Shop more mindfully

How to make sure holiday sales are actually saving you money

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to figure out ways to shop more mindfully.
A sale doesn't save you money if you buy more

(00:26):
than you intend. Fortunately, there are ways to keep calm
and figure out what will bring the most joy to
you and everyone else. This episode is first airing right
around what we often call Black Friday, the start of
the holiday shopping season. While there are fewer in person

(00:51):
doorbuster sales these days than in the past, many retailers
still offer deep discounts around Thanksgiving. Often these discounts are
pitched as being for a limited time only. The idea
is to nudge people to buy and buy a lot
because they fear the sale will disappear. And maybe it will,

(01:15):
But so what If you are buying something you didn't
truly want or need, then a sale isn't saving anyone money.
It is still just extra money out the door. But
I do think there are a few ways to turn
down the temperature. One is to construct a gift list

(01:39):
before you start looking at the sales. What do you
want for the holidays? What do you want to give
to other people ask them what they want. I am
guessing that with a little detective work, most of us
could figure out at least seventy five percent of our

(01:59):
holiday gift list before Thanksgiving if we wanted. This leaves
space for extra stuff or last minute requests, but means
most things are thought of. Then you can go into
the holiday sales armed with this list. If someone asks

(02:21):
for a fancy pair of headphones and you see a
forty percent off sale on those headphones, then you know
that this is a money saving sale for you. There's
a chance you would have bought the headphones at full price,
and now you are getting them for forty percent less
than you would have had to pay. Excellent, but you

(02:45):
will be less tempted by a fifty percent off sale
on something the person did not ask for. You know
what they want, and so you can do your shopping
more calmly now. Obviously, sometimes we discover or what we
want or what we want to get people while we
are shopping. You come across something exciting and you want

(03:06):
to get it for someone, or let's be honest, you
want to get it for yourself. It turns out that
a lot of Black Friday's shopping is actually people shopping
for themselves. But if that is the case, then you
might try giving yourself a short waiting period. It doesn't
have to be seventy two hours. I do understand that

(03:27):
these sales are limited, but even a twelve hour waiting
period could be helpful. In a lot of cases. The
online sale will not disappear in twelve hours. If you
are shopping at five pm, maybe decide that you will
purchase something when you wake up the next morning. If

(03:47):
you still want it, then so it goes. If you don't,
or maybe something new has come up, then fine. Now
you know, sometimes if you think ahead, you can put
an even big your distance between yourself and something. I
had my eye on a pair of boots last fall
that were kind of pricey. It was challenging to find

(04:09):
my size, so I was having to look at secondary sellers,
so I just put on my calendar for this year
to look for those boots back when boots season started.
I saw the entry on my calendar this fall and
look them up from that particular retailer, and guess what,
I no longer had any desire for the boots, So

(04:32):
there we go. It is fun to buy things, but
it is less fun to feel like we bought more
than we wanted. Making a list beforehand and then shopping
sales can make those sales actually feel like sales, and
waiting a little bit for everything else can make those

(04:52):
purchases more mindful too. When we spend wisely, there is
more money to spend on things that will bring up
us joy, and I want that for everyone this holiday season.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for

(05:22):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(05:46):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.