3 types of purchases I finally stopped making
What is it that goes wrong when you purchase something but never use it? What causes the vicious buy-declutter-rebuy cycle? Why do we get things and then complain about the clutter?
As someone who has been shopping as entertainment for the last thirty years, I felt like I needed to get to the bottom of my behavior to put an end to it once and for all. I wanted to purchase the right products and use them for their entire lifecycles.
Why does one buy the wrong things? Based on personal experience, I came up with three major reasons. These can and do overlap, but I think it’s still useful to think about them as separate categories in order to properly diagnose a particular bad purchase.
1) “Cheap dopamine high” purchases
These tend to happen to me when I am bored, broke, or depressed. I don’t have much going on in my life that excites me, I don’t have a general sense of progress or fulfillment.
So I need a cheap thrill, an easily accessible dopamine source that’ll give me at least a little bit of fleeting excitement or a fake sense of control.
These purchases are right there, they usually cost less than $10, and I can order them while sitting on the couch and watching Netflix.
The usual suspects:
Nail polish in neon or other novelty colors; eyeshadow palettes; glitter eyeshadows; drugstore lip sticks and glosses; hairpins; cute pens; washi tapes; anime figurines; notebooks and planners; fiction books
Side note: This list is very particular to me and it doesn’t mean that these things are intrinsically bad or useless. For example, a planner might be a great purchase for you in that it helps you take control of your daily routines. Or fiction books can give you tremendous value in the form of hours and hours of entertainment.
As for me, however, I tend to hoard planners and notebooks, use it for a month or two (or a few pages) and then forget about it. As a result, I have many cute notebooks with just a couple of pages of it utilized.
Similarly, I buy a lot of fiction books because I feel like I need to be a person who reads novels, and I am often attracted to interesting cover designs. In reality, however, they just keep lining my shelves as I keep reading non-fiction books, which is what I actually love doing.
This also doesn’t mean that I should never buy a notebook, a fiction book, or nail polish ever again. It just means that I need to be extra careful with these items because I tend to use them as an easy dopamine fix.
Why they are bad:
They never get used, because they are not purchased based on an actual need but rather in order to easily fill an emotional void. The thrill of the purchase dies down within a day (or less) of purchasing the item, at which point they become part of the “great clutter.”
They also cause unnecessary expenditure, and even though they are not expensive, they can quickly accumulate to cause noticeable damage, as if a financial death by a thousand cuts.
What to do instead:
When I feel bored, depressed, or generally out of control of my own life, creating something always helps me curb these spending urges, and generally feel much better. Over the years I took on hobbies like knitting, embroidery, and crochet to keep my sanity and reestablish a sense of control during the rough patches that I’ve been through.
These hobbies not only saved me from spending mindlessly, but they also gave me back the pretty fruits of my own labor in the form of a knitted cardigan, a crocheted throw pillow, or an embroidered wall decoration.
Another thing that helps curb the consumerist dopamine chase is to learn new things. As cliche as this sounds, I found that it actually works perfectly to distract me from the inexpensive objects of my desire and channel my attention completely toward something else.
For example, I learned about personal finance, mindfulness, neuroscience, American history, astrophysics, and many other subjects during the various difficult times in my life, instead of spending my entire salary/stipend on drugstore makeup. While I didn’t become an expert on any of these topics by any stretch of the term, the time spent immersed in new knowledge provided hours of joyful stimulation for my brain.
2) “Misevaluation of the future” purchases
Unlike the “cheap dopamine high” purchases, these strangely tend to happen when I am extra happy and feel in control of my life.
My excessive joy needs a place to channel itself towards, and then goes, “Oh, I know! I’ll buy new things for this exciting new self that I am becoming. This feels great! So, how about an expensive gadget I have never used before? What a glorious idea!”
Before I know it, I am the proud owner of a new gym membership, brand new highly technical hiking boots, a semi-professional grade espresso machine, or a high-end DSLR camera, any one of which will be likely to only get a few uses.
The initial excitement and, dare I say, delusional pride is unmatched. It’s as if my new high-tech DSLR camera gives me the license to feel like I am a serious photography hobbyist. When I take one look at my espresso machine, I feel like I might as well be a cool barista. All these feelings and I haven’t done a single thing beyond the act of purchasing the necessary equipment.
Another way in which this type of purchase happens for me is when I really love a garment: I want to get it in all the color variations. This might sound like a great idea (as it unfortunately often does to me), but I always find myself wearing the one that I picked first. And it makes sense when you think about it: the first of a bunch you pick is the one that gives you the combination you like best. This probably means that the second pick is not going to get as much use, and I found this to be true each time I did this.
Another disadvantage of hoarding all variations of something you like is that you miss out on a more diverse wardrobe made of not variants of color but also of various cuts, textures, and fabrics.
