The Best of Finance Blogosphere: “I won a Wii!!” Edition

I still can’t believe it! I never win anything… and here it was, a mail from J. D. announcing that I had won a Wii in the giveaway for the group writing project! My entry to the contest made it in with just a few hours to spare before the deadline! Wow, talk about luck! I am so excited. It is just in time for our anniversary too – now we won’t go and throw money on buying gifts for each other. I will keep one Wii controller and the better half gets the other controller :) Thanks, J. D.!

Now on to some of my favorite posts from the past week.

• I love long lists, and here is a great one by Ben @ Instigator blog titled An Introductory Guide to Startup Funding. Definitely something to bookmark for future use!


• And while we are talking about lists, here is another great one. MBH @ Mighty Bargain Hunter has put together an excellent collection of money-related forums and discussion boards. There are 28 forums in that list! And I follow only one (Fatwallet Finance) and that too, quite rarely these days. Why are there only 24 hours in a day?


• Ben @ Money Smart Life has a great post titled How to Work Extremely Hard and Get Nothing Done. I do this a lot with my “online” fun projects – currently I have two ideas in the incubator that show no signs of coming to life :( Thank god though, its not so much of a problem in my regular job where things move a lot more smoothly!


• I have heard the phrase “Cut your losses early” several time, but never really paid much attention to the math behind it. Pinyo @ Moolanomy does a great job in explaining the math.


• And here is a nice article by Sun @ Sun’s Financial Diary about rate chasing. Hmmm, I have my credit card arbitrage money still sitting in HSBC earning only 4.5% APR – maybe chasing credit card offers is not enough to play this game, maybe I should be chasing rates too to maximize my returns. Something to think about.


• GolbGuru @ Money, Matter and More Musings has a heart wrenching money story by Dough Roller. It’s reading personal stories like these where people have overcome tragic past to create a fantastic future that keep me addicted to personal finance blogs!


• Frank @ Finance and Fat shares his personal finance success story as part of J. D.’s group writing project.


• And back to lists. Financial Hack has a massive list of 117 quotes about procrastination. Hmmm, maybe I should read it tomorrow :)


• Christian PF points to a study that indicates that swearing in the workplace can benefit morale because it helps employees bond to each other. Hmmm. Interesting. I did believe something along these lines while I was in undergrad, but hey, grow up already!


• Clever Dude is on a donating spree and has given away 132 items of clothing, valued at $707, to goodwill. Wow! I used to clear out my closet every time we moved apartments, but now that we have a house, I have a feeling 10 years down the line, I will be writing a post exactly like that (if there is still such a thing called blogging at that time :)


• Mrs. Micah revisits the latte factor discussion but has a unique perspective that will help you feel-good. Something to think about.


• And finally, SVB at Digerati life celebrate her first Blogiversary by sharing her Silicon Valley job history. And she also has a giveaway to celebrate the blogiversary. Check it out!

So much for now. Hope you all have a great weekend

Victory Over Debt, Credit, Frugality – Which Of These Qualify As A Good "Success Story"?

J. D. over at Get Rich Slowly is celebrating 18 months in the personal finance blogospere and as part of the celebration, he asks his readers to share their personal finance success stories. I thought for a while about what to write. First I wanted to brag about going from over $40K in debt to a healthy positive net worth in just six years. But somehow that didn’t feel right. Frankly, I am itching to brag, but I don’t think I will be able to sleep the sleep of the righteous if I do :) So next, I thought of talking about the success we have had with credit card arbitrage. I consider it a bit of a success story because we have gone from being ignorant and piling on debt, to leveraging the credit card to make money from it. But then, I have already talked about it several times before. So, I thought maybe I should talk about my success at an effort to a frugal life style. But, I don’t think I am quite there yet. I am definitely making progress, but not yet at a stage where I can write about it as my “success story”.

And then it occurred to me - my real success story is that I have grown up and become mature in the way I handle my finances. And that is far more important than any individual success stories I can share.

Personal finance and money management is more about attitudes than anything else. Without the right mind set you could be making a $100,000 a year and still not get anywhere. On the other hand, if your have the right mentality, you can still manage to live a proud self-sufficient life right through retirement, even if you have an income of $30,000 and feed a family of five.

