Buzz
After indulging in everything from gifts and new clothes to luxurious versions of your favorite foods over the past few months, returning to your usual spending habits may prove harder than you expect.
Why is that? You might recognize the well-known quote “We are what we repeatedly do” (often misattributed to Aristotle but actually coined by philosopher Will Durant)—and during the holiday season, many of us engage in frequent, sometimes excessive, spending.
Repeatedly, indeed.
This means that even a fundamental personal finance step, like setting up your 2020 budget, might not be enough to stop you from overspending. If you’ve fallen into the holiday habit of buying what you want (often on impulse) as a way to treat yourself and your loved ones, breaking that habit can be tough.
But here’s how to make it happen.
Consider what kind of shopping habits you want to develop.
To start, you’ll need to have a goal in mind. Simply saying “I want to shop less” or “I want to spend less money” isn’t sufficient; since avoiding shopping and spending altogether is nearly impossible, it’s essential to envision the type of shopper you aim to become.
Are you the kind of person who creates shopping lists for essentials that need replacing, planning ahead enough to take advantage of sales and discounts as they appear?
Will you commit to using up everything you’ve already bought, even if you’re starting to feel a little weary of whatever’s sitting in your pantry or closet?
Or are you simply planning to steer clear of impulse purchases, avoid anything outside your budget, or establish similar boundaries around your spending?
Think about what kind of shopping habits you want to have in 2020, so you’ll be able to gauge whether you’re meeting your own goals and standards.
Create a structure of actions that will support your new shopping habits.
Once you’ve got a solid vision of the financial habits you want to adopt, it’s time to figure out which behaviors are most likely to support those habits. BJ Fogg’s “Swarm of Bs” exercise, from his book Tiny Habits, is a great tool to help you determine how to adjust your daily routines in order to break free from old habits and reinforce new ones.
For instance, if your goal is to cut down on dining out expenses this year, you’ll likely need to invest more time into meal planning and grocery shopping.
If your aim is to curb impulse buys, you might also need to avoid your go-to retailers, which brings me to the next point:
Resist temptation (especially online)
If you’ve been shopping frequently during the holiday season, you’ve likely shared various details with retailers (your preferences, price ranges, email address), and now they’re using that info to target you with highly effective marketing strategies.
It’s time to unsubscribe from all those retailer emails, delete any price tracking notifications you’ve set up (unless you're tracking for something you genuinely need and have budgeted for), and steer clear of spending time on your favorite online shopping sites.
Because that’s how they reel you in. With time-sensitive deals, can't-miss offers, and anxiety-inducing design tricks.
Since the internet’s main purpose is to facilitate commerce (and here we thought it was for the free exchange of ideas), you’ll need to avoid spending time on sites that encourage you to open your wallet.
If you’ve also pledged to spend less time online overall this year, whether you’re doing a full “digital detox” or simply aiming to stay offline for a few hours after work, this will be a win-win.
If after all this effort, you still find yourself succumbing to a “New Year, New You” impulse purchase, don’t stress. Breaking habits takes time, so keep practicing your new spending habits—eventually, they’ll replace the old ones.
Then you can begin to think about the kind of spending habits you’d like to develop when the holiday season rolls around again.
