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With the celebration of the festive season comes the shopping spree. But once you get into the loop, you can easily cross your budget. If this happens to you too, then you’re at the right place. In this blog, you will learn how to shop mindfully and within your budget this festive season.

The festive time is knocking at your doors. Christmas is just a few weeks away. The change in the weather from humid to cozy will enhance the festival vibes even more. But, what is a celebration without shopping?

Well, deep within, you are filled with the joy and enthusiasm of the celebrations. You are planning to make the most of the festive time. However, this extreme excitement of the festivals can sometimes lead to impulsive shopping. You may end up buying things you don’t actually need.

Even if you visit the shopping mall with a list of things to buy, the fancy decorations of the place along with your inner enthusiasm can sometimes screw up your budget. By the time you realize it, your pocket is already empty.

To prevent you from making such rash decisions and unwanted purchases, here I am to help you. In this blog, you will learn some effective tips to shop mindfully. As a consumer, you may always want to have more but sometimes, minimalism is the key to a fulfilled life.

15 Tips to Shop Mindfully This Festive Season and Save More

Almost three out of four Americans engage in impulse buying. This section of people doesn’t even have a plan for shopping. Crazy, right?

Shopping can be a solution for many. But how many of you shop mindfully?

Most of you shop to enjoy a sense of gratification. But do you need everything you shop for?

Your intense urge to shop increases manifold during the festive season. You get so engrossed in the enjoyment of festivities that you fail to make conscious and intentional shopping choices.

What is Mindful Shopping?

To understand ‘mindful shopping’, first, you have to learn the proper meaning of ‘mindfulness.’

You engage in a mindful activity when you are completely present in the moment and fully aware of what you are doing. Your sole attention is on the task or activity you are performing.

Similarly, mindful shopping is when you are aware of what you are buying. It extensively avoids spending on unnecessary stuff, impulsive purchases, and buying out of guilt.

So, shopping mindfully looks somewhat like this:

You buy only things you need and say ‘No’ to fancy items.
Buying one good quality product over a hundred cheaper options.
Understanding the impact of a product and then buying it.

15 Effective Ways to Shop Mindfully in this Festive Time

If your credit card is your go-to item or you can’t recall your bank statement often, then shopping may have become a bad habit for you. Even though it is the festive time, shopping mindfully can contribute to positive and emotional well-being.

Here are 15 ways you can learn to shop mindfully in this festive season:

1. Fix a budget

Going shopping without fixing a budget will surely lead to impulsive buying. When you don’t know how much to spend, you keep on buying things randomly. Ultimately, the billing amount comes as a shocker.

During the festive time, you are sure to bump into several fancy items during your shopping time. The whole decoration and grandeur of the markets and malls can entice you to buy unwanted things.

This is where fixing a budget comes to aid. Once you know about a fixed budget, you have clarity about the money you can spend. You know when to stop.

2. Prepare a shopping list

Many people go shopping without having a prepared list of things they want to buy. Think of doing this during the festive season.

Almost all brands are running fancy discounts and deals in the festive seasons. Considering how you love the words ‘deals’ or ‘discounts’, you will be forced to grab them. So, even though you plan to buy 4-5 items, you end up buying more.

Not only does this waste your money, but also your time. Here, understand that no brand is giving you discounts or deals without their profits.

Thus, these catchy words or phrases are meant to attract you, it is your presence of mind to not fall prey to these marketing gimmicks and stick to your shopping list.

3. Research before buying

How many of you conduct research before buying any product? Let’s be honest. Most of you don’t. This is where the problem lies. Lack of research leads you to make wrong purchases.

Since it is the festive time, many of you may have plans to buy something valuable and useful – say, home appliances, or vehicles. All of these products are costly. You certainly don’t want to regret your decision later.

In that case, research the products thoroughly before going to the store or even buying them online. Make sure you learn about its features, benefits, and utility.

4. Shop early

Most wrong purchases are made on last-minute shopping. You don’t have much time to look into the options.

So, you start picking randomly, sometimes without even looking at the price tag, because you are in dire need of the product. Besides, shopping last minute during the festive season means you have already lost out on a lot of products.

To save yourself from this, start as early as possible. The festive season is full of discounts, deals and sales. Shopping earlier can help you avail of all of them. Besides, you get to choose products from a wide variety.

Further, starting to shop early gives you enough time to compare the prices of different products and make a thoughtful choice.

5. Let go of FOMO

In the world of digitalization and social media, the fear of missing out is real. Every year during the festive season, you will have a new fashion trend.

This leads you to fear missing out on bigger and better things.

In a study on consumer habits, it was found that people’s feeling of jealousy can trigger their desire to purchase. So, even if a particular product does no good to you, you buy it only to not feel left out.

To stay away from such emotional purchases, restrict your social media use during the festive season. Also, before buying, ask yourself whether you actually need that particular product.

6. Replace online payments with cash

Over the years, using cards or online payments for shopping has made it easy to shop on the go. But like every other aspect, it has disadvantages too.