I have come a long way from neither knowing nor caring much about money matters. Statements like “spend less than you earn”, “pay yourself first”, “save some for the rainy day”, “don’t try to keep up with the Joneses” to me are no longer just rote catch phrases, but have become a form of secret guiding lights. They seem to influence my decisions without me actually being aware of it. While I still get tempted to buy stuff just because some of my friends have them, I have learnt to rationally think about my temptations and make a conscious decision about whether to buy or not. And during the times when I decide not to buy something, instead of feel deprived, I feel a sense of pride in making the decision that is right for us. And this has helped me to stay free of envy about what my friends own too.

When you start thinking about money all the time (which you do, when you are addicted to personal finance blogging), there is a chance that you could go too far and forget to enjoy today in the attempt to save for tomorrow. We have been fortunate enough to not get into this trap. Tomorrow, if I were to be run over by a bus, I am sure my last thought won’t be “Alas, I have so much money in my savings account that I never got to enjoy” :) Recently, we decided to buy an expensive-ish car. It went against all the best personal finance advice I have ever read. But it was a conscious decision. It has been our dream car and we wanted to buy it some day. So when my faithful 14 year old car died we sat down, took stock of our financial situation and decided to go for it, surprising even ourselves with our decision. It’s been over a couple of months now and we have no regrets. Every time we drive that car, it reminds us of what we have achieved and motivates us to do more. And we have already started paying off the auto loan very aggressively.

On the career front, I have learnt to value my salary whereas earlier I used to only care about the kind of work I did. I still don’t know if this is a good thing or not. But if you are obsessive about the quality of work and tend to get depressed when you aren’t doing something special, it is good to have an alternate thought that brings some satisfaction. I have gone from being disgusted by those that were proud of the dollar amount of their salaries to being one who uses it to calm myself down during times when quality of work just plain sucks. On the frugal living front, I have learnt to enjoy some of the simpler things in life. Why bother paying a heck of a lot of money for something that you can enjoy at a much lower cost? On the relationship front, we are a lot more in tune with each other. On the investing front, we have got over our stock market phobia and dipped our feet into index fund investing. We are aggressively chasing our dream to own property in our home country while at the same time paying off our mortgage here as soon as possible. So, knock on wood, overall we have made a fair amount of growing up and becoming mature. And that I am proud of and have no hassles bragging about :)

Use Halloween to Teach Kids Money Lessons

How can one thing mean two totally different things to different people? Take Halloween treats for example. Kids are delighted by it. Parents, not so much. Candies filled with high fructose corn syrup and food coloring, and kids that are hyper-active with so much sugar intake that they literally bounce off the walls. It’s every parent’s nightmare and the perfect scary ending to the Halloween holiday! But here’s a trick that will sound more like a treat – this unsavory situation can easily be turned into a money lesson for kids!

Let me explain.

The day before Halloween, you make a deal with the kids. When they return back from trick or treating, you will buy their candies from them for real money. From the day after Halloween they can buy the candies back from you. For every day past Halloween, the price of candies falls by 5%. Each day, they can spend only a preset amount of money on buying back candies. Knowing kids, they will want to eat the choicest candies in the first few days and in the later days as the number of candies they can have for the preset amount increases, the candies are no longer their favorites and so may choose to keep the money instead of throwing it away on candies they don’t like. They learn a few important money lessons while at the same time eating fewer candies. It’s a win-win situation.

Here is an example.

Say your daughter has collected 110 pieces of candy. You set the price of each piece of candy to say, a quarter. So if you can convince her to sell you 100 pieces of candy, then she will earn $25. Each day she is allowed to spend $2 of that money to buy back the candies. Each day the price of candies falls by 5%. Say you round up the number of candies she gets. Then for two days after Halloween, she will be able to buy 9 pieces of candy for $2. For two days after that, she will be able to purchase 10 pieces of candy for $2. And so on, until the candies run out on day 10. So, she gets to have all her candy back over a period of 9 days for $18. That leaves her with $7 to keep. Pretty good deal. Here is a table that I generated using excel to explain it better. You can do something similar with the exact numbers that work for your family and print it out so your children can easily understand the concept and keep track of it every day.

