I have always been a frugal-minded person. Even when I was deep in financial trouble, I was still frugal, I just did not understand that a “bargain is not a bargain if you don’t need it”. However, when I became a stay-at-home-mom, I found myself not able to save money like I once had.
Sure, I was still being frugal, shopping for deals and clipping coupons, but I was not actually saving any money. It was not until my hubs and I decided to get rid of our credit card debt and start our journey to debt-freedom that I realized how much money I had been wasting.
I became a stay-at-home-mom when my oldest was a newborn and as such, I was bored, a lot. I spent a lot of time home alone with no one but a baby to talk to and I was bored. I would end up wasting hours on Facebook or Pinterest and that ended up being my pitfall.
I became addicted to online shopping. I mean, it is so easy to shop online and so easy to find coupon codes and deals. It was becoming some sort of game – how much money can I save today on my haul? The problem was, I did not need what I was purchasing nor did I really have the room in the budget. I was just spending money out of boredom.
I would stalk deal sites and subscribe to their daily emails to ensure that I would not miss a single “red-hot” deal. This ended up causing me to purchase items that were needs but were cheaply made and ended up needing to be replaced in a few months. Without taking the time to do the proper research outside of my beloved deal sites I was wasting my hubs’ hard-earned money on junk.
Enter Dave Ramsey to the rescue with his book, The Total Money Makeover *. Once my hubs’ and I had committed to becoming debt-free, I had to face the harsh reality that I too, had become a spender. That is not an easy pill for a saver to swallow – I mean, I am married to a spender and having to admit to him that I had become one was tough. Thankfully, I married an awesome guy who did not hold it over my head.
Stopping my endless cycle of deal stalking and online shopping addiction was not easy. I had to remove our debit card information from all the sites I regularly visited to hold myself accountable. I had to unsubscribe from every deal website and stay away from Facebook and Pinterest for months.
If you need help overcoming your online shopping addiction, these four tips are what has helped to keep me inline.
1. Stop
Stop.Think.Buy. Before making a purchase online, stop, think, and then buy if you decide that the purchase is something that your family truly needs and is within the budget. Allowing yourself time to stop and think before making a purchase will usually help you determine the real value of the purchase.
2. Kill Boredom
Now that my boys are older and more rambunctious, I am not nearly as bored as I was when Conner was a newborn, but there are days where boredom hits. On days that you find yourself bored and aimlessly scrolling through Facebook or Pinterest, make sure you are not allowing discontent into your heart by comparing what you have to what others have. Discontent and boredom go hand in hand in my opinion, so make sure you keep them both at bay.
3. Goals
Set clearly defined financial goals with your spouse. Knowing where you want your money to take you, gives you the freedom to tell yourself “no” when you start feeling an urge to spend outside your budget.
4. Build a Budget
Take the time to build a budget that works and make managing your money a priority. Even if your spouse is the one that likes to budget in your household make it a point for you to be active in the process. Budgeting is a team effort and just like your setting your goals having a budget in place makes it easier to know when you can and cannot spend money.
When attempting to save money, make sure you are holding yourself accountable to the goals you and your spouse have set. Avoid falling back into the ease and convenience of online shopping by setting to your budget and keeping your goals in focus.
How have you been able to combat an online shopping addiction?
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Maureen @ A Debt Free Stress Free Life says
Your post is totally on point and awesome!
For any one who can relate to this post I’ll say this. Figure out what your psychological motivation was for your addiction and you’ll ensure it never happens again.
Sometimes we think we’ve overcome something because we’ve put all these super great boundaries on the problem (budget, asking the right questions before you purchase, etc) but when something triggers us, and our natural inclination will be to go back to something that comforts us (shopping).
Figure out the motivation and you’ll probably never find yourself in that situation again.
Boredom was really a need for connection. So you shopped to fill the need to be connected to others. You probably figured out how to get connected to others in a meaningful way. Maybe you joined a mother’s group. I’d love to know how you did it because that was really your key to success.
Jessi says
Boredom was definitely my motivator. I didn’t need to find connection as I already had that (the majority of my friends are SAHMs so we meet up regularly). It was more an addiction to browsing online and chasing deals than a result of boredom but when I’m bored, that’s when I catch myself trying to fall into the trap.
My personalty is a “recognize addiction and quit”. I simply just stopped but I have to keep from falling back into the trap. I quit smoking immediately once I recognized I had an addiction and once I recognized I had an addiction to accumulating debt, I immediately stopped, but that is just my personality and definitely doesn’t work for everyone. This stems from watching someone I love very much succumb to an addiction so I just draw and that and then walk away from anything I find addicting. The recognizing an addiction part is where I struggle – I have to figure out it is an addiction and I’m stubborn so I have to figure it out for myself before I’ll quit.
Maureen @ A Debt Free Stress Free Life says
Jessi, You sound like me. I do the same thing, except with food. I didn’t need cigarettes to live, or shopping but I do need to eat. I wish I could quit food! But it has helped me overall with recognizing what I need and what I’m not getting. I still believe and know this from all my training that we use money to fill unmet needs. I did with shopping. I needed to feel loved and a sense of belonging which were missing in my life. It’s taken years to figure it out and when I overeat it’s those two issues for me, always.
Julie@FrugallyBlonde says
I think it is much easier to buy things we really don’t need online. If I want to get something from the store, I have to want it bad enough to free up time and go to the store to buy it. Online things can be added to your cart or bought in just seconds. It’s so easy to just add one more thing.
Jessi says
So, so true Julie! I agree, I have to really want something in a store to make the purchase but online, it is so easy to buy junk that we don’t need.