Buyer's Remorse (and how to avoid it)

Shopping. It is a past time that divides people into those who see it as a treat and those who regard it as a chore. Without doubt, I fall into the former category, and find it possible to dedicate entire days to the sport. Fiance, however, is a member of the latter persuasion and stubbornly refuses to be dragged out of it, despite my attempts to convince him otherwise.

It takes all my powers of persuasion, and Fiance to be in distinct need of an item, before he will willingly agree to accompany me on a shopping trip, and even then he will only concede to a fleeting meeting with the wondrous goods on offer. I have come to accept that this will always be the case (although I will always endeavour to change his mind - persistence may win out in the end). 

Since I started working full time again, it transpires that the majority of my shopping trips are now restricted to hour long bursts at lunchtime. Fortunately, there is a big shopping centre within a 10 minute drive from the office, so I get to satisfy my purchase cravings pretty easily and as regularly as I like. Unfortunately, an hour long shopping burst for me is the equivalent of an amuse-bouche - a mouth-wetter, something to build up your appetite for more - which often leaves me feeling like I have been denied a potentially wonderful opportunity. Who knows what could have been waiting in that shop I didn't have time to check out?

This reminds me somewhat of an article I read last week - a BBC Magazine piece entitled 'The Strange Psychology of Panic Buying' by Brigitt Hauck. Reading it was like knowing that someone had shone a torch into my head and written down my precise thoughts and actions during any given shopping trip. For example:

"Most shoppers attach greater significance to potential loss - missing out on a bargain - than they do to a reward like having bought something that was needed. The purchaser thinks if they don't buy the item at that instant they might miss out entirely"

So, so true. The one winning argument I know I can fall back on when I'm trying to convince myself to buy a particular (un-needed) item is that "I may never have the opportunity to own this quite nice item at this price ever again. Could I live with myself if I walked away? Unlikely. That's it, random item - you are mine. I am buying you".

Take today for example, when I went on a lunchtime jaunt to Debenhams to see if there was anything I could spend the rest of my Christmas gift card on. I was delighted to find the end of the sale had gotten even better as it started to invite willing customers to buy one item and to get one free. Bloody brilliant. I was totally willing.

This is where my cunning started to kick in - if I found one item I liked, I needed to make sure I could find a second item of comparable value, so as to make the most of the deal. It was, without doubt, the best time to look at the more expensive items - available to me at a knock down price, with double the fun at no extra cost.

This is a most appropriate point to bring in another quote from the Beeb's article:

"...when an item is discounted, consumers focus on the discount as opposed to the actual price of the good, even if the ticket price is still high, says Dr Denison. "You're thinking 'this is a bargain' rather than 'this costs £100'.""

GET OUT OF MY BRAIN, DR DENISON. 

When contemplating a reduced item, I will always compare the original price with the one I am being asked to part with. I can unscientifically confirm that the chance of me making a purchase is exponentially related to the distance between the starting and the current figure, even if the current figure is much higher than I had intended to spend in the first place.

Obviously, whether I need the item or not is completely irrelevant.

This is why I ended up taking three coats, a dress and three tops into the changing room with me this lunchtime. I don't need coats. I have a wardrobe's worth of coats, most of which are ignored as I consistently elect to wear one of a favoured few. However, when coats are reduced and on a buy one get one free offer, then all of a sudden I do need coats, mainly because TWO COATS FOR £50 IS AWESOME. The same can be said for each of the other items I had lugged along with me.

This is where the final point from the article becomes significant. Here's Dr Denison again:

"But if a shopper hasn't gone through a rational process because of time constraints or other elements of stress, they may feel guilt or anxiety, referred to as "buyer's remorse"."

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say I have suffered anxiety after buying myself something nice, but I have definitely returned home with an impulse buy and a nagging question about whether I really needed it, a flicker of guilt making its presence known at the edge of my conscious. Oh yes, I know this "buyer's remorse" and I do not like it.

So, to avoid experiencing it, I deployed my (slightly irrational) attempt at a rational process strategy as soon as I entered the store today - by which I mean I decided to pick up all manner of goods, try them on, and if they looked good, they would be mine. The key to success was not caring for suitability - the dress was dry clean only, the BOGOF item to go with it was a handwash only jumper (I don't often do trips to the dry cleaners, and I don't think I have ever handwashed an item), one coat had a small pull in the sleeve, another was two sizes too big (but to give me credit - it looked small on the hanger) and one of the tops was two sizes too small.

In a way, I had transferred the responsibility of decision making to Fate - and I wasn't prepared to feel guilty about owning something that I wanted and that happened looked good on me. I mean, what am I meant to do when an item that should be too small for me actually looks so totally awesome that it would be a crime to not make a purchase?

The beauty of this simple approach is that it works both ways and left me in a win-win situation - when I saw that two of the coats buried me, and that the dress was baggy round the hips, I said goodbye to them and walked happily away from the store with two tops (that cost me a grand total of £6.60), knowing that I had got a bargain and that I hadn't spent money on things that didn't look right.

