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Sales 2021: Ideas that help you buy smartly
Psychology
Normally, it is the people who tend to buy frequently who are the most likely to get carried away by this phenomenon of discounts.
The arrival of January sales is synonymous with the fact that Christmas is over. Many wait for the first discounts of the year to give gifts while others consider these price reductions as an opportune moment of compulsive consumerism in which they do not want to fall. In any case, the important thing for psychology experts is knowing how to buy “wisely.”
«The type of person who buys in time of sales you don’t necessarily have to be a compulsive shopper. However, it is true that for people with this type of problem, the sales period can be an important trigger when it comes to triggering such behavior, ”says Beatriz Gil Torres, a psychologist at the Cepsim psychological center. Normally, it is the people who tend to buy frequently who are more likely to get carried away by this phenomenon. However, the expert warns that there are also people who do not tend to buy in excess during the year and “prefer to concentrate all their purchases in these small spaces.”
During these sales, which this year will be affected by the sanitary restrictions imposed on businesses by the pandemic, the OCU warns that the products displayed in the discounts They must have been part of the establishment’s usual offer for at least a month and their quality must not be different from the usual one.
Gifts to yourself?
And although when these discounts appear we take the opportunity to give gifts, many times they are the perfect excuse to give ourselves and preserve ourselves. Beatriz Gil Torres assures that the act of planning the purchase process produces feeling of inner satisfaction immediately: “Depending on the type of behavior and its severity, the person may not become aware until later (when he sees the bank statement or when it is discovered by a relative) or regret it shortly after having bought it.”
For this reason, the expert in psychology advises stopping I deserve it or I have earned it are phrases that could be related to self-care. For example, “I deserve to be loved” or “I deserve to be treated well just because I am me.” However, they sometimes become double-edged weapons, since they are mantras that can be said to justify such behavior (and consequently feel less guilt) and that, put in that context, are void of therapeutic content.
Unlike the occasional shopper, the compulsive shopper does feel guilt: The compulsive shopper does feel guilt, but it is a complicated emotion that is not always expressed as such. Sometimes it hurts so much that we disconnect from the feeling or use justifying phrases so as not to feel bad. In therapy, the term of responsibility is used since it is just as problematic and limiting to disconnect from this emotion as it is to settle in it, ”says Beatriz Gil Torres.
When shopping is compulsive
A compulsive shopper, as its name suggests, is a person, generally with impulsive traits, who uses the behavior of shopping as a form of emotional regulation, although psychology experts say that deciding about a person’s emotional stability based on that trait it’s complicated. However, the behavior of the person in question becomes problematic when such behavior is incompatible with your day to day; It is not the same to spend more than expected in discounts and buy something you do not need, to miss work because you have an urgent need to buy.
This pathology, as the Cepsim center psychologist explains, in addictive behaviors is reflected differently in each of the people who suffer from it: “On the other hand, there are common characteristics, such as spending excessive time fantasizing or planning to carry out the purchase, symptoms of anxiety, nervousness or other alterations in the state of mind if it cannot be carried out and inability or difficulty to regulate emotionally if the purchase action has not been carried out.