You will be able to set up a few frictions that put time between wanting something and buying it.
Shopping and delivery apps are built to remove every step between wanting something and having it. To stop buying on impulse, put a few of those steps back. A friction is a step you add between wanting something and buying it, so your judgement has time to catch up. It won't stop you buying something you truly want.
Here's an invented scenario. At 11.40pm you get a notification. A flash sale has two hours left, and there's an extra 15% off with a voucher that expires at midnight. Your card is already saved in the app. Three taps later you've bought a S$68 jacket, and at no point did you really decide to. Impulse purchases often happen like this, with no real decision, because nothing stands between wanting and buying. The four frictions below are time, effort, visibility of small charges, and fewer prompts to spend.
The first friction is time. A waiting rule means that before you buy anything unplanned, you wait a set period first. A common approach is to wait a day for small purchases and a week for larger ones, with a money threshold separating the two.
Wei Ling, the course's example person, sets her line at S$100. An unplanned item under S$100 waits until tomorrow, and anything over S$100 waits a week. When she wants something, she adds it to the cart or a wish list and closes the app. After the wait, she buys it only if she still wants it and it fits her budget.
Most impulse purchases don't survive the wait, because the urge came from the moment: a sale timer, boredom, a tired evening. By the next day, a fair share of those wants look unnecessary. The items that are still there after the wait are usually things you actually want, and buying them is fine.
Set your threshold to match your own budget. If you spend S$200 a month on shopping (an example figure), S$100 may be too high for you, and S$30 is a more sensible line.
The second friction is effort. With a saved card, paying takes one tap. Without one, you have to find your wallet, type the 16 digits and the expiry date, and wait for an authentication code. That takes about a minute, which is enough time to ask yourself whether you need the item.
Go through the apps you spend in most and delete the saved cards, then delete the saved payment details in your browser. You can keep cards saved in apps you use for planned spending, such as groceries. The aim is to add a step where your impulse buying happens, without making every purchase a chore.
The third friction is visibility. Some spending doesn't feel like spending because each piece is tiny. Small charges are delivery fees, small-order fees, platform fees, service charges, and top-ups added to reach free delivery, such as an extra S$5 added to cross the threshold. None of them seems worth thinking about, so they add up.
For one month, track these as their own category. Tag every delivery fee, platform fee and service charge on your receipts or statements separately from the food or item itself, then look at the monthly total.
Wei Ling did this. In one month she paid S$46 in delivery fees, small-order fees and platform fees (example figures), plus S$28 of extra items added to reach free delivery. That's S$46 + S$28 = S$74 in a month, and it bought her almost nothing she wanted. Seeing the total was enough to change her habit. She now orders less often, places larger orders shared with her flatmate, or picks up on her way home.
You don't need to keep tracking forever. One month shows you how big the category is, and that is usually enough, so you can stop after that.
The fourth friction is removing the prompts to spend. Sale emails, app notifications and promotional messages are designed to start purchases you hadn't planned. Each one is small, but together they add up to dozens of nudges to spend every week.
Unsubscribe from sale emails sent by shops you buy from only occasionally. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and most take two clicks. In your shopping and delivery apps, turn off promotional notifications, or move the apps off your home screen so you open them only on purpose. Pay particular attention around the big sale days, 9.9, 11.11 and 12.12, because those sales run on urgency.
With these in place you still buy things, but you buy them when you have decided to, rather than when an app prompts you.
Think about your own week and the moments when you most often buy on impulse, then choose the two frictions that would interrupt those moments.
Pick two frictions to set up this week and write down your waiting rule for small and large purchases.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).