Most people wish they had more money for decorating. I would argue you can find more money in what you are already spending. A good place to start is making sure you love it before you buy it.
Buyer’s remorse, missing a return deadline, and ultimately living with things you bought, but don’t like is a waste of money.
Imagine confidently choosing things you love
that will have staying power in your home.
Things with staying power will stand the test of time, you will always find a spot for them, and you’ll never give them that sideways I-never-should-have-bought-you glare.
When you buy things with staying power, confident you’ll love them for a long time to come, then you’ll spend less money decorating in the long run. And that goes for big and small purchases. It’s easy to think a few dollars here and there on decor you might not totally love isn’t so bad. But all those little impulse purchases add up in more ways than one.
Think back over the past year of all the little stuff you bought on impulse, because it was a good deal, or because you just liked it at the time. If you hadn’t spent the money on all those little things, how much money would you have to spend on something you really wanted?
Let’s do the math:
Even $25 a month on random things, adds up to $300
you could have put toward things you really wanted.
The other way the bad buys add up is filling your home with things you don’t love. You loved the sale price or using a coupon or the power of making a purchase, but none of those translates directly to something you will love at home. Instead of a home filled with things with staying power, your home is filled with things you got for 50% off or two for one or when you had a bad day and wanted retail therapy.
That’s not to say you cant find things with staying power at a great price. But price shouldn’t be the main driver for bringing any thing home with you. I think you should go through a few other checks before you even look at the price tag.
I call it “The Pre-Purchase Test”. It’s so important that I devoted a whole chapter to it in my book Free Decorating. Find out how to really make sure you love it before you bring it home. Check out Free Decorating here.
I like the name 3 places that you could put the item. It really is amazing how great it is having a cohesive color scheme throughout the house(shout out to you, Jackie, for making that happen!!:) ) because you really can mix and match things up and move things into different rooms.
Diana, So glad you love it. Being able to mix and match and move things around keeps things interesting without always having to buy new stuff. When I created all of your mood board designs, I sourced all at once for all the things that worked together, then I split them out into the different rooms. Sometimes I had to make a hard call of what would go where, but I knew you’d be able to move stuff around between rooms later.
I need to think about the three places rule as we’ll… So often I find something I love for the coffee table but in my house, it almost instantly gets pushed aside by my husband for the view of the tv. If I had other places to put the item, there might be more places it could go besides the basement…
I’m going shopping sometime in the near future. I’d redone a small bedroom with a long blank wall of a menagerie of a few old photos, crewel embroidery from an antique store, a trio of small varied shaped PB mirrors, empty frames….it just seemed too much. I think I’d added too much. Since I’m redoing the room a bit, my daughter ( whose room it was) and I talked about never seeing that gallery unless in bed!! So I’d love to see if I can find an old flat antique mirror or maybe new…but today I will think about what I’d like to do–and not do–on a wall of emptiness where there is no furniture because the room is too narrow! Yet empty is too ” I forgot you” look. I’m looking forward to the redesign. Or possibly putting up just a few items and not the whole–which were mostly non purchases. But I will make sure that I can return wherever I buy because I’ve learned my biggest buyers remorse was custom made and never returnable.
I have become a chronic impulse buyer to the point where my house needs serious Decluttering.
For the past week when I’ve gone shopping- This post gave me the tools I needed to help overcome my impulse buying habits! Prior to reading this I otherwise would have bought things that have no real purpose or function in my home.
So THANKYOU THANKYOU!!!!!
Thank goodness I stumbled across your blog! WOW! Sooo many great reads I can easily relate to. <3 <3