My best spending hack 🤑

Hey it’s Pam

First of all, apologies for using the word “hack” like I’m a social media influencer. I know the word has lost all meaning, but also it’s fun to say.

Here’s the hack - let things you want to buy online sit in your cart for a week and choose a day of the week to make all your online purchases.

Yep, just like all the hacks you see on social media, it’s a bit of an “oh that’s it? That’s not a hack.”

But hear me out because this has actually been a gamechanger.

See, the thing about online shopping is it gives you a double dopamine hit. You get one when you click the Buy button and you get one when the package arrives.

I have literally woken up in the middle of the night, bought something on Amazon, and went back to sleep. Crossing one thing off my mental to-do list would quell my anxiety for a bit. A package arrives a few days later - ping! second dopamine hit! - and I open it, look inside and usually ask, “when did I buy this?”

Dyalekt and I went on a whole year-long journey to stop shopping on Amazon in 2021 (stay tuned for that story, which we’ll be releasing on the Get Shameless Community Chest in a few months!) and part of the journey was just breaking the habit of buying something every time I thought of it.

If Dyalekt *lightly* mentioned it would be nice to have another phone charger or I would notice we only had 30 rolls of toilet paper left in the house, it would be at our house in two days or less.

To curb this, I decided to take my own advice - I had a client who stated one of their goals was to do less online shopping and I suggested she put things in her cart as she thought of them, but chose one day a week to actually make the purchases. This way, she wouldn’t forget that she wanted to buy it (I knew the feeling!), but she could see a grand total each week of what she had put in her cart.

It gave her time to decide the difference between what she really wanted to purchase and what was a fleeting thought. Some questions came up around buying things that were truly urgent (diapers, groceries, actually being low on toilet paper) and we decided that could be a case by case decision.

This arbitrary rule was designed to create some structure around building a new habit and letting go of an old one.

So I tried it. I started leaving things in the cart without hitting the buy button. I remember it felt a little weird at first, but I did find comfort in knowing I could go back and buy it later.

I gave myself an online shopping “day” to actually purchase the things, but the simple act of not hitting the buy button right away allowed me to feel a different kind of control.

I still remember wanting a fruit bowl with a hanger for bananas for what felt like weeks. Usually, I would have bought it right away and instantly felt guilt and embarrassment for buying something that seemed silly.

Instead, I let myself feel all the guilt and embarrassment ahead of time and still wanted it. When I finally ended up buying it, I felt a rush of excitement. This was three years ago

The real reason this isn’t a hack is because it’s easier said than done and it may not work for you. I’ve had a number of clients try this with varying degrees of success and I think the big difference was the folks who saw this as another restriction vs. the folks who saw this as freeing. I have no idea how this is going to land for you and your nervous system. (Also, I want to say explicitly, it’s not a fail if this doesn’t work for you!)

For us, it was like a new version of layaway. Dyalekt did layaway as a kid - he has memories of setting aside items at Woolworths and making those weekly payments to finally get the jacket or toy he coveted, months later. He now has an ingrained habit that when he sees something he likes, he walks away for a week and if it’s still there and he still wants it, he buys it.

Over the next several months, we started changing our habits around our online purchases and some unexpected side effects started happening.

One was I started to actually ask *out loud* if Dyalekt wanted the thing he *maybe*hinted* would make his life *slightly* more convenient. We checked in with each other more regularly to see if we really wanted or needed something or if we were (I was) feeling anxious about something else.

Our shopping habits became points of conversation instead of unintended surprises. Even if I was doing the clicking and buying, we were maintaining the household together. This rule wasn’t about having more self-control, but taking a moment to pause, check in with our values, and give ourselves permission to want our wants. Also, it worked! We spent $3,000 less on shopping in 2024 compared to 2023.

So there you have it - my best spending hack - the more you can find ways to slow down in a system pushing you to buy now, the closer you can get to feeling good about what you buy and where you buy it, with a likely side effect of saving money along the way.