Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
Our brains love to shop.
Shopping lights up the pleasure centers of our brain, especially when we snag a great bargain. Retailers know that, which is why they keep the sales coming after the holidays.
If you’re tapped out, though, it may be time to rein in your brain despite the temptations of after-holiday clearances and white sales. Here’s how to do that.
Give yourself a budget
Quitting cold turkey might be tough, particularly if you traditionally shop the post-holiday sales for wrapping paper, decorations and gifts for other occasions. If you can afford to do so, set aside some cash or set a dollar limit to take advantage of a sale or two. Once the money’s gone, shopping stops.
Try a no-spend week — or four
A no-spend pledge means you don’t buy any nonessentials for a certain period. How you define essentials is up to you, but most people include perishable groceries, gas to get to work and diapers for the baby. Otherwise, you use what you’ve already bought, such as supplies in the pantry rather than dining out and movies on Netflix rather than the multiplex. You avoid trips to the mall and any unnecessary spending. Our brains have a “status quo bias,” which means we hate making the effort to change. Your goal is to shift the status quo from buying to not buying.
Clear out the clutter
As you send stuff off to the charity store or the landfill, reflect on the money spent to buy these no-longer-wanted items. When you’re tempted to bring a new whatever into your home, ask yourself: “Do I really need this?” “Do I need it right now?” “How often will I use it?” “Is there something I already have that would suit the purpose?” If you’re still lusting, figure out how much something costs in terms of how many hours you have to work to pay for it. That can cool your ardor when nothing else works.
Remove the digital temptations
Unsubscribe from retailers’ alerts and newsletters. Remove deal sites from your bookmarks. Consider blocking certain sites if you can’t stay away. Scientists tell us that self-control may be a limited resource, so removing temptations is often a better course than trying to resist them.
Use a wish list
Some people find that just the act of recording a desired purchase feels almost as good as actually acquiring it. Even when that’s not true, writing down what you want and then giving yourself at least a three-day “cooling off” period will help you figure out if the purchase is worthwhile or just a passing fancy.
Share