Impulse Buying With Credit Cards

Ever been walking through a shopping center, a mall perhaps, and see something that caught your eye? Maybe it was something you knew you wanted for home: that set of stainless steel Chinese chopsticks with the fire-blowing dragon carved on the sides. Or maybe it was that latest salmon colored baby doll top plastered on the front of this month’s Cosmopolitan magazine. Whatever it was, it wasn’t something you needed: it was something you wanted. And what’s more, you didn’t have the money for it. But, you rationalize; you can always charge it now and pay for it later. Right?

Such are the thoughts of a shopper who utilizes their best credit cards for perhaps the worst thing imaginable: impulse shopping. Impulse shoppers do not have control over their shopping and spending habits. They purchase items they don’t need or will not ever use. They put items into their shopping carts without thought or contemplation. They also budget their trips for a certain amount, then spend twice or three-times the amount without reason.

It would be one thing for such unbridled spending to be curtailed by the amount of cash available. However, credit cards allow an impulse shopper to supersede such a limit. Credit cards provide financial loans; they provide the financial means for impulse shopping to continue when no other means are available. Credit cards feed into impulse buying, and perpetuate it.

The companies who provide sub-prime lending and high interest credit cards target people like impulse shoppers. Impulse shoppers don’t always have the best credit since impulse shopping goes hand in hand with credit card abuse. Therefore, these companies and their high interest credit limits are the best credit cards for impulse shopping. The shopper will use them liberally, and the credit card companies benefit from their high interest rate on the revolving balance.

If you are an impulse shopper, and you do use your credit cards to perpetuate your habit, there are a number of things you can do. Making a list of what you spend and where, whenever you shop, will help you to remain conscious of your problem. Also making a list of exactly what you need when you do shop, and sticking to it, will also curtail excess spending. Removing your credit cards from your wallet or purse, even going so far as to cut them up, will force you to stick to the cash on hand. And that, too, can be limited. For more useful tips on impulse shopping with credit cards, research the Internet. There are dozens of useful financial blogs that discuss such issues and present possible solutions to help overcome this problem.

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