1. Don\’t Carry Money
The easiest way to avoid shopping is to not have the means to shop. While this is probably the easiest way to avoid shopping, its feasibility is already a bit complicated. If you need to carry at least some money with you, make sure you only carry the bare minimum you think you really need.
2. Forget credit cards
Credit cards are a wonderful invention that save us from heavy wallets. However, for shopaholics, it is not an ideal way to avoid shopping. Whereas with actual bills we can spend with some awareness that it is our change, digital money is spent without blinking. And then 30 crowns here, 12 crowns there, 100 on top of 100, and you are in debt.
If you must carry a card with you, at least set a daily limit and don\’t exceed it.
3. Avoid stores
This point is almost unworkable today with stores on every street corner, but if you have a choice, avoid them. For example, if one were to walk through a shopping mall every day, browsing through all the useful and cool products one can see from the windows, this would not be an ideal way to avoid shopping. Instead, bypass the mall, or if that option is not available, at least look straight ahead and don\’t look sideways anywhere.
4. Make a list
Before shopping, sit down and write down what you really need and really want to buy. In the store, follow the list and go directly to the items on the list, without looking to the right or left.
5. Establish a rationing system
It may sound silly, but it\’s true. Plan how much you can spend on a weekly or monthly basis. If one day you spend everything you had planned for that month, don\’t despair. Yes, that is not a good thing, but it has happened before. Also, if you have a budget and you have met it, then you have to accept that the month is out.
