How to Never Again Buy Anything You Would Later Regret
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.
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?
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.
Want to remember this or share it?
Pin this post – How to never again buy anything you’d later regret – to your favorite Pinterest board or share it on Facebook!
