing I have seen on Instagram later on in the day. When I get to the time of checking it out, I can’t even remember what it was. Lol!
3. Find other things to do
Find alternative things to do to boost your mood that don’t involve spending money. How about that book you’ve been meaning to start? Or that hobby you haven’t got round to picking up? Our phones are amazing but they are definitely one of the main causes of emotional spending and let’s face it, it’s not exactly made hard for us to make those purchases is it? Find something else to focus on other than spending. Maybe you shop when you’re bored, or maybe when you’re stressed. Identify those triggers and find new ways to stimulate and relieve.
4. Make your goals clear
Emotional spending can completely derail your finances if you let it get too out of control (errr 6 credit cards later?!) And it’s that one step forward, five steps back feeling.
Ask yourself, “Will this help me towards my goal?” before spending money and if the answer is no, hopefully the incentive to achieve the financial goal will help combat the urge to spend.
Financial goals keep you motivated. Whenever I am faced with a purchase that wasn’t planned, I ask myself the above question and think about whether it is going to take me closer or further away from my goal.
Is the purchase really that worth it?
5. Get some help
Enlist the help of a friend or money coach (ME!). An accountability buddy will be there to talk to, to cheerlead, to encourage you and help pick you up and dust you off if you need it.