I distinctly remember a shopping trip a few years ago when I hadn’t even made it to the car with my bags and I had buyer’s remorse.  Ironically, I don’t even remember what I’d bought—but I still remember the nebulous feeling of guilt as I checked out.    It felt terrible—a heavy pit of coldness that started in my stomach and spread to the rest of me.   

Buyer’s Remorse Isn’t Always the Result of a Poor Choice

I had always just assumed that if I felt buyer’s remorse, I had made a bad purchasing choice.  The other day my coach helped me notice something important.   Sometimes our feeling of remorse lets us know that we have violated our own values. But sometimes our feelings of remorse are just unnecessary thoughts about ourselves or our spending.  

Knowing when buyer’s remorse is helpful and when it isn’t can help us feel it less often.  It can also help us recognize when we need to change our behavior and when we simply need to change our thinking.    

There is a simple question we can ask ourselves to determine whether our buyer’s remorse is helpful:  “Would I buy it again if I was in the same circumstance?

Would You Spend It Again?

Let me give a couple of recent examples of how I used this question to determine whether my buyer’s remorse was helpful.  In both cases I had buyer’s remorse; I spent outside of my budget, and spent about the same amount of money.  But, my answer to the question was different and so was the outcome.

Helpful Buyer’s Remorse

One afternoon I was doing some shopping on-line.  I needed a couple of winter clothing items and I had some money in my budget to buy them. As I looked around, I realized there were three things I really wanted, but only had enough for two in my budget. I bought three anyway planning to send back on of them when I got them.  

The clothing arrived. And, luckily…and unluckily they all fit, and I liked all three items.  I knew I should send one back to keep to my budget.  But, I didn’t want to.  I rationalized that it was such a pain to send them back.  And, I liked them.  But, I didn’t enjoy the sweaters as much as I had hoped;  I always felt a little guilty for spending more than my budget when I saw them or wore them.  

Would I buy all three of them again?  No.  I wouldn’t.  Buying more clothes than I needed, just for fun wasn’t consistent with what I wanted in the long run.  The remorse was an important indicator that I had violated my own best interests.  In this case, the remorse was helpful.  I could see that I wanted to change my spending pattern next time.   

Unhelpful Buyer’s Remorse

Clothing isn’t the only thing that has tempted my budget.  My daughter had some items she wanted for her birthday.  We ordered them, but they didn’t arrive in time.  We were all disappointed.  I know her birthday is important to her and I wanted to have gifts for her to open.  However, I had already spent my birthday budget for her.

I went to the store and purchased a few additional items.  I had a lot of fun thinking about her and picking them out but I also felt guilty for spending more than my budget—especially when I knew that we would be getting her gifts in a few days.  She loved the gifts and it did make the birthday a lot more happy for her.  

In this case, when I asked myself if I would do the same thing if I was in the situation again, my answer was yes.  Although it went against my desire to stay in my budget, my desire to create a happy birthday for my daughter was a more important value to me.  As I recognized this—I was able to see that in this case, my buyer’s remorse was just letting me know that I valued two conflicting things I decided to let go of the guilt and be proud of my purchase. 

Buyer’s Remorse Is Just an Indicator

In both cases, I spent outside my budget.  In both cases, I spent about the same amount of money.  However, in one case remorse was helpful because I realized I wanted to change.  In the other case, remorse was just a needless way of flagellating myself when I WAS spending consistently with my values.  

Prevention Is Better

While it’s helpful to recognize if buyer’s remorse is helpful or not, it’s even better not to have it to begin with.  There is a simple way to have less buyer’s remorse.  It’s not to stop shopping.  It’s not even to stick to your budget 100% of the time.  It’s to pay attention to how you feel when you are purchasing something. This is an important portent to how you will likely feel later.  

How to Have Less Buyer’s Remorse:

Our feelings about our purchases tend to parallel the feelings we had when we made them.

When we buy something from a perspective of lack—in other words we buy something hoping to feel better, ironically we will usually end up regretting the purchase.  It might provide a dopamine hit temporarily, but in the long run we often make poor decisions from this place and we doubt the decisions we made.     

In contrast when we start from a positive place of gratitude and abundance our long-term feelings about our purchases tend to reflect these types of feelings as well.  I have experienced buying in both types of mindsets—in fact I’ve experienced both types of mindsets buying the same types of items with very different results.  

Buying from a Scarcity Mindset

We know we are in a lack mindset when we feel emotions such as anxiety, inadequacy, desperateness, fear or confusion.

I can remember being in the aisle at Target looking for bins to organize my house and feeling overwhelmed, and unsure about what to get.  I was thinking things like, “The house is such a mess, I’ve got to get organized.  I’m going to find some bins to organize with.  Should I get the cheap ones which cost less but will break quicker?  Or spend more but get better quality?  I don’t know.  I don’t want to regret this.”  And as you can guess, I DID regret my purchase.  

Buying from an Abundance Mindset

A different time I purchased some organization bins for my house from a more abundant mindset.  We are in an abundance mindset when we feel feelings such as gratitude, love, abundance, hope and curiosity.  

I was in the same Target bin aisle thinking, “I’m getting organized!  There is so much selection and so many possibilities to choose from.  I’m looking excited to get these bins.”  And I loved those bins, I loved the organization they provided.  And I didn’t feel guilty.  

How to Predict the Future

How you feel before you purchase something can be a powerful indicator of how you will feel about it a few days or weeks or months afterwards.  Our feelings help us know if we will end up regretting our purchase later.  This doesn’t mean we should pretend to feel a certain way when we don’t—it means if we don’t feel abundant we may want to recognize that the purchase won’t be in our best interest, or at least we should wait to make a purchase.  

How to Determine If Buyer’s Remorse is Helpful

Ask:  Would I buy this again?

How to Avoid Buyer’s Remorse

Ask:  How am I feeling?   Don’t buy if you’re in a scarcity mindset.