Have you ever wanted something, hurried to Amazon to buy it, and subsequently forgotten about it, only to be reminded when a package showed up at your door?
Chances are that was an impulse purchase, and more than likely not a necessary one. Most of the time it's small stuff; $10 here, $15 there. But it adds up bigly. Worse yet, it feeds an instant gratification mentality which is destructive to your finances the vast majority of the time.
To fight this, my wife and adopted the following system we call the "Amazon Day":
- Choose a weekday for online purchases (i.e., Monday)
- Throughout the week, write down what you need / want to purchase (preferably on a whiteboard for visibility)
- Every Monday, review the list (with your significant other if applicable)
- Purchase the things that matter
- Remove the things that don't
- Do not make any purchases during the rest of the week
With this model, my wife and I have reduced our online purchasing by about 25%, finding that many things were frivolous or redundant. It also gave us time to make decisions around purchases together instead of constantly being surprised at what the other person was spending money on.
Submitted January 23, 2019 at 03:11PM by rodneyjesus http://bit.ly/2CGmIqo
