Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up talks about how to clean up the clutter in your life. Her basic principle is to get rid of things that no longer bring you joy and only keep the things that do.

This is how you should always approach spending, especially on big-ticket items. A few months before my marriage we were driving past a Yamaha dealer and decided to stop and take a look. I had been thinking about buying a motorcycle for many years but always put the purchase off for lack of finances.

The salesman had me convinced from the start of the conversation that I was going to be purchasing a new bike that day. At the time Yamaha had an incentive for a very low interest rate for the first 24 months. I looked at my budget and decided that I could afford the $159 a month with the hopes that I could pay off the loan faster and avoid the accrued interest.

Within a few hours I was leaving the motorcycle. What was ironic, I was not confident enough to ride back to my house so I had to call a friend up to get it from the dealer to his place so I could practice for the long trip back to Park City.

This was an impulse buy and one that did bring me joy. Luckily years later when things became much worse financially for us I was glad that I had the motorcycle as it became my daily commuter.

Buyer’s Remorse

Many times though we make a large purchase on impulse and immediately feel regret. Sometimes that regret is a few months later when the reality of having to pay a $500 per month car payment hits and we are faced with the possibility of not having enough money to live a normal life or in the worst case avoid a repossession.

How do you avoid the pitfalls of impulse buying?

My wife surfs Amazon on a daily basis, looking for deals on anything from clothing to toys for the dogs. Most of the time she puts them in her cart and leaves them there until she no longer desires them. This may work from some and has the same principle of every time you make a purchase you ask yourself how does it make you feel?

Ask Yourself Do I Really Need It?

Will you feel joy from buying that item? Is it a necessity? Or is it something that I just want? Avoiding the question of can I afford it is important. We almost always will justify whether we can afford something, when we should really be asking is how it will make us feel.

One of my colleagues mentioned the 5 why’s of problem solving to me in a meeting and I thought about using that as a basis for purchasing.

Why do I want to buy this?
Why is it important to me?
Why this particular item?
Why now?
Why do I feel this way?

Of course you can ask any variation of these questions at the time but the point is to ask these questions before every purchase. I always add, what do I have to sacrifice in order to purchase this?

---

Experiences Versus Material Things

I have shifted my focus from material things to more experiences. I plan on trying to travel more in the coming years once this pandemic has ended and therefore most of my purchases are weighed against if I will not have enough money to travel.

I did purchase an outdoor patio set recently. My company is work from home until September and the indoor space that I have for my office is very minimal and gets quite a bit of sun. Having the outdoor space will give me extra room to work. It was an easy purchase to justify and I shopped around for the best set and price.

You can’t limit ever purchase you make. It is important to not limit everything you buy, just make sure you ask yourself the right questions before you do.