Like most red-blooded American women, I love, love, love to shop. But these days, I'm in a quandary. While it's good for the economy to get out and buy stuff so we don't see more store closings like Fortunoff's, Circuit City, and Linens 'n Things, every instinct I have is telling me to cut back, save more, spend less.
So when I opened up my copy of the New York Times the other day and read "Tips Meant for the Waist, but Perfect for the Pocket," I think I found a happy compromise between shopping with abandon and shopping smart.
The article talks about putting your spending habits on a diet. Now that's something I know a thing or two about, and it sounds so much easier than old-fashioned penny-pinching.
When you're on a diet, you can sort of cheat—or make food swaps—so you can have your treats and still budget calories. You can do the same with your budget. Here are some great pointers from the article:
Watch your portions. OK, so you're heading out to the mall, or surfing the 'Net, or just going to Target (and you know how hard it is to resist all those goodies beckoning you to spend). Instead of being sucked in by deep discounts and buying a bunch of sale stuff you may not really need, give yourself a shopping-spree allowance, say $20 to $50. That way you can get your fix and you won't blow the bank.
Keep score. You know how to count calories, right? Keeping track of your spending is pretty much the same. Instead of adding up every bite of Milano cookie and sip of mocha frappucino, you track your credit- and debit-card spending as well as cash out of hand. Do this for a week or so and you'll have a good idea where the money goes and where you need to cut back. The Times article suggests free online tools that can help you do this, like Mint, Wesabe, Geezo, and Quicken.
Practice binge control. If you're a serial e-Bayer or Amazon-a-holic, maybe you have to practice some tough love. One thing you can do is get rid of your PayPal account so it's not so easy to buy. You can also unsubscribe to all those sales alerts and newsletters you signed up for. Or remove them from temptation: I get mine on a separate free e-mail account from the one I use daily. I purposely don't check my sales-alert em-ail account when I'm feeling the urge to shop and my bank account says I shouldn't.
