How To Stop Buying Stuff Online You Don't Need - 20 Easy Tips

How to stop buying stuff online you don’t need - 20 easy tips Oct 23 Written By Ema Hidlebaugh

Online shopping has been growing in popularity, but the pandemic seems to have pushed us all over the edge.

We order things we don’t really need, get that instant gratification of hitting the buy button, then that sweet, sweet delayed gratification when the boxes turn up to our door.

But it’s not enough so we soon do it all over again.

Sound familiar…?

The thought of cancelling my Amazon prime account would have previously sent me into despair, but by following these steps, I was able to pull the plug earlier this month.

Read on if you want to learn how to stop buying stuff online too.

How to stop buying stuff online

Here’s how to reduce your online shopping habit:

1. Learn why you buy

2. Calculate how much you spend

3. Make online shopping less convenient

4. Reduce your exposure to triggers

5. Set shopping boundaries

6. Set yourself fun challenges

Skip to the tips

The four stages of my shopping habit

1 ) Old school shopping

Ever since I started earning my own money, I have been an impulse buyer.

I’d buy things on good days, I’d shop on bad days, and I’d treat myself to a little somethin’ somethin’ on so-so days.

But mostly I bought things to impress people and make me feel better about myself.

You can learn more in this impulse buying post: including the four signs of an impulse buyer (clutter, money troubles, secrecy and regret), and the reasons why we impulse buy (lack of confidence, FOMO, etc.)

I was a little late to the online shopping craze because I was too much of a party girl, and was too poor as a result.

But I sure made up for it after I got sober and got my finances in order.

2) Buying stuff online

I loved how quick, easy and convenient it was.

I could shop whenever the whim took me, no matter the time of day or night.

I could shop from the train, I could shop on my lunch break.

The only thing that I wasn’t keen on was paying for shipping, and waiting days / weeks for items to be shipped.

Amazon heard me and had my back.

3) Amazon Prime

Enter …Amazon Prime

All of a sudden, shipping was “free” and most things arrived the very next day. Woohoo!

Looking at my numbers, it’s really clear to me that amazon prime added gasoline to my online shopping habit.

Patience is not my strong suit, and all of a sudden the gratification for shopping online was almost as quick as going to the mall, but with double the thrill - hitting the buy button and opening the boxes.

If I happened to miss a delivery, I would be absolutely raging. It felt so difficult to have my gratification delayed by another whole day.

4) Shopping like a Mother

My shopping habit exploded again in 2018 when I got pregnant with my daughter.

Pregnancy insomnia, the impossible task of getting “prepared” for something you’ll never feel prepared for, pressure to buy the best, and general excitement and anxiety got me into a shopping frenzy.

Not to mention how cute everything was! You had me at teeny tiny Winnie the Pooh onesie.

I bought so many things that were never used or worn, and yet when baby Willow made her arrival, there were still so many things that we’d forgotten or not even known about.

Little Willow probably had over a hundred items of clothing waiting for her when she arrived - none of which were preemie size so I remember ordering outfits from the hospital so they’d be at home waiting for us.

Someone in my mum group would recommend a product and within seconds I’d be hitting the buy button on Amazon.

Anything to make our little potato happy and/or our lives easier.

Take breastfeeding for example - it was so freaking hard (physically, emotionally and mentally) and I was desperate to buy the perfect solution.

Herbs, cookies, magic pillows, nipple balm, hand pumps, milk catchers …all of that and more just for this one small aspect of having a newborn.

Desperate, exhausted and overwhelmed new parents are a marketing departments dream.

I’d spend hours scrolling my phone in the middle of the night, reading reviews and placing orders.

By the time the boxes arrived, I couldn’t even remember what was supposed to be inside of them.

Side bar - if you’re a desperate, exhausted and overwhelmed parent, my two biggest life hacks to make life easier are toy rotation and capsule wardrobes for your kids.

Why I minimized my online shopping

Somewhere in that newborn fog, I realized that I couldn’t keep living like this.

I discovered minimalism and suddenly everything in my life was easier.

It took me a second to realize that constantly bringing new things in to our home was slowing down my mission of getting things out of it.

The more I gave away, the better I felt, and the less I wanted.

I had the vague notion that I was spending too much, too often with Amazon, but I was still really shocked when I sat down and tallied everything up.

How much we spent on Amazon

At our worst point, in 2019, we spent $2705 on Amazon. That worked out to 5.33 orders, or $225 per month.

