How to shop on a low-budget without going low-key?
There are tons of ways to save money. First and foremost, the very best way should definitely be to not shop at all. But as we all know, this is kind of hard, especially when you have a whole household and family to cater to. Which involves shopping on a daily basis, even if you don’t want to. As I’m in this situation too, I would like to share some budget –conscious money saving tips and advice with you which I learned the hard way.
I will also share some of the biggest money-spending traps out there, which would not save you any money, instead it’s only an excuse for splurging and running out of money well before the end of the month.
Fake Money „saving” tips you should never believe
There are lots of articles and videos out there and many of these will mention one or more tips, which are not good at all. Let me enlist some of the best examples of these. Please don’t do any of these, they will only bring you more money trouble. Don’t forget most influencers have sponsored videos and in many cases all those money saving videos also have a hidden agenda, that’s basically advertising a product or a service which can be connected to money.
Shop during the largest sales periods or at Black Friday sales
There are tons of people out there who are openly or secretly shopaholics or straight-out hoarders. And they do love to use sales as an excuse to spend literally tons of money on things they don’t even need. And this is the psychological core reason of sales. Many people will go out of their mind to shop items, just because shops state they went cheaper. Most items I bought during sales are items I don’t need, don’t use and which only cause me headaches because I realized how much more I spent just because of the hypnotic effect of the 50% off price tags. Black Friday is the biggest scam on Earth and you better not fall for it.
The „big quantity” offers
Almost all the shops have the big-quantity offers (buy 4 and get 20% off from the total price). This will often make us end up with way more food, sweets or any other items which were just not worth buying. If you buy 3 more of an item, all in all you will end up paying WAY more, than you would have, if you committed to buying just the single item and not more.
The coupons
Most of the time coupons have similar effects to sales price tags. We will end up shopping way more than we initially would have wanted to or what we needed.
Paying with credit cards
Listen well to this one. Having a credit card is NOT a good deal and there is no way to make it a good deal. All the youtubers or bloggers who say the opposite only do so because their post or video contains some sort of an advertisement that can be connected to a credit card.
Shopping tips which work
Now, let’s head on to the real useful part. By the end of reading this you can say it’s all common sense, but let’s be real: most of us make one or more of these mistakes, me included. So let’s try to be more money-conscious let’s end up saving some money the good way. You will more don’ts than dos over here and it’s for a good reason. The key to money conscious shopping is buying much less but more worthy items. Buying more never saved money for anyone.
You will not save much on garments if you buy the low-quality cheap stuff
The bad thing about buying cheap stuff cheaply is, that you will end up wearing poor quality stuff, which will not last long either. It’s much better and safer to buy fewer things but of better quality. I know it’s not easy for many of us to buy less. But a good quality T-shirt will be a good quality T-shirt for many years, while a poor quality one would lose its colour, it’s form within a year or even after a stronger wash. Also, we tend to buy more of the cheaper stuff, simply because we have this weird idea on overall spending less, while we spend way more than we intend to. I will soon release a post about the best evergreen fashion items to invest in.
But you can save money when buying from the sales sections of the good brands
Many brands such as Tommy Hilfiger or Mango have a standard sales section on their website where you can go from time to time to check out what’s good to buy out there. Seasonal stuff in general goes on standard sale when it’s the opposite season. Yes, this is why it’s worth checking out pullovers and boots during the summer and check for summer clothes in the wintertime. My Hilfiger garments I bought about ten years ago still work perfectly and are in a very good shape! This is what saving is all about. I know many of you like Zara especially in the UK and I’m aware of the fact that Zara doesn’t like sales and they also don’t really have so much stuff which are on sale but then they have standard goods which are worth the price and some others which are not. Many other brands commit to sales sections through and I highly suggest you to browse through this section from time to time.
Take care with the outlet sites and stores
Thanks to some of my own research I have recently realized that outlet prices are not really all that cheaper than standard prices at all. So beware of the outlet stores, their prices are often higher than standard end of season sales prices. Do some research before getting in one and make sure the things you buy are really that much cheaper without being faulty in any ways.
You will never save money on hoarding stuff
Hoarding will never equal saving money. It’s just a fun excuse for shopaholics to spend all the more money on things most of which they will never wear or see in the near future. Hoarding is a symptom of seriously missing something from our lives. But shopping will never make up for that loss in real. And it will get you in serious trouble.
Don’t go shopping when you are sad/upset/after a breakup
When we are sad, upset and especially after a breakup we want CHANGE. This unfortunately make us do some silly shopping decisions. I myself have ended up buying all sorts of weird items which don’t ever suit me or my personality, in the name of change. Of course, I ended up never wearing those items ever again. These trips will make you lose lots of money.
Don’t shop without a plan and stick to the plan or you will end up splurging
Have a plan and a target and don’t deviate from that. If you head on to buy undergarment, don’t end up buying a coat. You probably already have 3 more coats hanging in there but you are still left without undergarments. This means over spending.
Shop with a budget
It’s good to have a budget especially if you are a spender. Make sure, when you go shopping to not being able to overstep this budget in any ways. I generally transfer my money on a savings account where I cannot spend or get it back.
Don’t go shopping right after receiving your salary
Having money in our pockets makes us worry way less than we should about tomorrow. I ended up spending way more on shopping sprees like that and that’s why I now steer clear from it.
On shopping food
We spend the large majority of our money on two key things: on rent and on shopping food. Therefore, cutting back on food shopping is the action that can save you the most money. Shopping food however has its very own specifics, dos and don’ts. So I will write my next post on shopping food and grocery consciously.
Unsubscribe from all the emails which tempt you to spend
This is a golden advice and that’s why it’s enlisted on the top place in most saving related videos and blogs. And it’s true, however it’s not a must do, only if you have shopaholic tendencies.
I hope you all find something there is to learn from this post, I know this is a very dangerous period when many of us go well over our budgets, so I thought it’s a good time to let out some money saving tips for all of us shoppers out there.
Karas Blog 