When you shop online or use your card, you don’t deal with the money at hand. As a result, you don’t realize how much you are actually spending and if you are saving anything at all. This is where most of you end up buying impulsively.

So, the next time you go shopping during the festive season, take enough cash with you and pay in cash. It’ll give you a sense of financial responsibility immediately.

7. Think before you buy

Brand marketers and copywriters do great teamwork to use the right words and place them in the perfect location to trick you and increase your sales. Of course, they are doing their job right, but you, as a consumer, need to rethink.

Every festive sale you come across has a deadline. This creates a sense of urgency and you feel like buying immediately. This results in impulsive purchases.

So, the next time you get tempted by any sale or haul, come out of the store and ask yourself – “Do I really need this?” Reflect on your financial priorities and you’ll soon see the urge subsiding down.

8. Get out of the retail therapy

Often, when you feel gloomy or depressed, you might have a habit of going shopping. You may think buying new and quirky things will change your mood.

This might make you addicted to shopping. Buying fancy items may gratify you for the time being. But after a while, your sorrow may loom large.

Here, substituting real therapy for retail therapy won’t help. Instead, reach out to a professional mental health coach and see if any underlying emotional factors are driving you to make such rash decisions.

9. Analyze the true value of the product

To shop mindfully also means understanding and evaluating the true value of a product. Since the value of a product is subjective, it will not be the same for all.

For example, my friend got a luxurious Gucci bag because she has to attend a high-profile fashion event soon. I’ll not invest in such a costly bag right now because I don’t have any fashion show to attend.

So, never let others’ purchases influence your shopping decisions. Instead, understand whether you genuinely need the product or not. Ask yourself how you’ll utilize the product.

10. Let the sense of euphoria settle down

When you go shopping, you tend to touch products, look at them keenly, and smell them. All these pleasurable activities are sure to trigger a euphoric feeling in you. As a result, you feel an intense urge to buy them. This compulsion sometimes gets so strong that you fail to consider your budget.

The only trick that works here for shopping mindfully is to never get swayed by such emotional turbulence. These are just bodily sensations that push you to make the wrong decisions. If needed, leave the shopping mall for 5 minutes and rethink.

11. Invest in sustainable products

When you shop mindfully, it means you pay attention to the kind of impact your purchases make on the environment. As a responsible citizen and consumer, always purchase sustainable and organic products that you can recycle and reuse. This reduces waste and leaves a positive impact on the environment.

12. Learn to share

Living in a society, you must have made friends in your neighborhood. How about sharing and using things?

When you start sharing with your community people, you prevent your house from being overcrowded with commodities. Besides, this saves you from buying things impulsively.

This type of mindful shopping saves your pockets as well. Moreover, the act of sharing builds a sense of belonging and oneness among each other.

13. Give and be valuable

Since it is the festive time, there is joy in giving as well. Did you think of donating products to some charities?

Along with being a noble task, it is a great way of giving back to the community and helping those in need.

During the festive season, everyone has the right to enjoy and be happy. So, why don’t you be the giver of happiness to some lives? Be compassionate to the people around you. There will never be enough kindness in this world to make it a better place for all of us.

shop mindfully by giving more

14. Pay attention to product quality

Do you believe in shopping for more items or buying good quality items? Well, if you aren’t mindful of your shopping habits, you’ll definitely opt for the first option. However, this leads to a waste of both money and time.

On the contrary, if you want to shop mindfully, the key is to invest in good quality products, even if that means buying just one. A good quality product will definitely last longer than a product of poor or average quality.

15. Support local and small businesses

One of the parameters of practicing mindful shopping is to support local and small businesses. Just because your friends are buying from a branded store, doesn’t mean you have to follow them. Here again, let go of your FOMO.

If you can get the same product from a local brand, always go for the latter. This is how you support local businesses and help them grow while saving your money.

Significance of Shopping Mindfully

By now, you already know how you can shop mindfully. Impulsive purchases can gratify you for the time being. But in the long run, they are not a great choice for healthy living.

Shopping mindfully can:

Help you save time
Help you save money
Reduce mental stress
Improve overall well-being
Develop ethical shopping habits
Make you think of the environment
Keep you away from financial stress
Induce in you a sense of buying good quality items
Reduce the accumulation of unwanted items at your place
Encourage habits of self-control, self-awareness, and self-discipline

Conclusion

Shopping randomly and without any plan during the festive time can put you in awkward situations. The only way to avoid such situations is to shop mindfully.

However, shopping mindfully during the festive season doesn’t mean depriving yourself. It’s more about making conscious and positive choices that do not make you regret later or get into financial stress.

Following all the 15 points mentioned above can help you shop mindfully. Again, it is all about your mindset. If you aren’t determined to bring some positive changes in your shopping habits, none can help you.

I hope this blog will help you make positive buying decisions. Enjoy your festive time.

Till then, good vibes only.