There are many ticks that marketers use to help you part with your hard earned money. One of the tricks that they play is to get you to think and act on emotion rather than logic. Emotion is an enemy to the savvy investor and it should be the enemy to the student working on becoming frugal. There is one rule that I have with my wife; before I make an impulse buy I use the 24 hour rule. If after 24 hours I still feel like I need what I wanted, then I usually get it. This will protect you from most impulse buys.
Sales people will often market to you even when you are not aware of it. This is the case in product placement and stealth marketing. Product placement is when marketers put a product in a movie. There are some countries that do not allow this type of marketing in domestically produced films mainly the UK and Canada.
An example of stealth marketing is a couple approaches you on the street and asks you to take a picture of them. You agree, as he hands you the camera he tells you that it is a new camera and asks you what you think about it. The hope of stealth marketing is that your awareness level of the product will increase and therefore the probability of you purchasing the product will also increase as well.
If we can learn the tricks that marketers play you will be much better equipped to avoid impulse buying!
Avoid Impulse Buying
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That 24 hour rule is good, but maybe some of us need the 72 hour kickout rule. Leaving the credit cards home and rarely using them works very well NOW for me. I am not spending what little cash in my pocket for an emotional purchase.
The concept works but it runs counter to my younger years when I cashed the paycheck and put it all in my pocket. Often it got spent before the next payday, and then I started depositing it and writing checks. That was just fine until credit cards came from everywhere. However, I have been paying myself first for a very long time (10% to 12%), and I think that this may be a time for me to pay myself a lot more (20%).