Day	Price per candy	# of candies for $2	Actual candies bought	Money in Hand
On Halloween	0.25			$25
1	0.2375	8.421053	9	$23
2	0.225625	8.864266	9	$21
3	0.214344	9.330806	10	$19
4	0.203627	9.821901	10	$17
5	0.193445	10.33884	11	$15
6	0.183773	10.88299	11	$13
7	0.174584	11.45578	12	$11
8	0.165855	12.05872	13	$9
9	0.157562	12.69339	13	$7
10	0.149684	13.36146	2	$7
		Total	100	$7

The beauty of it is, you can tweak it indefinitely to suit your family’s needs. For instance, if you want to teach the concept of interest, then instead of discounting the cost of candies by 5% you can let them charge you interest of 5% and let them earn more for their money. The math works out to be the same as above.

Or, you can match what they save at the end dollar for dollar, and that way entice them to give away some of the candies they don’t like. So, if they only buy back candies worth $1 a day for 10 days and have $15 left over they get to keep $30. It’s a very nice way to have them eat less candy.

Or, you can vary the price of the candies based on the calorie count. So the higher the calories, the lesser the price drops and so it will be less lucrative for them to buy back high calorie candies compared to healthier ones.

Depending on your child’s temperament you can make any number of changes. As long as you make it a fun game and not a math exercise, kids are bound to love it since they get to eat their candy and make some money too. All of it while learning the valuable lessons of delayed gratification! Small lessons like this can go a long way in protecting them in the future where credit comes easy and temptations are strong!

Get Rid of Unwanted Mail. It's Bad for your Wallet and Bad for the Environment

(This article is a part of the Blog Action Day that brings together 14,000+ bloggers from different walks of life in a global effort to increase awareness about environmental issues.)

In an earlier life, I would open every piece of mail I received in my mail box to look for coupons. And if I found a coupon that I liked I would be off shopping. I mean, what’s not to like about 20% discount at Bed, Bath & Beyond, right? Well, here’s what – I did not really need anything from Bed, Bath and Beyond! I was essentially being conned into spending for the purchase of an item that I didn't particularly care for. That is just one of the evil ways that junk mail can harm your wallet. And the evil it wreaks on the environment is so much worse!

How Unwanted Mail Costs you Money!

• They are a source of temptation to spend money.

Marketing people have spent years and years learning the human psychology to figure out how they can con consumers into buying more stuff. As mentioned above, it may be a coupon or a discount or a check for some money if you start a service etc. Or it may be catalogs with pretty pictures that instill a yearning to go buy stuff. Overall, the unwanted mail instigates a desire to buy stuff that you otherwise don’t need or think of.


• They add clutter and clutter can cost money.

If you do not immediately sort out the necessary mail from junk mail and throw away the junk mail, you will soon find your house/apartment cluttered with paper. Some important mail can easily be lost in this clutter resulting in late payments (and some hefty fees) or lost opportunities.


• Your tax dollars are spent to get rid of the junk mail you throw away.

According to the Stopjunk website, it costs 320 million of tax dollars for disposing off the unwanted mail! That’s money not spent to improve our schools, public transportation, roads and other really worthy causes. And that’s our money that is getting wasted!


• You spend precious time to sort through them and time is money.

According to the New American Dream website, Americans throw away 44% of bulk mail unopened, yet still spend 8 months per lifetime opening bulk mail. OK, those statistics could be quite hoakey and not all of our time may be spent in productive money-earning tasks, but do your really want to spend that time in sorting through junk mail or would you rather be spending it with your kids or watching TV or reading books etc?

How Unwanted Mail Hurts the Environment

• Unwanted mail = wasted paper = cutting trees unnecessarily.

According to the New American Dream website, more than 100 million trees’ worth of bulk mail arrive in American mail boxes each year – that’s the equivalent of deforesting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every four months. According to this newsletter article an average American family receives more than a tree’s worth of junk mail every year! Each of us who has not got rid of unwanted mail is directly contributing to deforestation.


• The Energy cost of producing and disposing junk mail is exorbitant.

Not only is unwanted mail causing a lot of trees to be cut, it is wasting a lot of resources as well. If Americans receive several million tons of unwanted mail, imagine the energy used up in printing these material. And the fuel consumed to transport these to your door step. And the chemicals spent and the green house gasses generated in the process! According to the fact sheet on the New American Dream website, the production and disposal of direct mail consumes more energy than 3 million cars! That is just not worth it!


• Not all junk mail can be recycled!

Some smart dumbass marketing manager some place decided that glossy paper will entice more people into buying their product and convinced the powers that be to finance a marketing campaign that only uses glossy paper. As if that were not bad enough, they decided to use colorful ads and probably staples too. The result is that I end up with a fantastic looking catalog that I am not interested in, but cannot recycle!


