It is amazing that some people are willing to pay so much for instant gratification.  For example, one company has made a fortune offering free two day shipping to their customers if they joined their loyalty program for the flat rate of $79.00 per year, turning many causal shoppers into regular purchasers of the company’s merchandise while also paying for entrance into the loyalty club.  Instead of making their purchases at the place with the cheapest price and paying the lowest shipping cost that they can, these customers are paying an additional fee and higher prices to have the items arrive at their home 2 days after purchase.

Spending habits such as these can be difficult to change, but there are a number of ways to resist the pull of immediately gratification and save some money doing it.  Delaying gratification is hard and many people have bought into the idea that shopping and spending money makes them happy and makes life easy.  Unfortunately, upon further reflection many of the purchases made for immediate gratification reasons are unneeded and costly.  Here are some ways to delay gratification and avoid spending money on things that you really do not need.

Create A Holding Pattern For New Purchases

Before making a purchase, write it down on a list and wait for at least three days.  After this time period has passed, review the list and everything that you still want to buy, you can go ahead and purchase.  People that put this technique into practice quickly find that the “must-have” items of several days ago have lost their appeal and are no longer wanted.  Delaying purchases for at least three days can reduce your spending by a significant amount and you will have less unwanted items cluttering up your home.

Schedule Necessity Spending Only Weeks

Many people purchase unnecessary items simply because they can.  By training yourself to go for a week without spending money on anything but necessities, you can curb your impulse to purchase items that catch your eye and replace it with a new habit of spending money on things that you need only.  With this technique, you will save money and save time by reducing the number of entries in your spending ledger.  Some people choose a specific week of the month while some people attempt to go for several weeks at a time without spending, so try several different methods to see which one would be the most successful for you.

Comparison shopping for the best prices on products is one of the most important ways to save money on the products that a person needs.  Comparing different types of products before deciding which items to purchase will save money and will give the person an idea of what items are available and what the typical price of each item will be.  There are a number of different ways that a person can find a price for products and each way has benefits and negative aspects associated with the method.

Contacting The Retailers

One method for finding a price for a product is to contact the retailer directly and inquire about the product that you are interested in.  This can be done by calling the company to talk to a representative from the company that will answer any questions that the person may have about the products.  The biggest benefit of choosing this method for finding a price is that the person will be discussing the products with an actual person and can ask the representative about the different types of items available.  The representative may also recommend products that would be better for the person’s needs.

This method takes a significant amount of time to get information from a single  retailer but the information received will be the most complete information available.  If the purchaser is shopping for an item available at a large number of retailers, this method may take more time than the person is willing to dedicate to pricing for a single item.

Finding The Prices Online

Some people choose to find prices for products by reviewing online websites that provide prices for different products at various retailers.  Some of these websites are run by third parties not associated with a specific retailer and the information returned by the website will provide the prices for a number of retailers that offer the items that the person is interested in.  In most cases, the person will be able to find the price for a particular type of product from several different retailers using a single website.

One of the biggest benefits of this method is the ability to find many prices from different retailers quickly.  Going to a single website to get prices for a variety of retailers is more efficient than talking to representatives for each company and, if more information is needed, the websites will have contact information for the retailer listed with the price.

Reports of this food or that food increasing in price are regularly on the news as everything from fruits to frozen foods has seen dramatic price increases over the past year.  For those of us without a lot of wiggle room in our budgets or who are living on a fixed income, these price increases can be devastating and result in less choice and less food for the individual affected.  Although there is very little you can do to change the prices at the grocery store, there are some ways to lessen the impact of higher food prices on your disposable income.

Purchase Bulk Quantities

Many staple foods are available in bulk quantities that are much cheaper per unit than their smaller counterparts are.  If you believe that you will be able to use the entire amount purchased before the expiration date on the package, you can save a great deal of money by purchasing the larger quantity.  If you are purchasing perishable foods in bulk, you can extend the life of these foods by freezing them or canning them.

