This framework is for you if you have been trying to spend less money but you just can’t seem to stop. You know that you shouldn’t buy ‘the thing’ but you end up buying the thing anyway. You know what you need to do, but you can’t seem to DO what you need to do. Most importantly, this framework is for you if you know you need to slap yourself but you don’t know how!
How can the SLAP Framework help you?
It will help you make fewer impulse purchases and more intentional, planned, guilt-free purchases. It will help you save money so that you have more of it available for paying off debt and to be put towards your big important financial goals.
What is the SLAP Framework?
I created this system to help myself manage my spending better. At its heart this is impulse management. The SLAP framework starts when you have the impulse to buy something and will help you with the decision making process of deciding WHEN is the right time to buy the things you want and the building the discipline to wait until the right time.
I will get into the specifics in a minute, but essentially you use this each time you feel the desire to buy something discretionary, whether you are in a store, at work or at home.
Here’s how it works, if you are thinking about spending money, then S.L.A.P. yourself:
- S. Slow down
- L. List it
- A. Alternative brainstorming
- P. Procrastinate
The first step is to slow yourself down, then you write the thing you want on your purchase procrastination list, then you start thinking and brainstorming for alternatives for that thing then you commit to procrastinating the purchase. That’s the end of this framework and the decision making becomes part of the Purchase Procrastination system which is managed on a weekly and monthly basis. If you are unfamiliar with this, purchase procrastination is just determining a certain amount of time you commit to waiting between the impulse to buy something and when you buy it. Some people use the “72 hour rule” which is essentially 3 days of purchase procrastination. I like to wait until the following month so that I can include the item(s) in my next monthly budget.
Important note about self-kindness
Despite the mildly aggressive name, this is not a tool designed to punish yourself with. Many people overly suppress their “wants”, both for material things and emotional things. I have seen this cause feelings of deprivation that lead to binge spending. I do not believe that denying 100% of your wants for years at a time will help you get to your money goals faster, because it isn’t a long-term sustainable. I believe it’s better and more kind to yourself to foster a system that will help you spend responsibly on wants. It takes time and practice to build the skills required to win these mental battles, so it’s best to start building this habit now, even if you have debt to pay off.
I am morally bad for having material “wants”
From a moral standpoint, I think of it like the question “Would you talk to your best friend the way you talk to yourself?” I want you to have the things you want to have, so I try to extend myself that same grace to allow myself to buy the things I want to have (within reason). See this post if you are feeling gross about giving yourself permission to have wants.
Step #1: Slow down
Slowing ourselves down sounds so easy but in real life it can be very difficult. It’s difficult because we have to temporarily set aside the big emotions we might be facing that make us want to spend money, like excitement, anxiety, worry, fear, frustration, or anger. Slowing down can help us think through the impulse to see what is the deeper meaning behind the “want”. We may discover that anger towards our spouse leads us to want to buy things out of spite, we may be wanting to buy things to try to get a sense of control in our lives, out of loneliness or sadness, boredom, to soothe anxiety, to celebrate something fun that happened, etc.
Here are some helpful mantras to use when you’re trying to slow yourself down:
- -I will only judge myself on the ACTIONS I take, not the involuntary impulses and gut reactions I experience.
- -I will make decisions when I want to, I won’t let the external world pressure me into making a decision right now.
- -It’s okay to feel excited to buy something, wanting things doesn’t make my friends bad people so it doesn’t make me a bad person.
Struggling to slow yourself down?
Do what they recommend in anger management; count to 10. Anger management is impulse management, so it makes sense that similar strategies could be used to control impulsive spending.
Thomas Jefferson said “When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.”
I say “When excited about a purchase, count to 10, if very excited, count to one hundred.”
Don’t have 100 seconds to slow down and breathe? Let’s say you earn $20 per hour, if that 100 seconds spares you from spending $60, then you just spent 100 seconds and saved 3 hours of work which means you came out ahead by 2 hours and 58 minutes. The truth is that most of us can’t afford to make 1 second decisions about what to buy. Besides, do you really want to be someone who makes 1 second decisions? Don’t you want to be a thoughtful person who is thorough with their decision making process and efficient with their money?
Step #2: List it
Add a description of the thing you want and today’s date to your purchase procrastination list.
If you think “Oh I’ll just remember it, I don’t need to write it down.”, trust me, there is magic in writing it down beyond just remembering the thing. Besides, human memories are not very good. Most people can only remember about 3-4 things for about 20 seconds and then they will disappear from memory unless you repeat them over and over to commit them to long term memory.
