Expensive Impulse Shopping

According to a Bank of Montreal study, impulse shopping cost Canadians $3,720 a year. These can be any kind of purchases like clothes, knickknacks, or food. That amounts to $310 a month being spent on items that are wanted, but not needed.

More than half of the people surveyed actually bought something they might not need because it was simply on sale. For people doing marketing, this means price slashing does pay off because you’re getting people to buy things they’ll probably never use. But for consumers, it means we have to be careful and think about what we’re doing next time we feel the impulse to buy something we didn’t plan for. Impulse spending isn’t necessarily bad. Many people would say they do it to cheer themselves up \(^_^)/  Can’t argue against that, as long as people can afford it. But the problem is that many of us can’t. In fact, most of the respondents regretted their purchases and 43% sometimes spent even more than they earned in a month ( ･_･) And 33% of those surveyed had to borrow money or take out a loan to cover those impulse expenses.  (・・? ) That certainly can’t be healthy for someone’s financial situation. These consequences of impulse spending are more common among people under 30, with one in three unable to afford something they need because they purchased something else they wanted. Another bit I found surprising is that men spend twice as much ($414) on impulse shopping as women ($207.) But I guess that makes sense because guys tend to spend more on pricy technology items.

Best way to curb this impulse if you can’t afford it? My suggestion is to keep track of your unplanned purchases, then give yourself a realistic budget on impulse spending and stick to it every month. Setting goals for yourself and achieving them feels much better than shopping for stuff you don’t need. Trust me, I’m a blogger 😉

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Random Useless Fact:  There are about 47,000 shopping malls in the United States. California has the most with over 6000. Whyoming has the least with 55. But the largest shopping mall in North America is the West Edmonton Mall in Canada :0)