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How to Never Again Buy Anything You Would Later Regret

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Want to find a way to never again spend your money on anything you would later regret? Awesome! I have this fun idea/mindset change that worked wonders for me. Wanna try it? Super!

When it comes to shopping, there are two things that all of us have in common:

1. We all want to buy things that we are happy with. 

2. We have all bought things that we are NOT so happy with. 

And those things that we’ve bought that we’re not so happy with we might regret.  

And it got me thinking.

Is it even possible to never again buy anything you would later regret?

How to never again buy anything you would later regret

I’d like to share with you my story about how I found the perfect way never again buy anything I would later regret.

The story starts with: “OMG my house is fat!”.

And it doesn’t include advices like:

  • don’t go to a shopping mall
  • buy nothing
  • buy only what you need 

Let’s go!

And hey!  If you’re a person that has never ever bought anything you’ve later regretted – and you’re being totally honest – please let me pick your brain! You’re a GENIUS!. 

OMG! My house is fat!

“OMG! My house is fat!”, I said a few years ago. 

And the realizations didn’t stop there. 

My credit card was fat, my calendar was fat and my closet was fat – no, actually, my closet was obese. And I was miserable.

I had a nice income, a comfortable lifestyle and beautiful things, but something was off. And it hit me hard: “OMG! My house really is fat! And I’m feeding it!”.

And what was I feeding it with? With my excessive shopping.

They’re all “a must have”

I wanted this and that. And of course needed (NEEDED!) to have those and these. And yes! That thing was a must have (A MUST HAVE!).

Little by little the pounds grew on my house and everyday tasks started to be difficult to do. So I read everything about organizing and decluttering. I wanted my house to lose some pounds. And I mean a lot of pounds.

I decluttered and organized for months. I went from the queen-of-chaos to a strict-minimalist. My house went from couch potato to fitness guru. Whew! Was I training my house to lose those pounds! My house would have definitely won The Biggest Loser.

And I didn’t stop there. I also stopped shopping. 

I thought if nothing comes into the house, the house will stay fit. Problem solved. And then we’ll both be happy. And to go no-buy was actually easy. Too easy. 

Until I realized I wasn’t just fat-shaming my house, I was making it anorexic.

And I thought: is it even possible never again buy anything you would later regret.

If you want to learn more about must haves, need to haves and nice to haves, check out this article: Do you ever say “I need that” when  you see something you like? Don’t.

Shopping is like eating

Shopping is like eating. You need to eat. And you need to shop. 

Even if you’d grow your own food and make your own clothes, you’d still need to shop for something: medicine, raw materials – I don’t know, cows?  You need to shop. Period. But whether you need 14 pairs of jeans, 20 handbags and dozen candles is a different story.

I realized nothing was solved. There was no balance. To go from crazy-chaos-queen to strict-minimalist is not balance. To buy too much and then buy nothing is not balance.

I couldn’t find a solution for balanced shopping habits. I needed to solve this problem.

If you want to know more about how shopping is like eating, check out this article: How shopping is like eating and decluttering like losing weight.

Millions of shopaholics

When I first found out that roughly 6 % (little under 20 million) of Americans have compulsive shopping disorder, I was stunned.

I could only imagine the number of people like myself who would not be shopaholics, but would be struggling with similar kinds of issues and would like to change their shopping habits.

The guilt that came along with the things I never used – things I really wanted and bought but didn’t like later. Shopper’s guilt, buyer’s remorse.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

There had to be a way to stop excessive shopping and still get everything you ever wanted, without making your house fat, credit card fat or your closet obese – and yourself miserable with guilt and remorse at the same time.

I wanted an answer to the question: is it possible to never again buy anything you would later regret?

So is it possible to never again buy anything you would later regret?

I didn’t even know where to start, so I did what I always did: I had coffee with my sister.

She’s not just the most amazing sister one can have, but she’s also the most balanced shopper I knew. Growing up, when I was already the queen-of-chaos, she was super-clean-and-lean with her things.