• Not everyone recycles their junk mail.

Even if the junk mail was recyclable, not everyone makes the effort to recycle the junk mail. It is sad to see millions of tons of paper go directly from mailbox to trashcan to landfills after having consumed so many of environmental resources!


• Unwanted junk mail fill up landfills.

The unwanted mail that is not recycled or cannot be recycled ends up in landfills. According to the statistics on this website 40% of the solid mass that makes up our landfills is paper and paperboard waste. By the year 2010, it is predicted to make up about 48%. While not all of this may be due to unwanted mail, considering that about 40 pounds of junk mail is sent to every adult each year and approximately 44% goes to a landfill unopened, I would think junk mail makes up for a large percentage of the paper that gets into land fills.

What you can do about it.
It’s simple. If every household makes an effort to minimize the junk mail they receive, together we can stop this monster that wreaks havoc on our money and the environment.

• Opt Out of Prescreened Credit Card Offers

A joint venture of the three credit bureaus helps stop prescreened credit card and insurance solicitations from landing in your mail box. You can opt out by calling the toll free number 1-888-5-OPTOUT or online through the website www.optoutprescreen.com.


• Register for the Direct Marketing Association’s “Do not mail” list.

While there is no law at this time that requires companies to not mail you because you have registered with the “Do not mail” list, most companies recognize that if you have gone so far to add your name to the list you will likely just throw away any offers they send you. So in the interest of saving money and guarding their reputation, many companies who are part of the DMA stop sending you offers. There is a charge of $1 for this service though and the response is slow since the main database is not updated on a continuous ongoing basis. You can register online using this form.


• Turn down local coupons and fliers.

According to postal regulations, all fliers must be accompanied by an address card or an address label. This may be in the form of a post card with a missing child’s photograph or a label on one of the fliers and will likely be addressed to the “current resident” or “occupant”. This card/label will have information that will help you identify the company that is mailing out the fliers. Look online or in yellow pages and call the company directly to have your address taken off the list. Here is the contact information for three of the major flier/coupon/catalog mailing companies –

• ADVO, Inc.: Call up (888) 241-6760 or use this online form.


• Val-Pak Coupons : Call up (888) 797-1896 or use this online form.


• Abacus, Inc. : By e-mail: optout@abacus-us.com with “remove” in the subject line and name and address in the mail.



• Cancel catalogs from individual stores.

When you receive catalogs in mail, look for a customer service number and call up right away before you forget and ask them to stop sending you any more catalogs.


• Opt for E-bills and electronic statements.

Every time I receive my credit card bill or a bank statement, I find that the envelope is stuffed with a bunch of fliers and offers. This junk can be reduced by opting for e-bills and e-statements. But it may not work for everyone. If you are like us and paranoid that you might forget to send a payment without the regular paper mail reminderrs, then you may not want to go for this option.


• Unsubscribe from unwanted magazines.

Magazines are one of the biggest leaks in most people’s budgets. If you have a credit card that gets automatically charged every year, then you may not even realize that your subscription has been renewed. The magazines that you liked last year may not appeal to you now and may end up in a pile on your coffee table without ever being read. Please call the unread magazine companies and cancel your subscriptions. This way you can not only plug the money leak, you can save the environment too.


• Mention explicitly that you do not want information sold.

When you sign up for any new service or subscription, clearly write the following next to your address – “Please do not sell, trade or make publicly available”. It may or may not help, but hey, no harm trying!



• And finally, if some unwanted mail sneaks into your mail box recycle it.

Recycling is catching on in most big cities in the US. Here in Texas, there is a scheduled recycle pick up that is aligned with regular trash pick up, in most cities. Also, many apartment communities offer specially marked trash cans for recyclable items. Actually, at our previous apartment there was a recycle bin right next to the mail boxes so we could dump the unwanted mails as soon as we picked them up and have them recycled. I am not sure how widespread the effort to recycle is, but do your part. If in spite of all the steps above you continue to receive unwanted mails, try to dispose them off in a responsible manner.

More resources for learning about junk mail
If you have more questions and are looking for more information, check out these resources for more information.

• New American Dream website.


• Frugal Green News Letter.


• Smart Money Article.


• Ecocycle article.


• Privacy Rights Fact Sheet.