The usual suspects:
Elaborate exercise equipment; colorful athletic gear; gym memberships; technical gear; high-end hobby merchandise (for hobbies that I never practice); bulky one-purpose kitchen gadgets; same version of a sweater or a dress in other available colors
Why they are bad:
These purchases symbolize a glorious life in the near future where you will become a semi-professional photographer, a regular hiker, juicer, exerciser, or home chef, but if you haven’t made a commitment to these lifestyles beyond the purchase of the equipment, the initial pride and excitement is quickly replaced by the shame of not following through.
Beyond the shame they evoke, these misevaluations of the future are actually good reminders of the need to exercise caution: against external influences, unexamined (and internalized) social rules, and our own fabricated needs that result from these rules.
What to do instead:
A good rule of thumb with purchases related to yet unpracticed new hobbies is to start practicing first and let the needs emerge organically. For example, if you think you’ll like photography as a hobby, begin capturing photos with your phone to see if you like it, and then maybe rent a DSLR camera for a bit to see how you’ll feel about this gear change.
In a similar vein, it’s also useful to let the desire emerge before doubling down on all the alternative colors of a garment you like. Wait until you find yourself thinking, “Gosh golly, I wish I had that dress in brown too,” and only then go ahead and make the purchase. Don’t try to preempt future pain of not having something, as it’s very likely that you won’t feel that pain at all.
Trying to predict what we’ll need/want in the future is nearly impossible, and yet we still try to do it—even when we know it won’t work. To regulate this obnoxious and yet extremely common human tendency, I recommend laying down some ground rules that will prevent you from acting out of this tendency. Doing this requires honest introspection and thorough evaluation of true needs, which is decidedly harder than entering your credit card information on a website and clicking purchase. (I say this with compassion and from personal experience.)
One way to go about this is to create an ongoing wishlist, which will likely give you a better awareness of your bad shopping habits without letting them harm you. (I wrote about wishlists here, so check it out if you need help starting one.) When you have a wishlist with stuff constantly getting on and off, you will get to know your real needs (and your fantasy needs) much more intimately, and you’ll be able to come up with rules that take them into account.
3. “Social influence” purchases
Speaking of fantasy needs and external influences, my final category is purchases I made as a result of social influence.
These usually occur either because we want to signal membership to a social class or are made to believe that something popular is good for us as well.
Some of the “social influence” purchases I made over the years include the latest model of an iPhone when I already have one that’s in perfect working order, a 10-step skincare routine that I used for a total of two times before letting all the products go bad, and logo-laden designer handbags that didn’t fit with my style (and that I only bought because I saw it enough times on the internet).
One common thing all these products have is that they are bought not to be utilized but rather to be looked at or displayed. In other words, their purchase value truly lies in their ability to tell the owner and other people who see it that they are cool, worthy, wealthy, and generally successful. As such a bag that’s bought that way is not really to carry things, the makeup is not to be applied to a face, or the smart phone is to be used for its various technological capabilities. They are there to tell a story about their owner.
The usual suspects:
The newest iPhone model; garments or accessories with logos; 10-step skincare products; designer makeup
Why they are bad:
I should preface this section by saying, once again, that these purchases aren’t intrinsically bad. Rather they can be damaging when they aren’t aligned with our values, and as a result, don’t satisfy us in a way that we thought they would.
When this happens, not only do they inevitably become waste, but they also perpetuate the connection between self-worth and external validation. This can push a person towards lifestyle choices that don’t satisfy them and lose sight of their own preferences. In extreme cases, one could end up living someone else’s life entirely.
What to do instead:
If money is earned in exchange for life energy, it needs to be spent in a way that returns this energy back to you in the most efficient way possible. For that to happen, these expenditures need to align with your values, not other people’s.
It’s not easy but it would certainly be worth your time to clarify your values and preferences so that you know where you firmly stand when the outside world will inevitably hit you with their own (often urgent and important sounding) agenda. This can be even harder when those people are in close proximity to you on a regular basis, like a friend or a family member.
Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, authors of the seminal personal finance book Your Money or Your Life, suggest we ask one simple question to start clarifying our values: “Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to life energy spent?”
Once our values began to get more clear, it’s also important to be upfront about them with others and own them with firmness even when social norms seem to tell us otherwise. People’s reaction could then either be a pleasant surprise or an invitation to reconsider the nature of our relationship with them.
————
My shopping habits are far from perfect but having these emotional traps in mind helps me keep my spending aligned with the life I actually want to have. To be able to distinguish my real needs from my fabricated needs and my true desires from the ones I’ve caught from the external world generally makes me a happier and more grateful person.
Want more money-related insights?
Join The Finance Rookie Newsletter for more free and bite-sized content on personal finance!
