Easy Way to Stay In-Budget While Online Shopping

I, poor just-out-of-college student that I am (Can I still call myself a student? Can I still use my student discounts? Good question. I sure hope so.) have recently found that it is far too easy to get into online shopping. At first, you peruse...y'know just to look...and then maybe to add a few things to your cart...and then maybe to check out...and then..suddenly you've spent $90 on t-shirts. Or...is that just what I'm afraid of?

Either way, the #1 easiest way I save money when shopping online is a really simple two steps.

Step 1: Sort the page you're viewing by price, lowest to highest.
This way, you don't even have to see the high-priced stuff, and can't be tempted. What I don't know (at least when it comes to extra items when online shopping...) can't hurt me.

Hrm. I realize this photo doesn't show pricing.
Which kind of defeats the purpose of said photo.
But I promise, they're sorted by price!

Step 2: Set a price ceiling.
After sorting by price, I decide to cut myself off at a certain limit. If I'm looking at skirts, I'll promise myself I'll stop looking at anything over $40 (for example) at this particular retailer. That way, as I'm scrolling down, once I hit $39.99 I simply back away slowly and ignore the pretty, yet pricier, items. If nothing fits the bill below my price limit, I just move on. Of course, I break this sometimes, and set different price limits depending on the store, the quality of the item I'm looking for, and how essential it is to my wardrobe, but in general, the rule works pretty well.


I like using websites like Retailmenot.com, which aggregate coupons and discount codes for you to search for and use at your favorite stores.

Another thing to be aware of is how much more easily we part with our money when we use credit cards as opposed to cash. This study out of MIT shows that willingness-to-pay can be increased significantly when customers use credit cards instead of cash. I think I'm going to try going to stores with only cash on hand and seeing how well this works for me!