Things improved in 2020, with a slightly lower spend of $1492. The majority of which was in the first few months of the year!

Our Amazon Prime membership renewed in October 2020 and I just couldn’t bring myself to cancel it.

What if I needed something.

I should keep it just in case.

In 2021 I had much better understanding of minimalism and my impulse buying habit so we managed to cut Amazon spending down to $289, with only 7 orders in total.

But as the Amazon Prime renewal date approached, I still felt hesitant to let go. It was at this point that I tallied up our Amazon spending.

I love a bargain so as soon as I saw that we were paying $11+ per order for “free shipping”, I was so ready to cancel, cancel, cancel!

Read on to learn how we stopped buying stuff online…

20 Tips on How to stop buying stuff online

1) Reflect on why you buy

Emotions are interwoven with shopping. We humans are programmed to chase pleasure and avoid pain - whether that be in healthy ways like lots of rest, time with people that recharge us & belly laughs, or other ways such as drinking, gambling or shopping.

Is shopping always bad? Not at all. For me, shopping is still one of my favourite activities - when done intentionally.

Take some time to reflect on why you buy. You could journal, talk with a loved one, or simply take a moment to think it over alone.

Are there any common themes or triggers that you can identify? e.g. shopping when you’re bored, emotional, or stressed.

Think about how to feel before, during and after shopping.

Do you have clutter and/or debt? If so, how much of these are caused by you online shopping habit?

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2) Take this 5 minute minimalism challenge

Play this 5 minute minimalism game to learn more about your relationship with your stuff - it’s nice and easy and there’s zero pressure.

3) Work out how much you spend

If you’re anything like me, my online shopping habit was much more fun when I still had my head buried in the sand. Once self awareness crept in, it really did take away the magic of it all.

The most effective thing I did was to get geeky and tally everything up in a spreadsheet.

Amazon makes this annoyingly easy for us to do, just go to “My Orders” to see a thorough breakdown.

If your knees are knocking at the thought of doing this, say the following to yourself, and repeat as needed:

No matter what the numbers say: I love, forgive and accept myself fully

4) Cancel your Amazon Prime account

Hark at me! Smugly suggesting you cancel your account a mere week after I finally got the balls to cancel mine, ha!

I stand by it though. If you added up the numbers in step 2 and they’re high, Amazon Prime is likely a big enabler of your shopping habit.

If you added up the numbers and they’re low, are you really getting any value from Amazon Prime?

Work out how much you’re paying for “free shipping” per order by dividing the annual cost of Amazon Prime, by how many orders you placed.

Convenience really is the enemy of responsible shopping.

Reminder: If you actually use the other features of your amazon prime membership - be sure to take that in to account when you’re deciding whether or not to cancel.

5) Un-save your credit card details

Un-save your credit card details AND keep your credit card as far away from where you scroll shop as possible.

I saw a sharp increase in my online purchases when I started keeping my credit card in a pocket on the back of my phone.

6) Do a monthly no spend week

As an impulsive shopper, who married an impulsive shopper, I can not stress how helpful no spend weeks have been for our family.

Yes we save money by not spending that week, but the bigger win is how it resets our money mindset for the rest of the month. It becomes a little easier to say no to purchases every time we do it.

7) Minimize & organize

Excessive online shopping often goes hand in hand with clutter. We keep buying even when we don’t know where things are going to go.

We also lose things or forget we have them, and then end up with duplicates.

By minimizing and organizing, we know what we have and don’t buy things we don’t need.

Plus, mindless shopping is less fun when you’re really proud of how much space and calm you’ve created in your home.

Here’s my decluttering method (perfect for indecisive people), how to declutter 80% of your mess in one afternoon, minimalism benefits, what it is, who it helps, and a more in-depth 30 day free challenge on how to become a minimalist.

8) Create a capsule wardrobe

People buy clothes online more than any other category. In fact, 59% of people bought clothes online in 2018

The best way to be intentional about clothes shopping is to create a capsule wardrobe that’s perfectly tailored to you and your lifestyle.

That way you have all of the clothes that you need, and none of the clothes that you don’t.

I have all of the tools you’ll need to put your capsule wardrobe together:

• Step by step capsule wardrobe guide

• Fillable capsule wardrobe list template

• Capsule wardrobe calculator to work out how many clothes you need

9) Unsubscribe from email newsletters

I am a marketing department’s dream.

