Money Talk: A Tale of Shopping Ban & I am my own worst enemy~*

”I am on a shopping ban” – are you familiar with this phrase? Does shopping ban really work? My answer: imaginatively yes but it does not work in reality. I find an extreme approach like to ban or stop one self from doing something is not the way to go in general whether it is shopping or dieting purposes unless you are a highly disciplined person. We set a challenge, we achieve such challenge and at the end of the road, we celebrate and reward ourselves with some shopping treats.

Not to long ago, I shamelessly admitted to my husband that I think I have this compulsive shopping behavior and I feel like I buy for the sake of buying sometimes (or most of the time..wa ha ha). So I told him I wanted to make a commitment to “limit” my purchases from now. I carefully chose the word “limit” instead of “ban or stop” because I hate to swallow my words when an urge strikes. Shopping ban backfires in several ways for me personally. I am good for a period of time but at the end of the ban period I find myself going ooh-la-la and spending twice as much. “Where all the money go” used to be my husband’s and my favorite phrase as well, we used that a lot before I started doing a budget.



I have been doing a budget for “years” but never pay close attention to my “makeup/clothes/accessories” spending. It has occurred to me that I completely fail in that area by hiding these expenses in the “etc spending” category all these times. Therefore, I could never tell how much exactly I spend on my junks annually. I do my budget in an excel spreadsheet and I have two main worksheets that I look at everyday: “saving worksheet” and “expenses tracking worksheet”. I divide our spending into “fixed bills”, “dining out”, “child-related”, “home-related”, “entertainment” and “etc” categories. Recently, I was shocked to see the amount we spend on dining each month (given that I cook dinner at home at least 5 days/week and I also pack my lunch 4 out of 5 working days). I just couldn’t believe it and that led me to think perhaps I should put my clothes/beauty purchases in a separate category and finally face that ugly truth. Oh - yeah..it is ugly alright.

I used to spend a lot of money on skincare and beauty related products in the past years (tell me about it) and sometimes I didn’t even need them. I bought just to satisfy my curiosity and experiment new brands and such. Also I still can’t get rid of my bad habits of being a clothes hoarder. If you remember my trip to Bangkok this year, I came back with a suitcase full of new clothes that I have yet to wear, I probably only use 40% of them. Yet I still go out and buy new clothes here and there. Ridiculous – that’s what I said. Althought I do not think my spending is out of control to the point that I buy and get myself in debt. I can definitely put that money in a saving or save up to buy something that I truly like and will use often.

It is time to rethink about the whole budget situation. As much as I want to cut down everything, like literally everything, I hate for my family to feel like we can’t enjoy our lives just to solely focus on saving. We both work to bring home the bacon, we both have 401(k) & some money in an emergency saving and we should at least be able to reward ourselves in some ways. Our family rarely go on vacation ever so it makes sense to splurge on dining out. That is our main entertainment/luxury that we can afford so let it be.


Having something in a written form such a spending spreadsheet helps tremendously, trust me. You can create a very simple one in an excel spreadsheet and list “date” in one column, “stores you purchase from” in one column and “amount” in another column. Sum them up monthly and annually, that annual spending number will do a trick. I know for the fact that I can’t completely stop myself from buying…but…yes but I have decided to choose a middle path – limit/set allowance and avoid unnecessary purchases. It sounds more realistic and approachable.

Fellow bloggers - Have you ever tried "shopping ban"? Did it work for you?