How to stop yourself buying too much 'stuff'

[Timetogoclutterfree]

Although I'm far from the worst person for this, I've decided I'm buying too much stuff all the time.^^ I'm not going into debt and my house isn't overrun, but I do need to cut back.

It's just general things like such as, candles, I love them, but I buy them and then I don't always use them up or use the ones I've got before buying more.

Pyjamas, I have loads but I see new ones I love and can't resist. Coats, again, I have a good enough selection, but I'll see someone in a lovely coat and want another. I do use them, but storing them is a pain.

I've just ordered a load of stuff for one of my dc as I wasn't sure which size and style he'd need but I went overboard and now need to return loads.

Think I'm worse this time of year because I get drawn in by all the displays in the shops.

Any tips or advice on how to avoid mindless buying.

What's helped me is having a Monzo account. I have a 'treat' pot for clothes etc, and put a certain amount in it each month. The other great feature that has helped me is that you can set a target budget for the month and it will track your spending onto a graph. It keeps me on track as I don't like dropping under the green line. It's like being in competition with myself.

Reading that a lot of online orders (clothes, shoes particularly) goes STRAIGHT TO LANDFILL really cured me of ordering excess stuff just to try. Google it, it is absolutely shocking and horrifying, also it devalues the items involved, to me. Why pay £200 for a pair of boots that cost the company so little, that it makes better financial sense for them to literally dump returned items rather than employ people to check and repackage them?! Crazy scenes

It’s also way too easy to just use PayPal, as you’ve already mentioned, OP.

So maybe change your PayPal password to something long & complicated, then instead of saving it write it down (add a few random characters at each end just in case anyone else gets hold of it) & put the piece of paper somewhere fairly inconvenient to get to, like the top of a high cupboard?

Work out your complete outgoings including these unnecessary additional spends. Think about the big stuff in life, huge holidays, better housing and cars, helping your children with University fees or a house deposit, needing money for something dreadful like losing your job and early retirement and realise that this is where spare money is best spent. I met a lovely couple recently they had managed to retire early a few years ago, she now has terminal cancer. They managed to retire at 60 so have had 9 years travelling around in a campervan for extended holidays, she has been unwell for a year now. You can never buy time.

I used to be guilty of buying loads of crap, plus take away coffee. We never had “nice” things when I was little so I think I just wanted them to portray an image of wealth. I remember spending 1500 on a watch as I was so unhappy in my then very stressful job and being alone.

Fast forward and I no longer buy stuff, ever. We decided to spend our cash on extending and renovating our home - we love being at home so having somewhere nice was important to us. I’d much rather spend our money there, and on holidays, instead of having the “latest” coat, shoes etc so could you maybe make a list of the experiences/holidays you want to have and channel your energy there instead? Or think about whether you want to retire early and how not buying the crap might allow you to do so?

Extending and renovating your home (and presumably putting nice things in it) is hardly not spending, though, is it? 😂 There've been times when I was at least as obsessed with tiles, plumbing, flooring, lighting, etc, as I currently am with handbags and baking accessories! They're WAY more expensive, too.

Excellent post

Ive just deleted shopping apps.. because i know i buy things not needed. Deleted temu, latest deals, m&s, etc. Im not in social media so no temptation there. Ive decided not to buy or shop just browsing...i do make a list of food to shop for..however same as clothes, boots, things, food was a scarcity when kids and i always have freezers and cupboards full, i have a stockpile just incase. Its ridiculous. I am starting to use things i have and not going to spend so much now. Im older and realised experiences are more important than things.

True. But it’s also an investment, both in our lives and our future as we can downsize when old and wrinkly and live off the equity.

I suppose the point of my post was not so much about not spending, but making the spending worth it instead of buying crap

That's shocking.

I thought things would get resent again to another customer if they were unsuitable

You could take up a hobby

I find cooking and baking relaxing but only using things you already have not buying new tins etc. also you are developing skills by doing this

I also enjoy crochet and that distracts me as I have a project

Or reorganisation so all the things are in one place and you can take stock of what you have.

I think the internet makes it so tempting to keep buying

Don't browse and buy on the same day.
Do the browsing, select what you think you want, write it down on a notepad. Leave it as long as possible and review. Do you actually still need it? Or has the want disipated?

It must be:

a) really beautiful or
b) inordinately useful

No half measures?!

I got into bad spending habits last year and decided to stop this year. So far, so good. I can count on both hands the things I've purchased. A denim jacket, a bit of makeup, maybe some new shoes. But that's it.

My secret? I cut up my credit card. Cancelled Next. And only have a joint account with my husband. If I want to buy something, I have to ask him, and vice versa. It works.

I also deleted Instagram because I realised it was making me spend. And I avoid anything that inspires things for the house or new fashion trends.

My wardrobe has been morphing into a classic style in recent years, so I've found a lot of my clothes are timeless and therefore I don't need anything new.