If you’re selling, I want to buy it.

I even used to love watching infomercials as a kid. I was a weird kid.

If Old Navy slides into my inbox to tell me about a 60% sale, I am there with bells on. There were no ifs and buts about it, so I had to block the messaging off at the source by unsubscribing to shopping emails.

Avoiding sales is a lot easier when I don’t know about them.

10) Unfollow your favourite brands on social media

Same, same with social media - I’m looking at you Instagram! With everything looking so cute and buyable!

Remember that most social media platforms let us hide certain ads too. So if something particularly tempting pops up, see if you can hide it.

11) Shop intentionally

Shopping intentionally feels different to shopping impulsively.

When you shop intentionally, there’s no panic, you know you can afford it, you know you’re going to use / love it, you don’t have to keep it a secret, you’ve done your research, and you’re comfortable with the price.

Enter your email below to get a free intentional shopping checklist. Use it when you shop to ensure it’s always an intentional purchase.

12) Shop local

Where possible, supporting local businesses invests in your community (rather than sending billionaires in to space).

13) Shop secondhand

The many benefits of buying secondhand include:

• Save money

• Reduce waste

• Support circular economy

• Less packaging

• Less self-assembly

• More eco-friendly

You can even buy gifts secondhand! Check out my secondhand gift guide

In this instance, buying secondhand wherever possible is especially helpful because it slows the shopping process down.

If you’re looking for a particular pair of jeans, Poshmark are probably not going to have a huge quantity of them in every colour and size in stock. You may have to wait for the perfect pair to find you.

Oh but when you do …that’s the absolute best shopper high!

14) Build & research a wish list

I love the thrill of a hunt and the buzz of finding a bargain!

I especially enjoy researching different makes and models, scouring reviews and comparing prices until I find the exact item I want.

It turns out that researching is actually free. I can still do that as much as I want!

So now I make a wish list of things that I want. There mere act of writing things down on my list gives me instant gratification.

And then a funny thing often happens …I forget about it.

I remove so many things from my wishlist because I can’t even remember why i wanted them.

All of those notes used to be actual purchases. No wonder I had so much clutter.

15) Prioritize your next few purchases

For the items on my list that I don’t forget about, I always Identify what I want to buy next.

That way, I know that I don’t even have to think about the other things on my list yet.

16) Let go of the sale

One thing that has helped me reduce my online shopping is to let go of my obsession with sales.

I’ve bought so many items on sale that I’ve never worn or used, or that weren’t even that good of a discount.

The sales copy sucked me in and made the purchase seem so urgent at the time though.

So now I’ve learned to become suspicious of sale prices.

Thanks to my well researched wish list of items that I want to buy, I know exactly what a good price range is for each item, and I don’t get pressured to a fake deal.

17) Find an accountability buddy

Try and find someone that you can trust to have open and honest conversations about shopping and spending with.

A lot of our impulse buys are done in secret, so having someone we can be honest with is really important.

18) Create your own shopping rules

Some people thrive with rules, and some people rebel against restriction. If they work for you, here are some ideas for shopping rules for you to consider:

• Only shop on one day of the week

• Wait ‘x’ number of days before buying

• One in, one out / use what you have - only buy replacements, not additions

19) Fun challenges

Fun challenges are similar to having shopping rules, but with rewards :)

You could challenge yourself to buy whatever you want - but you need to save up double the cost first.

Or set yourself another goal with a fun reward at the end.

For instance, we’ve promised ourselves a new TV when we hit our emergency savings goal, and I can honestly say that we’ve never ever been so dedicated to saving! I’m dreaming of that TV that looks like art when it’s switched off, and Sean is dreaming of all sorts of techy specs that I don’t understand.

It’s fun and helps us shop less whilst we work towards this goal.

20) Set yourself a shopping budget

To reiterate, shopping can be absolutely lovely when we can afford it, have done the research and know that we’ll use / love the item for a really long time. To support this, we transfer $15 each a week into a shopping budget.

It’s not much, but it adds up and it’s nice to have a budget to use, guilt free!

Conclusion

I’ve shared the 20 ways how to stop buying stuff online, but it was not a linear journey for me. There was lots of two steps forward, one step back type of progress.

Please be kind and generous to yourself as you explore reducing your online shopping habits.

Check out this post if you’re interested in minimizing your spending and maximizing your savings.

Ema Hidlebaugh http://www.MinimizeMyMess.com Previous Previous

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