Use Coupons

Many stores and manufacturers regularly issue coupons for their products to entice more people into trying the foods that they offer.  These coupons can be for free items or give you a certain amount of money off your purchases.  People that tailor their grocery shopping list to the coupons that they have available may be able to save 30% or more off their total grocery bill.

Stock Up On Sale Items

Grocery stores always have some food items on sale and the specific items on sale rotate regularly.  You can save quite a bit of money by obtaining the sales flyer of the store you will be shopping at prior to your shopping trip and using it to plan your shopping list.  Large grocery chains post their sales flyers online for easy access and local grocery stores mail their flyers to homes in the local area or have their flyers inserted into the local newspaper.  Matching these sale items to your available coupons can save you even more at the grocery store.

The retail industry spends millions of dollars each year researching the best ways to get consumers into the stores and how to get those consumers to spend once they are inside those stores.  These tactics are very effective for getting shoppers to walk out of the store with more purchases than they originally intended when they walked in.  Spotting the most common retail tactics used to increase consumer spending is easy once you know what to look for and avoiding these traps can save you hundreds of dollars every year.

Prominently Displaying Shopping Carts

One of the things that retail studies have shown over and over again is that consumers will purchase more items if they have a convenient way to transport their selections around the store.  This causes the subconscious desire to fill up the space that is available and the individual will be more comfortable with picking up additional objects that they did not originally intend to purchase.  In order to limit the amount that you spend, shop using a list of the items needed and avoid the shopping carts if you are only in the store to purchase a couple of items.

Placing High Profit Items At Eye Level

Shoppers in a hurry rarely take the time to sort through all of the available options to find the best value before making a choice, often opting for the first suitable item that they see.  Placing high profit items at eye level while placing less profitable items on higher or lower levels increases the likelihood that the consumer will choose the item that generates more profit for the retailer.  In many cases, the best deals in the store are found on the top and bottom display shelves.

Placing Staple Items Near The Middle Of The Store

Many retailers design their stores so that the items most commonly purchased at that location are placed in the middle of the store so that consumers will have to travel past many items to get to the items that they want.  This increases the chance that the consumer will find other items in the store that they would like to purchase that they may not have intended to buy on that visit.  Every additional item that the retailer can sell to each consumer increases the profitability of the retailer and moves merchandise from the store.

The biggest draw for shopping at an outlet mall is the amount of money you believe you will be saving by making your purchases there instead of at a traditional mall location.  Outlet malls create advertisements that say you can save a large amount of money on the retail price of any item that you purchase at the outlet malls, but are you really saving as much money as you think you are?  Here are some variables that can reduce the amount you save by shopping at an outlet mall.

Distance Traveled

Many outlet malls are in out of the way locations far from major cities but close to freeway and highway routes.  This is because land farther away from cities is cheaper, saving the owners of the outlet mall hundreds of thousands of dollars in land purchase costs, and many small towns offer tax breaks in return for jobs for their residents. 

Unfortunately, it means that many must travel long distances to reach the outlet mall for shopping spending much more on gas than if shopping close to home.  For example, if the nearest outlet mall is 50 miles away, you will be driving at least 100 miles for around two hours just the shop at the outlet stores.

Amount Of Time Spent

In addition to the longer time spent traveling to the outlet mall, many individuals plan to stay at the outlet mall for an extended time period because of the distance traveled.  In addition, people that spend a longer time in a retail location tend to spend more money because they have more time to browse around and find items that they desire.  In many cases, these are not necessary purchases, they are purchases made to stave off the monotony of just looking at items.

Comparable Sales Close To Home

Many people travel to outlet malls looking for great deals never suspecting that comparable deals can easily be found close to home, especially during the holiday shopping season.  Most of the merchandise at outlet stores is marked between 30% – 50% off of the regular retail price of the items.  During seasonal sales, many retailers match this percentage with their sales on various items within their stores, so a careful shopper can save just as much as they would have if they had traveled to the outlet mall to make their purchases.