No spend week – removing my credit card from Amazon & Paypal

The other day, I had one of those slap-forehead moments – I realised it’s far too easy for me to buy stuff on Amazon and Paypal. It’s one of the things that sparked off my impromptu no-spend week.

My credit card details are saved on both so I don’t even have to stand up and get my card, just click and done, money spent.

On other shops, where I can’t pay with Paypal, there is a lot longer consideration time. I’ll add stuff to basket then tell myself I’ll fetch my purse in a few minutes when I get up to wee or let the dog out, then the few minutes becomes a couple of hours and the excitement of buying the item has dissipated and instead of getting my card details, I close the browser window and the money is saved.

John often talks about delaying all purchases for a week after initial “ooh” – making a little program that stops you completing a transaction in one go and forces you to go away for a few days and think about it. I suspect we’d buy a whole lot less stuff if we did that – but in the meantime, removing my credit card details from Amazon & Paypal is a good start.

(While I was there doing that, I’ve also changed my “email notification” settings on Amazon so they’ll stop spamming me with “check out this awesome offer” adverts every few days. Since I hate adverts and freely unsubscribe from everything, I’m not sure why I didn’t do that sooner either!)

Other posts you might like:

Impromptu no spend week An expensive week at the vets Chicken update: one week on Week off fun: apple pressing, egg pickling, bread baking & bean bag making