How to Overcome your online shopping urges Using GCash
March 28
Online shopping has opened up a whole new type of convenience for consumers. With online shopping portals such as Lazada, Shopee, Amazon, among others, consumers can find products that they cannot find in their local brick-and-mortar stores.
Besides, you can easily do the shopping just with your fingertips. The products will be delivered right to your doorsteps. Another advantage is you can always find low-priced products on these platforms.
Greetings, dearest readers! It's almost payday once again. Are now ready for another Payday sale at Shopee and Lazada? Low-price and shopping convenience! What else can you ask for? Well, let's hope we get good-quality products despite the prices. Are your wallets ready? Mine is almost. I learned from experience that I have some control over my experience if I use my GCash to pay for my online shopping than paying through Cash-on-delivery. That's what I am going to share with you today.
Cash-on-delivery payment.
I used to pay using the cash-on-delivery payment scheme. The problem is you will never know when the items will arrive. There was a time I bought three items from three different sellers from Shopee and one or two weeks later, another from Lazada. Since some of the items I bought from Shopee were coming from overseas, it took some time to arrive.
Then in one week. Two items arrived on the same day and another one the following day. My budget for the week was depleted in just two days! I asked myself,
"Why did I not set aside the amount for those items?"
I think I did. But since it took some time to arrive, I used those amounts before the items arrived.
Have you experienced something similar?
Disclaimer.
Before anything else, a little disclaimer.
This is not a piece of financial advice. I cannot guarantee that the methods I will share here will work with you or not. What I will share here is based only on my experience. However, the idea might be useful to you.
Also, I used this method in Shopee and my GCash. Thus, this is most applicable for Philippine users. However, GCash is an online e-wallet or debit card. Thus, any e-wallet or debit card may be applicable to your shopping platform.
Using GCash and Shopee Pay.
Since it's summer here in the Philippines, I expect that we will be doing a lot of outings. It's been two years since we have not enjoyed summer because of the pandemic. I thought of buying each of my kids a pair of aqua shoes. So I looked for some on Shopee. However, the store that I found does not allow COD payment. So I let the product stay in my shopping cart for a while.
I'm not fond of linking my GCash to any other platform for security reasons. My son, who always borrows my phone might accidentally purchase something. To avoid such, I added my GCash to the list of protected apps. It now requires my fingerprint or pin before anybody can open my GCash.
Anyway, Shopee does not automatically deduct the amount from GCash without the owner's confirmation.
How to Control Your Online Shopping
Paying through COD is convenient. However, controlling your budget may be another story. Unless you can set aside your online shopping budget apart from your other budgets.
Just as I was using two physical wallets and bitcoin cash wallets, I now realized that I must also have another wallet for my online expenses. And that would be my GCash.
Normally I use GCash to pay for my phone bill. Now I have to use it to control my online shopping as well.
To that, here are a couple of things that I need to do.
(Optional) Identify the source of your online shopping budget.
Set aside a monthly budget.
Buy only what is needed!
Monitor your expenses.
Source of my online shopping budget
As some of you already know, I only work part-time as a teacher. Almost half of my monthly income is from my earnings here in readcash and noisecash. My income from my part-time job is already set for the basic and other necessary expenses. Most of my online income is used to pay for my telephone bills, monthly mortgage for that piece of property that I bought, and my BCH savings. And now I will also include my online shopping budget. Thus I can ensure that I will not use my salary from my part-time job for online shopping.
Monthly Budget.
I'm not an extravagant buyer. As much as possible I avoid any expensive brands. Like, I don't buy a pair of shoes that costs more than P2,000. For sure, I don't want to use the same pair of shoes for more than two years. I once bought a previously-loved pair of shes worth $5. But it looked brand new and it lasted me three years.
Anyways, I can start with a thousand pesos budget for my online shopping. This March, I only spent about P700. So I have a savings of about P300. Next time I will put those savings in my CIMB bank, which is an online bank. When I need to buy something worth more than P1,000. I will take it out from my CIMB bank.
Buy Only What is Needed.
For sure, I don't need to buy a new pair of shoes every month. For me, my definition of need is--- things that can help me become more productive. Like the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse set. I used them to compose my articles using my phone or tablet when I am mobile. I don't want to carry my laptop around.
I also buy some things for my kids that will help keep them away from using their cell phones.
Monitor your Expenses.
This is the most important part. Always monitor your expenses. Then learn how you spend your money, and improve your budgeting skills.
In Closing
Online shopping is quite convenient. However, I heard some complaints from several people I know that they have already spent their salaries a few days or even a week before the next pay date because of online shopping.
Whatever method you use, what is needed is discipline and monitoring. Without these two, it is more likely that you will be overspending each month. Don't be a slave to commercialism and control your expenses.
Live a simple and abundant life
Thanks for reading.
Previous Posts
Check out my other posts in Read.Cash
Check out my other Articles in Publish0x.com
Join me in ForumCoin.Com
Follow me in Noise.cash
Follow me on Twitter
Online shopping can be really tempting. Self-control and setting our priorities right helps a lot really. thanks for the tips tho, it is helpful because sometimes when our salary arrives we feel like we have a lot of money and check out our wants without thinking.