Mindful spending is when you pause to reflect on whether a purchase you’re considering aligns with your personal values, goals and needs. This allows you to think carefully before buying to make more intentional financial decisions, avoiding impulse buying.
The Opposite of Impulse Buying
In essence, mindful spending is the opposite of impulse buying, which is when you buy things that you have not planned or budgeted for, making purchases on a whim.
Impulse buying tends to be linked to our emotions, where we shop with emotion rather than logic, favouring immediate gratification over our long-term financial wellbeing. Mindful spending is more deliberate and thought out, where we carefully consider a purchase before going through with it.
You can find out more about impulse buying with this blog.
A Helping Hand to the Environment
Not only can mindful spending help your bank balance, it can also help the world around you. By living in a culture where we buy and discard items quickly and without much thought, the environment is suffering the consequences.
These blogs on e-waste and fast fashion can tell you more about the impact our habits are having.
Overconsumption.org states that mindful consumption is one of the crucial ways that we can help mitigate the effects of overconsumption on our planet, by being conscious of what and how much we buy.
How to Practice Mindful Spending
Mindful spending involves knowing what you actually spend money on, and understanding your spending habits and how your purchases make you feel.
To help you stick to mindful spending you can:
- Check your bank statements – seeing what you spend money on is a good place to start as it helps you identify where you want to make changes
- Learn what makes you impulse buy – consider where and when you spend. Do you often buy things online after seeing advertisements and posts on social media? Do you tend to spend when you’re feeling down in an attempt to feel better? Is spending money on unnecessary things something you do when you’re bored? These types of questions can help you to identify any triggers that make you impulse buy, which means you can better avoid them in the future
- Unsubscribe from any promotional emails that tend to tempt you
- Stop and think – take time before making non-essential purchases, rather than buying there and then. Ask yourself whether you really need that item, whether it aligns with your goals, whether it will give you short-term value or happiness, and what else you could do with the money you’re considering spending
- Create a budget! Why not use our budget calculator to get started?