Mindful Shopping: Ways to Avoid Wasteful Spending Traps

“Minimalism is not the lack of what you need; it’s simply the balance between what you want and what you need”.

‍Do you feel overwhelmed with the unwanted clutter of clothes, footwear, accessories, and souvenirs you have collected over the time. Now do you truly want to put an end to all this and decided to start your journey of mindful shopping. An important factor here is to work on the urge of shopping, it is not easy to get discouraged and drop everything you have been building, but don’t give up.

Below are few points you must ponder before shopping:

1. Make sure to learn to identify what you want vs. what you need. It is essential to stop impulse shopping and instead only shop what is needed, this can be tricky, and sometimes to distinguish between want and need will be the challenge, but slowly you will be able to determine your need.
2. Create a shopping list that can be pinned to the kitchen board and everyone in the family can list whatever they need against their names throughout the week. As a family sit down together 1 day prior the day of shopping to re-look at the items listed and asked yourselves do you really need the items and you will find out that many of the items are not needed and hence the items listed will be reduced to a smaller list
3. Wait before your purchase, doing this will allow you time to research the item and if you will actually miss not having it, so next time you are online shopping let the items stay on the cart for 2-3 days before you decide to place the order.
4. ‍Reduce your trips to the supermarket and procure most of your needs locally. To support local merchants and craftspeople means making an investment in your community.
5. Shop responsibly and check to see if the stores you shop at have policies about social responsibility including child labor, forced labor, minimum wages, overtime, and various labor laws.
6. Disposal of the product after use needs to be given a thought prior to its purchase. What will you do after using the item you are done with? Will you discard, donate, sell, recycle, upcycle, repurpose or gift it to someone. You would surely not want any of your trash to wind up in a landfill.
7. Keep only 2-3 online shopping apps except a couple of them for necessities and to shop wisely.
8. Shop thoughtfully keeping in mind if there is enough space and is there a place for what you are buying.

It will take over 2-3 months to keep the shopping impulses at bay, but it will be aligned to your objective of only shopping what is needed, and whilst all this you will feel less overwhelmed and will have successfully created more space at home.

This journey of mindful shopping will not only make you conscious of what you are buying but also will help you to refuse anything that can be avoided and find an alternative instead.

A minimalist lifestyle is the first step to Sustainable living, share your story of “Mindful Shopping” with us and inspire many more who are beginning this journey of Sustainability.

This is guest post by Shilpi Shukla, Program Lead at Organo Et School. 

Organo Et School has had over 25+ schools, 6000+ students and 2500+ adults participate over the last 3 years. As an organisation, Organo Et School’s purpose is to nurture a learning environment for all stakeholders where inclusive holistic eco-living is celebrated. Organo Et School strives to create an apt learning environment that will support and empower families as well as individuals to embrace sustainable living mindsets and habits. You can visit Organo Et School at Website.