The fact I left more things behind than I purchased was a psychological plus too - especially because I knew all along that the one thing I needed less than coats was tops.

Christmas Shopping: The Hardcore Way

Thanks to the weather based distractions that have been bestowed upon us lately, it's taken a while for the Christmas spirit to make its presence known, to me at least. Whilst I was starting to wonder if it had abandoned its effort thanks to the treacherous travelling conditions, it finally completed its journey last week, thanks in no small part to the drunken event that was the work Christmas party - the usual affair of free-flowing booze, food of questionable quality, and some awful, yet undeniably energetic, dancing.

The sudden arrival of my festive spirit meant that the fact I had only bought about 1/4 of the required presents finally transformed from a vague acknowledgement lurking somewhere in the depths of my brain into a full blown realisation that SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE QUICKLY.

Yesterday was the day for Stage One of the Christmas Shopping Operation - a visit to the huge local shopping mall to collect an item I'd ordered last week. Not surprisingly, given that it was around -5 degrees all day, every other person in the city apparently had the same idea - especially annoying given that most of the kids finished school last week and were being dragged unhappily around by their parents, for the most part in a path that coincided directly with my feet. The simple task of making my way from A to B turned into something of an assault course, with direct routes frequently requiring a child hurdle, a pram swerve or (my most hated manoeuvre) the chav-stopped-in-the-middle-of-a-busy-path-to-have-a-conversation dodge. It is experiences like this which make my belief that I should be permitted to carry a cattle prod when in public spaces all the stronger.

After spending two focused hours on forging the most efficient path around the mall, I found myself with about two-thirds of my overall shopping done - a much higher amount that I had set out expecting to achieve. I had even mustered the sense to save buying the heaviest present until last - my usual tactic tends to involve buying the bulkiest item first without fully understanding the burden I am condemning myself to carry around. Not this time though - I was ready to go home, and bask in my success.

There was just one minor flaw to my plan: I had offered Fiance a lift home from work, and that would mean I'd get home, just about defrost myself after the minuscule amount of time spent outside, before having to head out into the bitter cold again. Despite my desire to put my feet up and have a relaxing cup of tea, I decided I might as well stay out until I was ready to pick Fiance up, although my thinning patience would not condone me staying in the shopping center any longer, as more and more shoppers continued to arrive with the apparent sole intention of getting under my feet.

A trip to the city centre formed the key foundation for Stage Two of the Christmas Shopping Operation - it has an advantage over the shopping centre in that it has a much higher percentage of independent stores. This was exactly what I was looking for, hoping that a simple browsing session would provide inspiration for those whose gifts I hadn't yet purchased. It would also mean I was in place to provide Fiance with his lift home.

Somewhat hesitantly, I proceeded to put Stage Two of the Christmas Shopping Operation into motion and pointed the car in the direction of the city centre. "Yes, on the same day as going to the shopping centre" I explained to a flabbergasted Fiance, who was entirely perplexed by the idea of spending a whole day shopping in two different locations - but then, the thought of a shopping trip that lasts longer than a couple of hours generally strikes fear into his heart, so I suppose his reaction wasn't all that surprising.

Shopping in town bought it's own unique style of assault course - rather than avoiding people and children (who had all sensibly headed to, and stayed at, the shopping centre), I found I had to dodge patches of black ice, swerve the remaining piles of snow that had previously been cleared from the high street but hadn't melted yet, and brush off the totally annoying flyer-guys who seemed to outnumber the shoppers at an alarming ratio (again, the cattle prod would have proved itself a most useful tool in this situation). Also, I had to manage all that while facing a temperature of -5 degrees which, I have recently discovered, is not a particularly pleasant climate to meet when dashing from shop to shop.

However, despite all the trials faced during my dual-core Christmas Shopping Operation I pulled through. I shopped and I shopped until everything Christmas was sorted. I even shopped for a new saucepan even though it wasn't required for a present. In short, I was awesome for a day, because only an awesome person can get Christmas sorted in seven hours.

Admittedly, I became somewhat less awesome after reading one too many chapters of The Deathly Hallows while lolloping in a lovely hot bath, which resulted in me being reduced to a warm and cosy, yet mostly brain dead blogger.

Welcome to Bridezilla - a Comic where Weddings Save the Day!

Hello, and welcome to my blog - if you've managed to stumble here, I hope you enjoy what is, essentially, a stupid idea of mine. 

After combining a day spent browsing internet comics (when I should probably have been doing wedding-related things), a confidence boosting beverage and some mispent time in MS Paint, a small seed began to take root and thus began the birth of Bridezilla - a run-of-the-mill chick who turns monster when the every day annoyances of life build into a crescendo of rage that can be soothed by one thing, and one thing only.

You see, unlike the typical frenzy frequently suffered by an engaged and actively-planning-the-wedding female of the species, Bridezilla is actually soothed by unexpectedly stumbling across matrimonial goods - she relishes prompts of her forthcoming marriage, rather than it sending her into a panic about the many things she hasn't yet gotten round to organising.

For example, just take a look at what happens when Bridezilla goes to the supermarket to pick up some groceries: