Optimizing Your Impulse Purchasing Protocol: Why I’m Worth 100 Square Feet of Blanket and So Are You
When was the last time you updated your Impulse Purchasing Protocol (IPP)? If your answer is “What in the world are you talking about, Jesse?”, I have two things to say to you:
#1. Answering a question with a question is the coward’s way out.
#2. You’re in for a treat because I’ve discovered the best way to tame your urge for impulse buys without denying your God-given right to succumb to algorithmically tailored online purchase suggestions!
Prior to my discovery, my IPP looked like this:
I realized I needed to update my protocol when I had to cram my weighted vest between my Nerf Rival Prometheus and my gem mint 10 Cuisinart 14 cup food processor in the basement closet.
Most people fall into one of two categories when it comes to dealing with the ever-present temptations churned out by retailers and the internet:
#1. I shall not waver, not one inch. These folks try to put iron-clad rules in place and insist that all purchases need to be planned and budgeted for in advance. The problem here is that eventually your willpower cracks and then the floodgates can burst open. If this is your go-to approach/strategy, you probably feel major guilt or shame after making an unplanned purchase. Or you use the infrequency with which you make impulse buys to justify an occasional budget-busting large expense.
#2. On a first name basis with the Amazon delivery person. As long as we aren’t talking about outrageous dollar totals, people in this group pull the trigger. In addition to the serious pressure this can put on your financial health, diminishing marginal utility kicks in and you get less and less enjoyment out of each purchase.
The core weakness with both approaches is their rigidity. “I will never make an impulse purchase” is inflexible and unrealistic. “Unless something costs a ton, it isn’t going to make or break us” is shallow and unsustainable. For any system to be successful over the long-term, it needs to be flexible enough to withstand the whiplash caused by human mood swings.
After several months of tinkering, I believe I’ve found such a system and I’m eager to share it with you! My Impulse Purchasing Protocol (IPP) is made up of 3 simple steps:
Step #1. Create an album on your smartphone called “Spendy Spendingpants” (other acceptable titles include “Stuff 2 Buy” and “Treat Yo’ Self”).
Step #2. Anytime something catches your eye, take a picture or screenshot and add it to the album.
Step #3. Once a picture is 48 hours old, decide whether or not you will buy it. For larger purchases, extend the review period to one week.
This IPP works because it eliminates the purely impulsive purchases but it doesn’t feel like you are depriving or punishing yourself. If you truly want something, it won’t disappear from your phone and you will still want it two days later. By stress-testing your desire for each item, you will dramatically reduce the number of times you suffer buyer’s remorse within a few weeks. It doesn’t eliminate impulse buys altogether but it caps the downside.
If you’re not sold and need hard data to back up my claims or if you are having a hard time visualizing what this looks like, here are a few descriptive statistics and highlights from my current list:
Total # of items: 39
Oldest photo: 9/20/20
Average photo age: 300 days
Price range: $18.95 - $2,245
Jack Black Protein Booster Eye Rescue:
I’ve looked younger than my age for as long as I can remember. It drove me crazy for my teens and twenties and I longed for the days when I could walk down the halls of a high school and not be sternly encouraged to get to class. Well, the late thirties came in like a lion and while the rest of my face still says “Papa, can you show me how your shave foam works?”, my eyes scream “Just one more triple espresso and I’ll call it a night.” A man can only take so many “You look tired, are you OK?”s until he takes matters into his own hands and pays top dollar for snail mucus lotion.
BACtrack S80 Professional Breathalyzer:
My wife and I love to host cocktail parties and I feel like this would kill two birds with one stone by offering an UBER-responsible check on who needs to call for a ride home (pun intended) while simultaneously authoritatively settling the occasional “who is the drunkest” debates.
Baron Fig Squire:
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this was crowned #1 on The Strategist’s Top 100 pens list. You can’t turn on the TV or listen to a podcast these days without stumbling upon a heated debate between the Pro-Squire crew and the Aurora Ipsilon mafia. I’m a sucker for ranked lists, especially long ones, most especially long ones that use 5 or more criteria and numerous data sources to compile their rankings. In addition to Amazon ratings and pen shop proprietors, The Strategist consulted multiple pen bloggers (AKA “Conversational Kryptonites”). I haven’t bought this yet because “Baron Fig Squire” is the nerdiest 3 word combination I’ve ever written and I’m not yet secure enough in who I am to say it out loud.
State and Liberty Athletic Fit Performance Fabric Menswear:
Are you allowed to own “athletic fit” menswear if your crowning athletic accomplishment is a surprise 1st place finish in the 4th heat of the 100 meter dash at your 6th grade track meet? I want to try these on before buying but I fear the salespeople will immediately see my “one time coach made me…” stories as the complete fabrications that they are. Also, I’ve never once struck such an athletic stance as the model in this photo.
Trubrian or Thesis Nootropics:
I defy you to watch the scene from Limitless when the pill kicks in and not spend the next 30 minutes fantasizing about what life would look like with 50 extra IQ points and Sherlock Holmesian perception. Throw in slick packaging and tried and true marketing glittering generalities and I’m putty in their hands. Prior to implementation of my IPP, these would have been an instant buy but now I’m standing firm (for the moment) at 21 days and counting.
Big Blanket Company 10’ x 10’ Original Stretch Blanket:
Like any well-adjusted adult, I recently spent 30 minutes gathering all of our family’s blankets into a pile and ranking them from most to least desirable, thereby ensuring optimal comfort and temperature regulation while reading or watching football. This experiment taught me many things, but the most transformative discovery was a linear relationship between blanket square footage and blanket associated delight: bigger is strictly better! Take that finding to its logical conclusion and your boy is in the market for the largest cozy-cover money can buy. Upon reflection, there are precisely zero good reasons why I shouldn’t have this on my lap right now so if you will please hold for a moment…
and an Original Stretch Blanket in Limited Edition Bay Blue is now officially en route to my house! How lucky are you to witness my IPP in action?!?
Unless something in my DNA changes overnight, I won’t regret trading a few bucks for a blanket that I can comfortably snuggle the cast of Avengers: Endgame under. I’m confident in this conclusion because I decided to pull the trigger after letting the blanket marinate in my Spendy Spendingpants album. If the appeal of a comically oversized fleece covering no longer spoke to my soul two days later (God forbid), it was fully in my power to delete the screenshot. But the subtle virtue of the IPP is its recognition that sometimes coming up with a reason not to buy something in the moment is impossible. So it arbitrarily creates a certain level of resistance, no matter what.
There are impulse buys that you will wish you had made years earlier. But there are also some that are lurking in the shadows, eager to separate you from your hard earned dough only to promptly gather dust in your basement. Implementing this IPP will make sure the former outnumbers the latter many times over.