What’s Driving Your Impulse Spending?

Let’s face it. When it comes to spending, 99% of us are making choices that involve tradeoffs. More money spent today means less to save for the future. And even if we just consider the tradeoffs in our current lifestyle, more money spent in one category of our budget means less that’s available for another.

In one of the earliest Sustain Financial blog posts, I talk about using a question to help us evaluate these tradeoffs: In this more important than…? But in this post, I want to explore another tool or strategy to help you on the path to making more consistently aligned spending decisions: taking the time to think about what the underlying feeling is that’s driving your impulse to spend.

To make any of these strategies really work, the first thing to recognize is just how much of our spending is a choice. That’s not a criticism of unnecessary spending. I, too, enjoy spending money on things that are wants rather than needs. But many of the “essential” items on our lists: expensive groceries rather than budget-conscious groceries, cable and streaming services, new clothes, new phones, etc. are not exactly the necessities we sometimes make them out to be. That doesn’t mean it is easy or comfortable to get rid of them. But if we really are honest about what our families need to survive, it’s basic foods that can be prepared with inexpensive staples, a roof over our heads, clothes on our bodies (old clothes will do) and not a whole lot more. So, everything else is really a choice we’re making about what to spend money on.

And while it helps to weigh that choice in terms of whether it’s more important than another option or choice, sometimes if there’s a really pressing feeling under that impulse to spend, just asking the “is this more important than…?” question may not be enough to override that impulse.

This may seem overly simplistic, but I think a few concrete examples may be a good way to illustrate how there is often a lot more to this question than what meets the eye.

So, a great series of follow up questions are… 

“What’s the underlying need
that’s driving this decision?

Will this spending even actually
meet that need?

Is there another way to meet it
that won’t blow my budget?”

The examples I’m going to explore here are:

1) The need to buy a new item for your home

(decoration, piece of furniture, storage containers, lawn chairs etc.)

2) Unplanned eating out

In my work with people around budgeting I find these two categories are really common places where people don’t plan for a lot of spending and often end up consistently over-budget. Which means that they are likely a place that a lot of unplanned, impulsive spending happens.

Let’s start with that new item for the home.

These purchases can seem like innocuously small things, often bought with no real forethought, but whose accumulation over time really adds up. The thought that goes into purchasing them is often something like, Wouldn’t that look nice or be nice to have in the house or yard, and it’s only $30. But then it’s $30 here and $20 there, and pretty soon it’s several hundred dollars in a month that you hadn’t planned on spending.

So, what would it look like to dig into what’s behind that spending desire. Really common underlying forces in this type of decision are a feeling that this item can fix or make you feel better about something you’re not fully satisfied with in your living environment or your life. Boredom with your current home environment, clutter, or jobs that need to be done around the house that you don’t really want to do, are all common reasons we seek to add something to our living environment. No matter what it is, it’s really important that you clearly identify the current problem with your home or your life that you think this purchase will fix. If I’m tempted to buy new plants or outdoor furniture, but when I really think about it, my yard has a ton of weeds in it. The plants and the furniture are a distraction. I should probably head home from Target (or get off Amazon) and start pulling some weeds.

If the current problem is a lack of seating, and you’ve landed on a $500 chair that you really can’t afford right now, then the next question would be, is there a way to fix the problem with a less expensive solution? But it’s highly probable that the need you’re trying to fill may not actually be quite so directly linked. For example, you may be feeling bored with your home. It might be that your house doesn’t look how you want it to – and rather than cleaning it, or sorting, organizing and donating items you don’t need any more to reduce the clutter that’s actually underlying your dissatisfaction, it’s easier to just simply buy an item that will add a little novelty for a little while until it, too, eventually becomes something you are bored with and/or adds to the clutter.

It may be that you’re missing backyard parties with friends or camping with family, so buying a new cooler or lawn chairs might make you feel excited about that being a part of your life again. It’s not that the cause will be the same for everyone, but rather, that it’s extremely important to identify the cause to evaluate whether the purchase you’re about to make will alleviate your underlying feeling of boredom, dissatisfaction, etc. for more than a few hours or a couple of days. And it will give you an opportunity to think about what will alleviate that feeling if this impulse purchase will not. Is there something you can clean, re-arrange, organize, donate, etc., or can you start planning the next camping trip or backyard barbecue? All of those are much more likely to create a more lasting impact on that underlying feeling than buying that item will.

