Surviving the sales

The EOFY sales may have past but the temptation to sales shop is always there.

I love treating myself, especially at the end of a hard semester but sometimes when you have a savings goal in mind, the EOFY sales can be very tempting. Here's how I planned to be cautious about splurging and hope these help when the next big sales are upon us.

1. Avoid the sales. This might sound ridiculous, but of course you aren't going to buy something if you don't go into a shop. The same then applies to online shopping: try to limit when you browse your favourite websites. I found that unsubscribing from any EDMs helped around this time, so that way I'm not persuaded by the emails. 
2. Stick to a wishlist. I think having a wishlist of the purchases you want, big or small, can help stop any unnecessary buying. If you use an app like Karma, you can be notified when the items you want go on sale. That way, you are only buying something that you wanted anyway, but is now much cheaper.
3. Be realistic in your budget. Perhaps if you know the sales are coming up, budget an amount to use on clothes, technology, or books at the start of the month, so at least the payments won't hurt any necessary payments. 
4. Don't impulse buy. Add something to your cart, and then go back to the website a couple days later. Are you really still thinking about that item? Or is just justified by the '50% off' label?
5. Be careful!  It's easy to get tricked during any sales period. Perhaps an item is so discounted that there are no refunds or perhaps the original price was only $10 more. Make sure to spend time before spending money.

Good luck shopping carefully during the next big sales period: I know I will need it!