Later, when I bought what I wanted, she spend her moderate paycheck wisely. She bought quality, when I bought quantity. She took care of her things with such a passion while I left my stuff laying around or thrown on the floor. I knew she must have some secret recipe she just wasn’t sharing with me.

But there was nothing. Nothing! She only told me what I already knew: buy less, put some money aside, quality over quantity, blah-blah-blah.

I was disappointed (not with her, but with the situation). I really thought I was onto something. 

But without knowing it yet the simple solution I had been looking for for years was only a few minutes away to be discovered.

And there it was: the simple solution

Before we headed back from our long talk at the coffee shop, she said she needed to pop into a store to get something. 

She bought a body mist and asked the salesperson to wrap it nicely. It was a gift

I asked her who she was buying a gift for and she just smiled like she had a secret. And like an annoying little sister wanting to know, I insisted she tell me.

“The gift is for myself – it´s my Saturday gift“, she replied.

And there it finally was: the simple solution that I’d been trying to find for years. And that moment changed my whole life forever. 

2 years and 100 gifts later

This was two years and 100 weekly me-gifts ago. A hundred wonderful Saturday gifts I gifted to myself with love.

Since that moment with my sister, there was (or has been) no more excessive shopping or no-buys for me, I only buy things for myself as Saturday gifts. 

I love it. 

There are no Tuesday gifts, so I don’t need to even think about buying something on other days. 

I only buy well-thought gifts that are in my budget, so no new clutter is welcome in my home AND I still get everything I ever wanted. I get quality things and experiences while staying on a budget. 

The key is moderation

The key is to plan and wait

The key is to make it special

The key is to celebrate

The key is to make yourself important

The key is to provide yourself things, indulgences and experiences you want. 

And once you teach yourself and learn that you’ll be always getting something – each Saturday – your needs and wants start changing. Because you get to only choose one gift for yourself, you want to make it perfect. 

You start prioritizing quality over quantity. 

Once you’ve reach the point that you don’t want to buy something as a gift to yourself, you’ll start enjoying the small (or big!) indulgences. You make something ordinary a bit more special. Why? Because it’s a gift!

And most importantly. You remember once a week that you are important, and you start prioritizing yourself. And when you do that, you can also be the best possible version of yourself to others.

Of course, I can’t promise that all of that will happen to you  over one gift, but this is what happened to me. The transformation was tremendous. And I’d love for you to give it a try!

So it IS possible never again buy anything you would later regret

For me it became the reality. I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought the whole thing was just crazy. 

But it was after 3 gifts I started to believe it IS possible never again buy anything you would later regret. 

I love the gifts I give to myself. I missed a few weeks during these two years and felt like something was missing. Lately my Saturday gifts have been mostly experienses and indulgences. But when I buy something, I don’t buy anything without thinking of it as a gift – so it has to be super special.

What now?

I want to share it all with you. 

I’ve now combined all I learnt working as a professional purchaser over the years with my passion on self development, saving money and time, decluttering/minimizing and (of course) me-gifting with moderation. 

I wrapped all those things to one pretty gift: SaturdayGift.


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18 Comments

  1. I think this may be the missing piece I’ve been looking for!! Your story sounds just like mine only I haven’t purged my house yet (I’m getting married this Saturday and plan on doing that after the honeymoon 🙂 ). Thank you (and your sister) for this post!!!!

    1. Thank you so much for your comment, Angela! And congratulations! I hope you have a magical wedding day and wonderful honeymoon! And I’m so happy to hear if you might have found a missing piece you’ve been looking for from my post. After your wedding and honeymoon, when you’re doing your house purging 🙂 , let me know if I can help you somehow. And congratulations again!

    1. Thank you for your comment, Edel! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed reading this post! I do have so many other stories and tips to share, so I hope you come back to check them out too.