Is it being kind to yourself to expect yourself to remember it?
David Allen says it so concisely in his book Getting Things Done, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” Our brains do so much for us, let’s try to make life easier for them, not harder. Let’s reduce our mental load as much as possible by writing things down.
Writing it down matters.
By using SLAP and Purchase Procrastination, you are denying yourself something right now that you want right now. Writing it down is a way to honor yourself. It’s a way to say to your brain “I hear you, you matter, I will respect you, we just have to buy things the right way.” We want to have a trusting relationship with ourselves and that means we need trust that our wants and needs will not be neglected.
Our brains know when we are trying to bullshit it.
This step of SLAP tells your conscious mind and your subconscious mind that this ‘want’ is not being swept under the rug. Writing it down reassures our brain that we will come back to this want and that it is not being ignored.
Which wants should be written down?
Write down everything that is discretionary spending; all your “wants” and non-necessities. Especially include items that you might impulse purchase. If it is truly a need, you either put it directly on your budget or just buy it. I put even small items on here like a $6 pizza cutter.
What if it’s an expensive, big “want”?
Large ticket items typically go on my annual “Goals” list instead of my Purchase Procrastination List. This is because it takes multiple months to save up for the thing so I need a separate tracking mechanism for those items (sinking funds). I use my goals to calculate my monthly savings goal dollar amount. I do make sure that amount isn’t too ambitious so that I still have some space in the monthly budget to afford these smaller “wants” from the Purch Procrast list.
Where should I keep my List?
There are many options for where to keep your list. You could write them in a paper planner, phone app, phone notes, spending notebook, spreadsheet, etc… This is really a matter of preference, you can keep it anywhere that will be easy for you to access. If you are unsure where to start, try the Notes app on your phone first.
I don’t have time to stop and write things down.
It is hard to always stop what you are doing for administrative tasks like these. For the last few years, I’ve been using David Allen’s 2 minute rule (yes, a second David Allen reference in this one blog post). He says: “If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.” For the record, I just stopped writing to see how long it would take me to add an item to the list on my phone; it took 50 seconds.
Step #3: Alternatives
Once an item is on the list, the process of looking for alternatives begins. You don’t have to wait until your weekly or monthly Purchase Procrastination review. The earlier you start, the better, because then your brain has more time to think, you have more time to shop for second hand alternatives, and there’s more opportunity for fortuitous intervention (like randomly discovering an alternative).
Example:
List item: A new water bottle because the lid on mine is starting to leak
- Alternative: I could just use the thermos in my cupboard, that I rarely use, for room temperature or ice water instead of hot liquids.
- Alternative: This probably isn’t work appropriate, but a flask could carry a bit of water if that’s all you need for your outing.
- Alternative: Using a mason jar.
Does this mean I can’t have the initial thing?
No, after the process of looking for alternatives and after the process of procrastinating, you may end up deciding that you want the initial thing you wrote down. This is just to get creative and see if we can find options to the things we want that are less expensive so that we can have what we want AND save more money.
Helpful prompts for considering alternatives:
- -What outcome am I after?
- -What is the deeper reason that I want this thing?
- -Is there another way to get this outcome?
- -How can I get the same outcome for less or for free?
- -How can I get the same outcome using what I already own?
- -What emotion am I hoping to feel when I buy this thing?
If you are struggling to find your deeper reasons, you can play the “Why game”. The Why game is that thing kids do when they keep asking you “Why” over and over again. Just by going a level deeper each time you may discover some surprising insights into what you are really after.
Oh look, a distraction…
At this point, beginning to think about alternatives serves a dual purpose. First, it is important work that needs to be done to optimize the most happiness out of the money you have. Secondarily, it serves as a distraction. Instead of thinking about how much you want the thing or how excited you are about the item, you are now thinking about what you value and why, and then you start using the logical part of your brain to solve the calculation of “how can I get this thing another way”.
What if I can’t think of any alternatives?
If you can’t think of any alternatives, then the internet can come to your rescue. A quick Google search for alternatives is a great tool that I use for myself and my clients all the time.
Here are some of the web searches I’ve done:
- -”Alternatives to …”
- -“Substitutes for…”
- -”What can I use if I don’t have a …”
Step #4: Procrastinate
Reaffirm your commitment to procrastinate purchases.
