Love to Shop? Try These 10 Easy Tricks to Immediately Spend Less

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Tips from a former shopaholic — now on a strict $100 discretionary budget

I love my frugal lifestyle. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t also love to spend money on the fun nonessentials from time to time. In fact, before I came to fully embrace a high savings rate, I struggled pretty persistently with emotional shopping. Consequently, I know a thing or two about cutting that habit down to size so that it has a controlled place in my budget.

If you’re looking to kick an outsized spending habit, or maybe just to spend a little less this month, here are the ten tricks I rely on in order to consistently spend under $100 on discretionary items each month — all without feeling deprived of the little things that I love.

Trick #1: Set a Waiting Period

I’m not unique in that the urge to buy often comes up rather quickly, and sometimes rather out of left field. Whether it be a sudden craving for takeout on a Tuesday evening, a limited time deal on Amazon that seems too good to pass up, or even the temptation to pick up some cute joggers for working from home, all of these have one thing in common. They’re all impulse purchases.

That’s because an impulse purchase is anything you spend money on that you hadn’t planned to in advance. In other…