Raise your hand if you’ve ever found yourself buying things that you really just don’t need? Do you find yourself asking how to cut spending? You may not be able to see me, but I am definitely raising my hand with you. But I’ve finally found a way to cut spending by asking myself these 3 questions before I make purchases.

 

 

1. If I don’t have a job right now, is this something I would buy?

This is my go-to question whenever I am in doubt if I should be purchasing something or am trying to convince myself out of a purchase.

It started a while back when I realized that I had a spending pattern. Whenever I had a job or received a raise, my expenditure would increase. And it’s not a strange phenomenon.

In fact, it’s the reason why many people still feel broke or unable to save more money even after having a higher income. It’s because we usually tend to spend more when we have more.

I noticed the start of this pattern when I landed my first job in college and increased my spending habit. The spending quickly died down during grad school when I wasn’t able to work.

This spending cycle would repeat every time I gained or lost a job. So now I use this psychology to talk myself out of purchases that I want but clearly don’t need.

And it works like a charm almost every time. After all, you will rarely find yourself splurging when you don’t have a job right?

Of course, it’s not something I do on every purchase. I am by no means saying you should never buy things you want, but when I find myself debating if I should buy something or not, this is my go-to question.

 

2. What happens if I don’t have this item tomorrow?

I’ll be honest, it’s often so hard to ask this question when all you want to do is grab that outfit and head to the register.

But I find that most of the time, the answer to this question is that I’ll be okay and I’ll probably forget about that cute top by the end of the day.

If it’s an item that I will only continue to look for if I don’t purchase (for example a professional work bag that I’ll be using on the daily), I’ll let myself make the purchase.

3. How many uses will I get out of it?

This is something that I used to not think about when making purchases.

A lot of us tend to focus on the total dollar amount when making a purchase. Not saying that’s not important, but what I now find more important is how many uses I can get out of a product.

For example, I bought a Tory Burch purse that cost me around $200 during a sale. It was a very good deal that allowed me to purchase it for less than half the retail price.

I still considered it a splurge. I was used to going to Marshalls or Ross to purchase cheaper handbags that usually cost only $20.

The result: I was never quite satisfied with those purchases and rationalized that since I only spent $20 on it, I could get myself another one.

So why is this bad? I ended up spending just as much money buying low-quality bags (and I’m not saying Marshalls or Ross only has low-quality bags, just that I usually went for the cheapest, therefore likely low-quality bags), that I often had no desire to wear it after one use.

Worse yet, I ended up cluttering my closet with purchases I wasn’t satisfied with.

Now, if I do the calculations, that $20 dollar “cheap” bag that I’ve worn only twice = $10 per use

The $200 bag that I have worn out on all my outings at least 40 times = $5 per use.

That Tory Burch purse ended up costing less per use! Better yet, since I splurged on that purse, I’ve lost the desire to get a new bag since I was now 100% satisfied.

So that’s it! 

I’ve successfully cut down on spending money on things that I don’t need and made less regrettable purchases since utilizing these 3 questions so give it a try!