{"id":3166,"date":"2020-06-12T23:54:25","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T06:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.simplifimoney.com\/blog\/?p=546"},"modified":"2024-11-18T10:21:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T18:21:45","slug":"watching-your-wallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/watching-your-wallet\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching Your Wallet: When Little Things Add Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>These past few months, we\u2019ve found ourselves shopping online as a way to pass the time, spending $10 here and there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What started out as \u201cboredom browsing\u201d often turned into a mini-shopping spree. Only, sometimes it wasn\u2019t so \u201cmini.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s easy to forget how fast those small purchases add up, and before you know it, you have 8 different $10 packages at your doorstep.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oops!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Using tags to track those impulse buys<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image border: solid 1px #999;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/8mnD_QBqY5iyxCpd9ldZewfwv99n4KCLv4_ZKXtRZ9z7CiqimO_XgbEbdCxvCZlWim97LkoGQd99XmKGNw8tJvR6dKwYOFw9Y3Ua8qwaNst5nfZ2v6CPjenklleC4344wJopbS-x\" alt=\"Categories user interface with total spending in each category\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>To try to get a handle on it, we took a couple of weeks and tagged anything we bought that we didn\u2019t really need as an <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dog food? Needed that. The little guy\u2019s gotta eat!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adorable dog collar? That was an <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong>. (So cute though!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tags are completely separate from categories. In the image above, you can see how categories track things like <strong>Groceries<\/strong>, <strong>Pets<\/strong>, and <strong>Entertainment<\/strong>. We used our <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong> tag to track whether or not we needed each purchase, no matter what category it was in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some more highlights from our <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong> lists:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Video games on sale for $5.99 each&nbsp;<\/li><li>10 stickers for just $1 each, plus shipping (ugh)<\/li><li>Cute pens for the home office (about $20 for the set)<\/li><li>Wine &#8211; 2 cheap bottles<\/li><li>Starbucks bottled drinks &#8211; a dozen over 2 weeks<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time we were done, those small purchases were adding up to a real dent in our wallets.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Using watchlists to track your tags<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/ikC2ie_bZQVg_BrCSsazwqX7GOfA1KCMM5d3A4x2O3bDXXmr_go266JkXxSNPcL1nhchH2UGHfH5U2gA2jN4ErLHEjYwPIkQJLm6PRvAifjJ5H0i4_v2ZZelw2tqailRwcpOpJMR\" alt=\"Impulse Buy tag totals\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Since we created an <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong> tag for our little experiment, we also created a watchlist for that tag to help us keep track of those splurge-shopping purchases as we made them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We put a limit on it of $150\u2014and blew right past that limit pretty quickly. We blame the wine. (Buying it, not drinking it. Take it from us, never shop online while tipsy. Just saying.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tracking that <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong> spending through our watchlist helped us cut back on all those little orders\u2014the ones that gave us a shopping high in the moment but didn\u2019t make us feel good in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We still spent time shopping, but our watchlist kept it from getting out of hand. It also helped us pay more attention to each purchase, asking ourselves whether it was really worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cutting back, not cutting off&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/um620hmH8KkThd-RhI0UeIaa05E_WQhHJxPj0K8emKHmmsfxz1sb9CNdhBTO_82u0zQ3xkhKQigs8drJbI-JEcC6_KsbcKjQ7xv11iqzdqvYR9qfVe2cImAvH5NyywACPtPhsPfM\" alt=\"Spending tags graph user interface\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"\/blog\/financial-fitness-for-real-life\/\">thing about budgeting<\/a> is that it has to be a balance. If you tried to cut yourself off completely from every indulgence, that would be hard to maintain and would leave you unhappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, hey, if you grin every time you look at that adorable dog collar, it was probably worth that $10. Budgeting is about choosing those items carefully so they don\u2019t add up fast to $100 (or more), taking away cash you could have used to add to your savings or pay down your debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using watchlists can help you develop better habits and be smarter about avoiding splurges by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Thinking about that <strong>Impulse Buy<\/strong> purchase before you buy it<\/li><li>Spreading your shopping out and saving some of it for later<\/li><li>Setting a monthly limit so you don\u2019t start racking up debt<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we\u2019re using watchlists, we\u2019re staying on top of our spending, <em>still<\/em> buying the occasional dog collar, and putting the rest of our spare cash toward paying down our debt\u2014making those $10 decisions add up in a <em>good<\/em> way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For more tips on staying on top of your finances, <\/em><em>check out simplifimoney.com or download the Simplifi by Quicken app.<\/em><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s amazing how fast small purchases can add up. Here\u2019s a great way to protect your wallet while still enjoying those occasional indulgences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Watching Your Wallet: When Little Things Add Up | Simplifi by Quicken Blog","_seopress_titles_desc":"It\u2019s amazing how fast small purchases can add up. Here\u2019s a great way to protect your wallet while still enjoying those occasional indulgences.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budgeting-savings","tag-budgeting"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/SimplifiWhenLittleThingsAddUp.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4900,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions\/4900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}