Eating out, particularly unplanned eating out, is a trickier example, since it’s typically linked to hunger, and food is a basic human need

But like the $500 chair, it is a good example of where there are opportunities to assess whether the trip to McDonald’s, the café next to your work, or the local taco truck are really the only ways to address your underlying need.

The “underlying need” question is not really whether food is a way to satisfy your hunger – of course it is. But rather, it’s whether eating out is really the only way to meet the need and to assess the other underlying feelings that are leading you to convince yourself that it is. Just like in the first example, though, these are often decisions made at the last minute and impulsively.

And they are also ways that $30 here and $20 there can end up adding up to hundreds of unplanned and unbudgeted spending at the end of the month. In the moment, they never feel like that much, but they add up quickly.

For example, if I’m driving home from a long day at work and I’m hungry, and I don’t have a plan for dinner, or I have a plan for dinner that’s labor intensive or doesn’t really sound very appetizing, going out or picking up takeout may seem like an irresistible decision in the moment. It might even feel like a need. And your hunger will, in fact be satisfied by this purchase. But the importance of identifying the other feelings at play here, whether they be boredom, convenience, etc. is that you won’t be able to see another option to satisfying your hunger if you can’t first identify what’s driving the desire to eat out when you hadn’t planned to.

If you’re simply feeling too busy, hungry, tired, or overwhelmed to actually prepare food, the solution can be as easy as stopping by the grocery store for a less expensive, low-effort option – like a can of soup, or making sure to keep a snack handy that will satisfy your hunger long enough to give you the energy to make dinner when you get home.

But, if you’re feeling bored with the food options you have at home, it may be time to put some effort into re-thinking whether the meals you’re planning have become too routine, and to introduce some new recipes into the mix. And in the meantime, since that’s more of a long-term solution, is there something you already have that you could do tonight to change it up that won’t involve the expense of eating out, like making breakfast for dinner?

If a lack of time in the morning has you running out the door before you pack a lunch, you could prepare a lunch the night before. But if it’s really that you’re bored with the sandwiches you keep pulling out of your lunch box, that won’t fix the compulsion to eat out instead of eating your sandwich. So maybe it’s time to think about adding something new to the lunch menu.

No matter the driving force behind all this unplanned eating out, the importance in identifying what’s driving it can’t be understated. Because if what’s really causing you to eat out is boredom with your current food options, but you misidentify it as being too tired to prepare food, then any of the alternative options you explore that will cost you less likely won’t be appealing to you because they’re not addressing the underlying issue that you’re just kind of bored with the food you’re preparing at home. A good way to recognize that you haven’t quite hit the mark on identifying the underlying driver behind your impulsive spending is that none of the alternative sound appealing or satisfying.

Looking for alternative ways to meet what underlies impulsive spending is not always easy, and it’s not always comfortable.

In fact, at times, you can be led down a path of realizing that you might be rather bored or generally dissatisfied with life, and that your impulsive spending may be your way of trying to avoid or distract you from that feeling. After all, it does provide momentary relief. But at what cost? It’s temporary (sometimes so temporary that only minutes later, you find yourself looking for another way to alleviate that discomfort), and it’s harming your ability to care for yourself financially.

So, if your path to uncovering what’s behind your unplanned and impulsive spending is deeper than just meeting a more superficial level of dissatisfaction with your menu or your home or the cold weather, it might be worth it to seek help from a qualified therapist to work through some of these bigger feelings of dissatisfaction that your overspending might be trying to alleviate for you. And the sooner the better, because overspending, particularly if it involves accumulating debt, is a problem that will only get worse the longer you put off dealing with it.

Ultimately, it’s not about whether or not it’s okay to spend money on things that are not necessary. 

If you can afford it, of course it is. But unplanned, impulsive spending that wreaks havoc on your overall financial health or actively works against your ability to prioritize saving for the things you really value is an extremely important thing to address. And in order to address it, digging down into the underlying motivation behind it can be a critical step in the process.