And finally, I lost two stone and got fit. I'm the slimmest I've been since my twenties and feel great. I realised I was buying clothes before to help me feel better but really, I just needed to lose some weight and feel better in what I already have! Now I sound like a right smug twit, but honestly... spending had been a real big issue for years

I watched a series of 'Back in Time for Tea' and they got to one particular decade (the '60s or '70s maybe) and spoke about the rise in consumerism. They spoke about how housewives were now buying electrical appliances. Of course, those same appliances now seem really outdated. I got to thinking about how many of those once desirable appliances ended up in landfill over the years.

Also, I'm old enough to have seen fashions come and go. For example, in music we went from records to cassettes to to CDs to ipods and back to records again. The clothes that were fashionable over the years have waxed and waned with the seasons. I was amazed when people started wearing culottes again. I wore those body tops in the '90s (the ones that fasten underneath with poppers like baby vests) and was amused when my daughter was buying those same tops many years later. The Nokia phones of the '90s have given way to Iphones and Samsungs.

I'm no paragon of virtue when it comes to shopping and I know it's very hard to avoid advertising. Every time I scroll through Facebook or even MN, I'm being targeted by ads. If I have a quick glance at a product on a website, it follows me around for days. Or I get, "If you liked x, you might like these".

I guess my advice would be

• Avoid shops or online shopping
• Don't buy on impulse - hold off before you buy
• If it's something like pyjamas, count how many pairs you have. If you already have 15 pairs, do you really need a 16th pair?
• Use up what you have first before you buy more
• Consider the environmental impact of what you're buying. Not just the product itself but the packaging, the cost of transporting it from China (or wherever) - how much petrol or diesel do those container ships burn?
• Consider how much time and energy you'll use up managing your possessions e.g. tidying your full wardrobe, sorting out stuff for the charity shop, transporting the old/unwanted stuff to the charity shop etc. Is this a good use of your time?

• Consider how much time and energy you'll use up managing your possessions e.g. tidying your full wardrobe, sorting out stuff for the charity shop, transporting the old/unwanted stuff to the charity shop etc. Is this a good use of your time?

This. Before you know it, the thing you coveted and 'had to have' turns into clutter, joining the already existing clutter. Then it gets messy and you end up shifting stuff from room to room in a futile effort to 'tidy up', before you eventually snap and have a huge clear-out that involves several bin-bags to dump and boxes to take to the charity shop.

This is what it used to be like for me. Until I stopped buying stuff. It's been many years and I don't miss my impulse purchasing habit. Life is so much simpler with less stuff.

I deleted the Amazon app, makes it a bit harder, but spend way too much there.

I think one in one out is a good theory but who is going to stick to that?

Think of your pyjama problem. Are you really going to be able to commit to not buying a new set of pyjamas until you have identified one set that you are going to throw away?

I'd start with a category of stuff - say your pyjamas. Get them all out and lay them all out on the bed and do an assessment - so divide into ones you love and wear all the time to ones past their best/ones you don't like/never wear and decide whether to bin or sell or recycle.

then start the one in/one out and don't buy any more till you have a pair you want to bin.

The other things that have helped me are

• thinking of the cost of storage. imagine your home is like a storage facility and if you had to pay to store 5 sets of pyjamas that you never used /keeping them for a rainy day VERSUS chucking them out and buying some new ones if you needed them, in most cases the cost of a new item will be less than the costs of long term storage (which in a home also means emotional costs of clutter)
• thinking of the swedish death cleaning spirit - as in if I died tomorrow is anyone in my family really going to want this adorable cuddly sheep with a cute smile that I am desparate to buy - or should I just not buy it to save them having to chuck it in the bin.

*think one in one out is a good theory but who is going to stick to that?

Think of your pyjama problem. Are you really going to be able to commit to not buying a new set of pyjamas until you have identified one set that you are going to throw away?*

One in one out is easy for me because (in your example) I wouldn’t even look at pyjamas unless I knew some of mine were getting tatty.

One Out One In, is even better than the reverse. You have to have sold or donated at least one of those things before you can buy another.

Have you tried taking photos of the thing you want? I find that can slow me down! I'll tell myself I'll come back for it if I still want it in x days and usually I forget all about it :)

This thread is making me want pyjamas now 😁. Mine are genuinely falling apart at the waist. For the Christmas list.

For me - the most vital difference maker has been the enormous motivation that comes from 1) savings and 2) overpayments on mortgage towards our one single goal of dream upsize house move in 2025.

The appeal of watching savings grow and grow and grow is incomparable to absolutely anything else.

One in one out is easy for me because (in your example) I wouldn’t even look at pyjamas unless I knew some of mine were getting tatty.

But @Timetogoclutterfree said Pyjamas, I have loads but I see new ones I love and can't resist. Coats, again, I have a good enough selection, but I'll see someone in a lovely coat and want another. I do use them, but storing them is a pain.

Please tell me more about this!

OP- I share your dilemma. I'm in a similar situation... If I find a top I like, I will buy it in every colour or if I can't find something I will end up buying a new one. I'm trying to stop myself from doing this and consciously only buying if I get rid of something. Also writing down what it is I like or taking a picture then when I've used up what I have going back to purchase x