It’s a good time to think about your goal and your “why” statement or whatever is motivating you to get your finances in order. Let the desire for the big goal cast a shadow on the desire for the little thing. For example, sure it would be cool to have a pizza cutter that isn’t so wobbly, but the thing I want most right now is to pay off debt and feel financially secure so we’ll have to wobble for a while longer.
Prompts to help you with this step:
- -What is the absolute worst thing(s) that will happen if you wait to buy it until the next budget cycle/month?
- -Is there anything you could do to mitigate those consequences of waiting?
- -Will someone die if I wait to buy this for 30 days? (I know this is dramatic, but sometimes I’m being dramatic, and have to fight drama with drama)
What do you do while you are waiting to buy it?
You continue to look for alternatives and prioritize the items on your list against each other. You don’t have to rank every item on your list since that can be a bit time consuming, but I would recommend ranking the top 1-5 most important purchases and marking the rest as “Lower priority”. You can ask yourself “Which of these things do I want to buy NEXT?” How you decide to value and prioritize items is highly personal so try not to judge yourself negatively if you value things differently than the people around you or society at large.
Objections
What if I miss out on a sale because I procrastinated the purchase?
I love a sale, I love feeling like I’ve outsmarted everyone to get an item for the least money. And while it is good to buy things on sale I would have bought anyway, the reason that companies have sales is because THEY make money on them. They don’t have sales to be kind to me, it’s a way to trick me into buying more things. So we have to be careful when shopping to not let sales get the better of us.
Work towards creating an abundance mindset with regards to sales. It’s been pretty rare that I’ve gone shopping and there are 0 sales or discounts available. So it’s helpful when I remind myself that if it’s on sale now, it will probably still be on sale 3 weeks from now when I get my new budget.
Reframe the sale. Think of a sale like this; for a $100 item that’s 40% off, “I’m not really saving $40, I’m really spending $60”. This has been helpful for me since it brings focus back onto the spending of money which is the action I’m trying to manage better.
Demonize the sale-r
By avoiding sales I get to stick it to the man. Hitting them where it hurts, in their corporate profits. This is a little rebellious thought that helps me enjoy saying “No” a little bit more.
What if I never get to buy it because it becomes sold out or discontinued?
Sometimes things are on sale because they are going to be discontinued. I have on occasion had an item on my purchase procrastination list be discontinued, having gone back to the store and discovered the thing wasn’t there. And honestly, it was a bummer! Now, I couldn’t actually come up with an example of this because it’s also true that it wasn’t anything of real importance, items like a cute shirt or dress. So I try to find solace in telling myself that “If it’s not available when I can afford to buy it, then it wasn’t meant to be.” I also think “If it was super important and relevant to my life then why did I only find the thing right before it was discontinued? Wouldn’t I have come across it when it first came out or during my weekly ‘What do I want most?’ prompt?” If this happens, it’s likely you can find something similar and you may even find something you like more, so start looking for an alternative.
Besides, on more than one occasion, when I went back to buy the thing I discovered that it’s on even MORE of a sale than it was before! $$$ So yes, it is a bit of a gamble to wait on a sale item, but the rewards outweigh the cost.
Final thoughts
Stop trying to go from ‘want’ to ‘don’t want’
Just like how we can go from negative thinking to neutral thinking instead of going all the way from negative thinking to positive thinking, we also don’t have to go all the way from “want” to “don’t want”. Most of the time, I go from “want” to “neutral”. Do I want this thing now? It goes from “I love this” to “I like this” to “meh”. The things on my list very rarely go all the way into the “I absolutely hate this and would be absolutely pissed if someone bought it for me”. So don’t go into this thinking you have to train yourself to hate the things you once wanted, you just have to get to the neutral middle. Once you are in the neutral middle, then you can reason with yourself because you have returned to the logical brain instead of being in the emotional brain. From there you can prioritize it against the other things you want and against your financial goals.
Replace “No” with “Not yet”
It’s difficult to tell yourself “No” when you want to buy something So replace “No” with “Not yet” Tell yourself: “Now isn’t the right time to buy this since my top goal is getting my finances in order” “I AM giving myself what I really want; financial security”.
The SLAP framework is about giving yourself the space and time to find the RIGHT TIME to buy the things you want most. It’s to ensure responsible spending so you can buy the things you want AND feel good about it (guilt-free) AND so that you can buy more of the things you want most because you are minimizing impulse spending which frees up money to be used towards your bigger goals.
So don’t wait, start giving yourself a SLAP today!