The Pause Habit
By Melissa Tosetti
A friend tells me about a book and before she finishes the description, I’ve already whipped out my phone and bought it. When it arrives, it goes on the pile of unread books that I’ve acquired in the same manner.
This is a common scenario clients have used to describe their spending. The ease 1-Click technology has given us along with how very busy we are primes us for a habit of making a purchase without really thinking through whether or not we really want or need that item.
One of the benefits of the pandemic (if you can say that) is that for a few months, as we were using the time to declutter our homes, there was nowhere to take the clutter. We were swimming in a soup of our “stuff”. Because we had to live with that clutter longer than we normally would have, it gave us an opportunity to think about why those items may have only been briefly desired.
Moving forward, you can take that information and apply it toward future purchases, but the only way to do that is to pause first.
Create a habit of pausing for a moment before buying with 1-Click or tossing an item into your cart that wasn’t on your list.
That pause will give you a chance to ask yourself three gatekeeper questions. Those questions are:
Do I really need this?
Am I madly in love with it?
The questions above are straightforward and easy to answer. But, there’s a third question that involves a level of creativity that can take some training.
3. Do I already have a version of the item or can I use something else instead?
We’re so used to just - buying. It doesn’t dawn on us to check the cupboard or closet to see if we already have that item or if there’s something else we can use in its place. In other words, most of us don’t have a habit around using what we already own. Now is the time to create and strengthen that habit.
This pause habit can also be applied to your time. Taking a moment to think about whether you really want to accept that invitation or volunteer for that project will go a long, long way toward increasing your quality of life.
If there’s one thing the pandemic taught us, it’s how much of our lives were previously on auto pilot. As we move into a new normal, we have an opportunity to be far more purposeful with how we spend our time and how we spend our money simply by taking a moment to pause.
Melissa Tosetti is a cash flow planning expert, founder of The Savvy Life and author of the international bestseller Living The Savvy Life.
For the past eight years, she’s worked with over 625 individuals and families to create Spending Plans.
To learn about the Spending Plan process, visit The Savvy Life’s Home Page. If you’d like to learn about how The Savvy Life works with financial advisors and their clients visit: The Savvy Life Advisor’s Page.
