To curb impulse buying, turn your credit cards into frozen assets
OnlineGuideTo.com — Do you often make impulse purchases on credit? Or do you tend to overspend just because you can charge it to your credit card?
It is all too easy to think of the available credit on your card(s) as money that belongs to you. But you know it doesn’t — and by the time the bills arrive you wish you had held off on buying that couch, gala dress, or new computer.
There is a simple way to give yourself a cooling off period before using your credit card to make a big purchase: freeze your assets.
Literally.
Jill and Gary Thompson, of Long Beach, California, did just that. Faced with growing credit card bills and ever higher monthly payments they decided never to make a purchase without first thinking about it for at least 24 hours.
To help them combat their impulse purchases they also decided to each carry just one credit card. This card was to be used for ‘normal’ purchases only.
All other cards were frozen. That is, Jill put them in a plastic tub, filled the tub with water, and put the whole thing in the freezer.
Now when a major purchase does come up, the time it takes for the frozen assets to thaw gives them enough space to consider whether they really need the item, and whether they can afford to purchase it on credit at this time.
And no, microwaving is not an option — as doing so may easily warp the cards to the point where they become unusable.
Come to think of it, that may actually be a good thing to do.
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