Stop Spending Impulsively

Impulsive spending can be your downfall. If you spend impulsively it means you don't do the necessary due dilligence of shopping around for the best deal. Time is a great factor in helping you decide on whether you really need to buy something. If after a few week you still want it and you've shopped around and you've made the decision that it is an important purchase that takes priority over any other purchase - then go ahead. That was very long winded. At the end of the day time gives you the space to decide if you can 'afford' to buy something. Ever bought a high priced item only to find you were in so much debt that you had to use a credit card to buy groceries for the week - or worse - not be able to buy groceries at all. I've been there. Take my advice. Wait. Wait and then wait some more. If you really feel you can AFFORD it - then go for, if not just save yourself future heartaches.

So that was me now - looking back at my rocky financial past. The extract below is from those dark times of impulsive buying,

Monday, 2am

“What dear Lord have I signed on for?”

Monday, Later that day.
I went to the T-mobile store to swop my phone.   I’d just signed up for a new contract last week and wanted to take advantage of getting a better phone that was only coming in stock on Monday.   I arrived and it turned out that the phone of my choice was going to be $100!  Well that was pretty much how much I had in my wallet.  Except, they would need tax on top of that.  I would be caught-out-cold-in-the-rain-broke.  Six dollars short I walked away phoneless.  Ok not phone-less because they gave me a free phone that was available on my contract.  So I walked away less 1 fancy phone.  Sitting in the car, I realized that these are the kind of decisions people make everyday.

Benefits of buying New $100 Phone (that current free phone lacks)

  • 2 mega pixel camera

  • Anywhere in the world function capability (well actually wherever there is T-Mobile.

  • MP3 player

Why not to buy $100 phone.  Other than saving a $100’s that is.

  • I already own a 5 mega pixel digital camera

  • I have a second phone from when I lived in the UK that works in Europe and Africa

  • I have a new Ipod.  It’s so pink and sooo pretty!

After I debated it in the car.  I realized that that… I did not need to spend $100 dollars to buy something I pretty much had already.

So of I went to Publix.  Where my next financial crisis was whether $2 was too much to pay for a small tub of strawberry yogurt.  Needless to say I bought it.  It tasted like it was worth $2, until I read that out of the 210 calories it contained.   Half of that was derived from fat.

Do you know where that phone is now? It fell into a toilet. It got wet and hasn't worked since. Trust me, don't be impulsive. It's just not worth it.

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