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    1. Thank you for your comment, Brooke! I can so relate to shopping when bored. I was so happy to check your blog and read about your quest for finding joy and simplifying everything and how that changed your life so much – like no more shopping when bored among other things 🙂

  3. So, did I miss the end of the story? Does she buy herself a gift every Saturday? Sorry, I am slow this Monday morning! My house is SUPER fat!!! 🙂

    1. Thank you for your comment, Jennifer! And yes! She does get herself a gift every single Saturday!

      It can be something she buys, but it doesn’t have to be. Her Saturday gift can be anything. It can be an experiment, a walk in a park when the trees a blossoming, a new handbag, some pampering – a manicure or a treatment she does to herself in her home spa, relaxing me-time reading a book, a nice dinner in a restaurant she’s been dreaming of going, earrings, a course she’s been wanting to take… just to name a few.

      Btw. Those have all been my Saturday gifts 🙂

      And on all the other days she doesn’t buy things – she plans for her next Saturday gift. She wants it to be perfect. Everytime.

      And about your house being super fat, I remember my house being fat like yesterday.
      If you’d like your house to lose some pounds, maybe you’d be interested in these articles about decluttering:

      This one is about 6 steps to take before starting your decluttering project: https://www.saturdaygift.com/6-steps-before-decluttering-project/
      This one is about creating a SMART decluttering action plan: https://www.saturdaygift.com/how-to-create-smart-decluttering-action-plan/
      This post is about easy decluttering: https://www.saturdaygift.com/how-to-declutter-the-easiest-way-possible/

      Let me know what you think!

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  7. A brilliant idea! I have read countless books and articles about decluttering. I’ve set targets for myself (such as not buying any new clothes for 12 months). However, I never before thought about the idea of ‘Saturday Gifts’. This is exactly what I need. Fabulous. I’ve signed up for your newsletter. Thank you so much.

    1. Thank you so much for your comment, Lorna. I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you like the idea of Saturday gifts!

      I don’t buy anything for myself anymore in a ‘traditional’ way. There are only me-gifts. And I only gift them to myself on Saturdays. And it’s such a relief to have kind of guidelines but no restrictions.

      It took me a few gifts to start understanding what was happening with my mindset towards shopping. So if you’re going to try it, give it a little time to sink in. The first gift I gave to myself felt mostly just weird. But after 3 gifts I started to think already on Tuesdays what kind of nice thing I could provide myself on next Saturday. And after a few months, my me-gifts started to change more towards experiences or little indulgences.

      And I’m so happy you signed up for my newsletter! Thank you so much. And let me know how you’re doing if you’re going to start giving yourself Saturday gifts. I’d love to know!

      Love, Cristina @ SaturdayGift

  8. Hi Cristina
    I think I have found what I have been searching for. I am going to read the rest of your website now.
    How to I subscribe to your emails? I cant seem to find the form or button.
    Thank you again for this website its fantastic

    1. Hi Carla, Thank you so much for your comment and your kind words! I’m so happy if you find my articles helpful! You can find the sign-up forms on the sidebar and in the footer and in most of the posts.

      Have a lovely week!

      -Cristina | SaturdayGift

  9. Cristina,

    You are a gift of fresh air to breathe! Thank you for sharing your heart and your love for organizing with the world. It has brightened my day and I look forward to learning more from you. Love your Fat House analogy. Mine certainly has become too fat and with your guidance, I will be culling out that which no longer serves me or my family. Thank you.

    Lynn Day

    1. Hi Lynn,

      Thank you SO much for your kind words! I can’t tell you how happy your comment made me!
      And I LOVE that you liked my Fat House analogy! That “mindset change” was the biggest thing that helped me start thinking about decluttering a totally different way. I have written more about it in this post: 5 simple tips to completely change your mindset about decluttering.

      Thank you again so much for taking the time to write to me… AND for the coffees! <3

      Sincerely,
      Cristina
      Creator of SaturdayGift

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