If each one of us does our part, we can make sure that our environmental footprint is kept small and our future generations can continue to enjoy this planet as much as we do. And saving some money in the process is a nice bonus :)

*Image Credit: Photograph by sparkyourart [via Flickr]

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The Best of Finance Blogosphere: The Reminders Edition

Before we go to the round up of my favorite posts from this week, here are a few reminders.

One of our own, Stephanie Collins, from the ever-interesting blog Poorer than you is among the finalists for $10,000 student blogging scholarship! Don’t forget to vote for her!

If you are a personal finance blogger please consider participating in the PF Blogs Financial Literacy Challenge. It will be great if you can contribute, if not, I hope you will help spread the word. Every bit helps!

I currently am running a giveaway of a fascinating new book called “Your Money and Your Brain” that explores the psychology of personal finance with a lot of examples, stories and surveys. All you have to do to win is leave a comment on this post.

Finally, Monday is Blog Action Day where a lot of bloggers come together to write on one common topic – the environment. If you are a blogger, consider participating in this fun event.

Now onto some articles that caught my eye on the blogosphere.

• Achieving Financial Freedom - I've Retired In My Forties @ My Wealth Builder. (This is undeniably the best post I have read this week. It fills me with so much hope, reassurance and motivation…


• 5 essential tasks to minding your online business @ Mighty Bargain Hunter. I have a major dilemma on this topic that I have been avoiding for a while. I am currently on blogger. On the one hand, it offers a lot less flexibility than wordpress and so I would love to move. On the other hand it helps me avoid hassles about hosting mentioned by MBH and my lazy ass loves not having to worry about these things. Blogger has been able to handle the couple of surges I got due to being digg’d and I love this hassle free hosting. For now, I will put off the dilemma for some more time :)


• Snowflaking – a primer @ I’ve paid for this twice already. A must-read if you are a fan of the debt snowball method!


• 5 types of credit card users @ Cash Money Life. I am a hybrid of the Max Payer and an Arbitrager. What are you?


• 6 ways you are passing up free money @ Brip Blap. Some great tips here. In addition to these tips, I use credit card arbitrage, employee stock purchase plan and services that give back (eg. realtor who gives back 1%) to make some free money.


• Fat tax @ Thrifty Penny. Boy, if there was really a tax for not going to the gym, I’d be so broke! :)


• Best and Worst Financial Decisions @ Plonkee Money. My best decision has been to invest in the 401K too!


• Willing to pay more for... @ Saving for a Home of My Own. I personally will pay more for quality.


• How to make money from merger arbitrage @ Creative Investor 101. This is some hard core stuff! I am still dipping my toes into the work of investing and find such articles so fascinating :) Some day hopefully I too will be a part of the elite investors club!


• No rush to pay off my student loans @ Money Blue Book. This is a very good read if you have student loans at low interest rate.


• Top 10 cheapest ways to exercise @ The Digerati Life. Boy, SVB just took away one of my excuses (going to the gym costs too much). Wonder how I will over come the other excuse (don’t have enough time).

Whoa, Pets are Expensive!

Here is something I overheard during lunch yesterday. I know eves dropping isn’t exactly good manners, but in my defense, these ladies were talking very loudly, and I was sitting all by myself with nothing to do, waiting for my friend to join me.

---

Lady 1: “My mom gave Vic (son?) a dog for his birthday, and its killing me!”

Lady 2: “Um… hmmm….”

Lady 1: “My apartment charges $500 pet deposit. In addition to that I spend $12 a day on doggy day care since both Tom (husband?) and I work. And today I got a call from the day care that Timmy (the dog?) had swallowed something and was coughing and dry heaving. So they took him to the vet. The vet charges $43.99 for inspecting the dog. But since Timmy was very agitated and snapping at them, they wanted to sedate him first. That would cost an additional $100. And if he has indeed swallowed something then it would cost an additional $159.99 to retrieve it. It’s crazy. I asked Tom to handle it.”

Lady 2: “You can’t be serious! That’s over $300 just because your stupid dog swallowed something? You need to get rid of that dog!”

Lady 1: “I don’t know. Vic is so attached to him. And Timmy is really very sweet and affectionate…”

---

At that point my friend arrived and I had to leave to get my lunch. But boy, was I shocked! That’s a lot of money they were talking about. When we moved into our own house, one of the first few things I wanted to get was a dog. I pestered my husband about it (and still give him a hard time sometimes), but he managed to talk me out of it saying its too much work and the dog will be “depressed” if there is no body at home all day. (I think the thought of having to pick the doggy doo was what really persuaded me though – but that’s a different conversation). After listening to the ladies today however, I am glad we didn’t get a dog!

