UNITED STATES─I am indeed a firm believer that if you work a job, rather it’s part-time or full-time you are entitled to take a portion of your paycheck to treat yourself. Now is this me saying every time you get paid you should be buying yourself something? No, but if you choose to do that after paying all of your bills for the week or the month you are entitled to do that.
With that said, as consumers we have to acknowledge sometimes we just buy things to buy them. I’m guilty of it, as are you! We’ve all heard of that term ‘buyer’s remorse?’ Yes, it is something we encounter more times than I can count. You buy something in the heat of the moment, only to realize it was something you never wanted to begin with. So you have to ask yourself that question? Why did I even buy it in the first place? Was it the instinct to buy because you went shopping and you felt you just had to come back with something otherwise it was a wasted trip? Is it the fact that you just like to spend money or waste money?
There could be a host of reasons for it, but for most Americans I do believe it’s that feeling that we need to buy something even if we don’t actually need it. We attempt to do our best to wrap our minds around the fact that we HAD to purchase something when in reality we never needed the item to begin with. What does this result in? It results in us having to make another trip to a retailer to return an item that should have never been purchased in the first place. That means a waste of gas, a waste of time and frustration not understanding why you keep doing something that perhaps you should not be doing.
Look, the best answer I can give you is the fact that as Americans we are inclined to always want things. Even if we tell ourselves otherwise, by nature we are inclined to want. Now let’s be clear a WANT and a NEED is not the same thing. They are different. A ‘need’ is something you must have to survive, whereas a ‘want’ is simply something you desire. We confuse the two quite often, so much to the point we don’t’ realize the difference until we are forced to actually address it or see it.
Look, if you’re someone who loves to shop, that’s fine and dandy, but place a budget on what you spend. There are too many Americans who don’t do this or refuse to do it. As a result it takes a hit on their wallet and finances at times. The biggest hiccup in buying to just buy is you run into that troupe of buyer’s remorse where you’re constantly returning something that you never wanted to begin with. That is time and money that can be better spent elsewhere; think about it people.
Written By Zoe Mitchell
