One of the biggest problems that plagues me (and many others as well) is impulse buying. For example, you walk into your local Best Buy with a few of your friends, with no intentions of buying anything. The next thing you know, you leave with a new 32″ LCD TV (or some other random, expensive electronic gadget that you don’t really need). This happens to the best of us and it can sneak up on you before you know what hit you…
Case in point: yesterday, Keith came down to hang out for a while. About a month ago, he brought over his new Nintendo Wii. “Wii” had a lot of fun playing on the system and at the end of the day, I was considering purchasing one myself. I eventually ruled it out for a few reasons.
First, I am not much of a gamer these days. I was highly addicted to console games when I was younger, but (at least for me) that was just a “phase” that I went through. Second, the game lineup from Nintendo was (and still is) seriously lacking in my book. I love to play racing sims and a few sports titles (college football to be exact); neither of which Nintendo has. And finally, thats an extra $250.00+ that I still have. End of story…
Until yesterday. Despite all of this (and a lot of persuasion from Keith), we set out to Wal-Mart in search of a Wii. The store here in Oxford was sold out. Oh well, I felt just fine about that, because again, I just saved myself a lot of money. But the minute Keith suggested we try a different Wal-Mart store in the next town over, I was all for it. As it turns out, that location was sold out as well.
So what did I learn at the end of the day? Nothing I didn’t already know. I make horrible decisions when it comes to impulse buys. 9 times out of 10 I “go for it”; and that is not good. I set a goal for myself at the beginning of this month to keep a close watch on my finances over the entire month and not to spend any money that wasn’t necessary. I almost blew my plan yesterday, but it has taught me something (and hopefully you too): Stick true to your goals, it will pay off in the end… and continue the fight against these evil temptations to buy buy buy!
