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Field guides from the office.
“Everything in these files I learned the expensive way. You get it secondhand — cheaper.”
Miss Spent is an impulse spending app for iPhone. These are straight answers to the questions that empty a paycheck — how the urge works, why the wait beats it, and what a no-buy season is actually for. No course, no homework, no seminar.
How to stop impulse buying
Friction, a forced wait, and a running total of what you kept. How the urge works — and where it snaps.
Read the file ♠What to do before you buy something you don't need
A short pause protocol for the moment before checkout: name the want, let the urgency cool, and decide with more distance.
Read the file ♠How to stop shopping when you're bored
Sometimes the item is only standing in for a change of channel. Four moves for finding out before the cart becomes a purchase.
Read the file ♠How to stop buying things because they're on sale
The three-question test for sale pressure: would you buy it at full price, this week, and what does it replace?
Read the file ♠Impulse buying vs planned buying
The three-question test for telling a real plan from a decision the shop invented five minutes ago.
Read the file ♠How to break the small-purchase habit
Find the scene that repeats, add friction at the right point, and count the pauses instead of staging a trial.
Read the file ♠No-buy month rules that survive a slip
Define the pause, make sensible exceptions, and keep the month after one purchase instead of throwing it out.
Read the file ♠Pause before starting another subscription
Check the job, the overlap, and the review date before a recurring charge becomes background furniture.
Read the file ♠The no-buy challenge, without the purity spiral
Why the all-or-nothing version dies by February, and the house variant that survives a slip.
Read the file ♠The cooling-off period
The oldest trick in the anti-regret book: let the want get cold and see what’s left on the plate.
Read the file ♠Dopamine shopping
The fun part is the wanting; the bill is for the having. What to do at the exact moment of the itch.
Read the file ♠Underconsumption
Using what you own, rebranded as a movement. She’s been saying it for years, darling.
Read the file ♠The frictionless checkout
One-click makes the handoff quick and the total easy to miss. Put the pause back before the receipt arrives.
Read the file ♠