Conscious shopping – Tips to avoid unnecessary consumption
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Do you know what benefits you will get by doing this? conscious shopping? There are many benefits to making our purchases with proper and objective planning.
This is because, in addition to saving us money, it will save us from buying useless things that will end up cluttered up at home.
Furthermore, adopting conscious habits when shopping will result in benefits for the environment and will contribute positively to people's lives.
What is a conscious consumer?
In the first place, a conscious consumer takes his steps thinking that everything he does can positively or negatively impact the environment in which he lives.
Amidst the many problems that people experience psychologically and emotionally, shopping has even become a dangerous therapy, let's face it.
This type of behavior, encouraged by many, in addition to not solving the problem in question, ends up generating another equally serious problem, which is waste and the accumulation of useless things at home.
And consequently, useless purchases will be discarded in the middle of the damage.
Conscious shopping: see how to do it
Tips to avoid unnecessary and irresponsible consumption:
1. Desire is not need
The first important step is not to listen to our desires, they are beyond our needs and it is not always possible to meet them, it may just be an impulse of time that passes quickly.
In turn, desires arise from external interference: you saw someone buying it in an ad, a commercial on the internet or a friend who thinks you have to have it.
But, besides the fact that you don't need it, it will only bring you financial losses and prevent you from acquiring things that you really need.
Therefore, be very careful with cultural habits of unnecessary purchases, be aware of your standard of living and do not spend more than you earn.
2. Planning before purchasing
Here, developing a plan is usually one of the most efficient actions against waste, and contributes to making conscious purchases.
Do some research into what is really necessary and punctual, write down how much purchases will influence other expenses, you may discover that some things can wait a little longer.
3. Prioritize quality products
One of the mistakes made when shopping is thinking that buying cheaper, lower quality products is a way to save money.
However, this is an illusion, cheaper and lower quality products end up deteriorating faster, in addition to making the person need to buy that product in a short time.
Therefore, look for information about the quality of the products, the certificates, origin, the store's reputation, and public reviews, so that your purchase is of quality.
4. Develop a specific budget
For your conscious purchases, divide your earnings between categories, always considering the importance of each one.
For example, allocate a value to fixed expenses such as house rent, water, electricity, energy, supermarket and internet.
Then analyze the variable expenses such as car maintenance, medicines, clothes and shoes, in short, these are types of expenses that do not occur regularly.
And finally the superfluous expenses, are expenses that do not require urgency and that can be left for a time when your financial situation is better.
So, when making your purchases, consider these three situations, remembering that this is just an example so that you can compare it to your real situation.
5. Pay attention to installments
Installments are one of the biggest enemies of conscious purchases, This happens due to a lack of criteria when deciding to make purchases in installments.
Therefore, there are many cases in which people are induced by sellers with endless installments that even seem advantageous.
But it ends up being a trap. An interesting tip is that when you make your purchases, only pay for larger purchases in installments, as it is not possible to have the full amount of money for the purchase.
Also, only opt for installment payments if there is no discount for paying in cash or the installment payment does not include interest.
6. Save to have power
How does saving contribute to conscious consumption?
There is a risk of falling into temptation when we receive our salary and have a little bit left over; a raise, benefit or something like that.
At this point, instead of thinking about saving, the first thought is to spend the extra money on something.
Therefore, creating a habit of saving or investing will give you a much more advantageous and conscious use of your money.
Furthermore, you will think twice about using your invested or saved money to make a superfluous purchase.
Saving your money will help you to reflect better on unnecessary consumerism, as well as develop an awareness of long-term thinking.
7. Give value to legal companies
Finally, it is important to highlight that a conscious purchase must be carried out in legal institutions and companies that are up to date with their responsibilities.
It may be tempting to buy products from illegal, illegal stores that end up cheating the system to obtain profits and advantages.
Not to mention that you will be contributing to an illegal system, thus helping to harm companies that work correctly.
But, another issue that must be considered is that making a purchase from an illegal company will cause you irreparable financial losses.
If a person decides to buy a product of illegal origin and it presents a problem, the right to repair, exchange of the product or refund will not be guaranteed by law, as the company does not work within the legal procedures.
Therefore, be aware that the saying that cheap is expensive is very true and will bring you problems with the law.
Conclusion
To the conscious purchases, bring many lessons and benefits not only for those who decide to do it this way, but for future generations and the environment.
We don't need to become hoarders of things that we buy just because of impulse, cultural context or someone's influence.
The challenge is to think and act outside the box. Not being like everyone else is challenging, but it brings priceless rewards. Be aware!