When I came home I remembered that conversation and thought I would just check online if it really cost that much. I came across this site which has the national average vet costs. Reading this, it seems like the lady in the restaurant was actually getting away cheap :) Here are some of the costs from that site –

Gastrotomy (to retrieve swallowed object): $274
X-rays: $58 for the first, $36 for each additional
Anesthesia (per half hour): $56
Preanesthetic sedation: $23
Preanesthetic exam: $28
Anesthetic monitoring: $19

I have no idea what Preanesthetic sedation is or why it would even be needed, but boy, those costs are quite staggering. I browsed a little more and found several articles that talk about similar high costs. Wow, that’s something.

I really love dogs and would love to have one, but seriously, I doubt if I can afford one at this cost!

If you are thinking of getting a pet, be sure to think of the financial aspects among other things and make an informed decision!

If you already have a dog and love it, here are some articles that might help you keep the costs down. I understand that once you get attached to a pet, and it becomes a part of the family, you will not want to “get rid of it” or be too stingy with medical expenses. We had dogs in our house all through my childhood and I cannot imagine giving away the dogs that we had come to love because they cost too much. But I hope, some of these articles will help you find a way to keep the costs down and manage the expenses as efficiently as possible!

• 57 Creative Ideas to Save Money As a Pet Owner at the Frugal Panda.


• Outrageous Vet Bills at the Dollar Stretcher.


• Put Fido on a Budget: How to Save Money on Pet Care at Googo bits.


• 13 ways to save big on pet care at MSN Money.

"I'm Bored. I'll Go Shopping"

I can’t even remember how many times I have said that! During the last year though, thanks to blogging about money and frugality and consumerism and what not, things are a lot more under control. Here are a few things I learnt along the way about dealing with the bored-shopping syndrome.

Recognize the pattern.
Do you go shopping because you have to buy something or just because you are bored and want to kill some time? The first step to control the expenditure is to recognize the behavior!

Budget for it.
Once you admit to yourself that you sometimes shop “just because” you can be prepared for the next attack by budgeting for it ahead of time. In your weekly/monthly budget, make sure you set aside some money for “indulgence”. Remember though, just because you have an “indulgence fund” doesn’t mean you have to go shopping. If you don’t have a spontaneous shopping attack, let the money roll over to the next month’s budget.

Don’t exceed your budget.
It is OK to go indulgence shopping as long as you don’t over do it. Now that you have an indulgence fund, make sure you always stay within the limits allowed by the fund. If you think you will be enticed by the items in the store then leave the credit cards at home and only carry as much cash with you as your indulgence fund allows.

Keep a list of items you need.
During the course of the week, when you need something (eg., run out of makeup, the room freshener ran out, pillow not really comfortable, etc.) add it to a written list. When the shopping attack strikes instead of going to the mall and looking for things you can buy, start out with some of the items on the list and take it from there.

Buy gifts in advance.
I can spend hours looking for the perfect gift. So when I head out for a bored shopping trip, I try to remember if any birthday or anniversary is on the horizon. I enjoy looking for unique gifts that are customized to a person’s taste and bored-shopping trips are great times to go pick up some of these items. Recently a friend of mine got married and both she and her husband are big party throwers. So I spent a couple of trips putting together a “cocktail basket” equipped with everything from the margarita shaker to a martini mister to a cocktail recipe book to cocktail glassware etc. I doubt I could find a pre-packaged gift like that anywhere and even if I did, I doubt I would be able to fit it into the budget I had.

Hit the clearance racks.
When I have to go shopping and recognize it as an attack of the bored-shopping syndrome, and I can’t think of anything particular to buy, I tag those trips as clearance shopping trips. Any store I go to, I go directly to the clearance aisles. Only if I find a dramatic deal will I actually buy something. I enjoy deal hunting and finding a great deal that is within my budget really makes the whole trip worth it.

Finally, pick up an all-consuming hobby.
Ever since I starting blogging, I have hardly had the time to feel bored and as such my got-to-shop attacks have dramatically reduced. Every now and then, I still “need” to shop, but the damage is a much limited :)

Do you go shopping “just because”? What are your tricks to limit the damage?