Have you ever made a regrettable purchase?

Sometimes we spend our money and then regret it straight away, and other times it's a slow realisation that we will never get our money's worth.

Some of the places that I (and my friends and family) have made regrettable purchases:

• online shopping after a couple of drinks
• purchased an online course but never even logged in
• bought a cute dress but it doesn't fit
• bought a triple scoop icecream when probably one scoop would have done nicely
• paid for a lesson and never booked it in
• bought a big watermelon and never got to eat it before it went bad (even though it was in the fridge for a month)
• got talked into adding fries to the order, but then felt sick after eating them.
• that tin of chilli sitting in the back of my cupboard

There's so many times that I have purchased things I didn't really need, didn't use, or only used half of.

Unfortunately, we get told we shouldn't waste things.  So then we hold on to them for longer than we should, and then it clutters up our space and our mind.

Have a good look at what you are holding on to, that may be holding up space that you don't need.

The online shopping & cute dress - can you sell it to someone else or donate it?  Maybe you can recoup some of your costs.

The course or lesson - are you still interested in learning it?  Yes? Then book it into your diary for 1 hour per week, and start working on it slowly.  If it's not something you are interested in any more, then the money is already gone, and you can let it go.  View it as a learning experience that you paid for, instead of the actual course.

The icecream - share it with someone, or just throw the cone in the bin (or share with your dog!)  It's OK to not eat it all, if the $3 extra that you spent is going to make you feel sick.

The watermelon - fruit - veggies - any sort of food, including leftovers... if you want to eat it, put a plan in place to eat it.  Otherwise it will go bad.  If you don't want to eat it, then that's OK.  

Adding fries is a genuine sales technique that takes some practice to say "no thankyou" to.  It genuinely seems like a better deal to pay $0.50 for a large fries.  But if you don't want them, you shouldn't be buying them (unless you have a couple of teenagers in the back seat like I normally do!).  Just eat what you want.  The garbage truck driver will not knock on your door to ask why you didn't eat them all.

And finally, that regrettable can of chilli.  You know the one - you bought as a joke and now you have to sit there looking at it in your cupboard for months. Mine was there for over a year.  Looking, regretting.  I was going to donate it but nobody wanted it.  So I threw it out. 
The world didn't burn.
I didn't get told off for throwing canned food in the bin.
I threw away a $3 can of food that I spent over an hour looking at over the whole year, regretting that I purchased it.

Money management is not just about not spending money.

It is also about what you think about your money and what you have and haven't spent it on.

It's about what you do with what you buy.  If there's a time limit, you might want to set a plan to use it.  

And you are allowed to be kind to yourself.   You don't have to sell, donate or arrange another person to collect your unwanted stuff (although if you want to, you definitely can!).   You are allowed to throw out something that will free up your head space to think about other things.

Jump in the facebook group and let us know what your regrettable purchase is.