‘We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.’ – Tyler Durden, Fight Club.
Impulse purchases are a risk to us all.
Impulse purchases are something the western world has sold to us as completely normal.
It is now normal to go on shopping hauls, buying clothes we might wear someday, or for kitchen items not needed, but because we were tricked into thinking otherwise.
Minimalism is, in many ways, an attempt to move away from this transaction, by asking the question ‘are you enough without this item?’ Minimalism asks, ‘why did you need this item, when ten minutes ago, you had no idea of its existence and therefore no need to have the thing in your life.’
Minimalism is the practice of restraint in your life.
It is about being able to ask the question of where truly enough starts and ends. The question it poses is ‘do I need actually need this, be content in life?’
It does not mean living like a monk (although you can be both monk and minimalist) but living a life where you can identify what is already enough.
Impulse purchases, as far as I remember them, were on the high streets by the mid-1990s.
Being a kid on a Saturday morning with my pocket money, going into shops and buying things for entertainment. Toy guns. N64 video games. Action man figures. The occasional book.
We were tricked as children into really wanting these items.
Thirty years later, the impulse purchase scene is officially terrifying.
It is so easier to simply sit on your sofa, scroll through your phone and build a basket of shopping for stuff you think you need, that you more than likely just want. You do not need to leave the house. You do not need to call someone to make an order.
Just scroll and click.
And where we must find the key difference between needs and wants.
What is a need?
A necessity that without which, you cannot work at 100% functionality. Water. Food. Shelter. Some clothing. A few adaptions might be made for 2026 – a working phone, some electricity and a form of transport.
And then we arrive at the wants, which is vast and unending list.
That new iPhone. The second car. Numerous pieces of clothing for different and far between occasions. That fancy kitchen gadget that you break out for special events. Pieces of furniture and the numerous smart devices in your house. Various fragrances. Maybe even the second house/holiday home?
The list can be never ending.
And impulse purchases are designed in 2026 to make you feel that without this new item, that you are incomplete, worthless and not achieving what you want or who you wish to be in life.
It is the most convincing, well thought out, monetarily backed, marketed scam that anyone has ever designed.
I offer several methods of resistance to this, but before I continue, I will state I am not against consumerism or strictly speaking, capitalism.
I am against compulsory consumerism. I am against an absence of discipline.
Shopping without thought, reason or care. Acting without interrogating if these things we bring into our homes and lives, that we use our money for in this cash for flesh and time world, are worth it.
It is by bringing these critical questions to the forefront that we might start to ask in the first place – is this purchase a need or a want?
Worse – is it an implanted desire, created by a marketing system into confusing the two, blurring your own lines of reason and tricking you into thinking, every day, that without these items, you are not fulfilled?
But where we must draw the line is by understanding the difference between the needs and the wants, but also what I believe is the in-between.
That is to say there are things that often are actual needs but come at different levels. It is not night and day.
Call it a hierarchy.
For example, the t-shirts we own. A necessity, right? And then run the maths, from a Uniqlo t-shirt to an Armani t-shirt and the cost between the two. One is a necessity and one is a luxury. Both unavoidably cost money, but which one adds true value for you? Which is both the need and want?
The answer will be different for all of us, and that is where we need to narrow it down. Take the same approach from Primark jeans and Levis. My answer might surprise you and yours might surprise yourself.
A phone to navigate this world (latest iPhone or three generations down?) A computer (Latest Macbook Pro or a budget Acer?) A roof over your head (Mansion or tiny house?) A vehicle to travel in (Aston Martin or Peugeot 107?) A photo frame that contains loved ones or desk to work on. (etc, etc)
All of these things are both necessities and wants. It depends on where you meet them and what you want from your life.
And back to the danger of impulse purchases. 15 t-shirts is a good number and a low-cost, high-quality option if you want it to be. I shouldn’t imagine you need more. That is two-week worth supply that should carry you nicely.
Yet the impulse purchases are where this goes from being practical to having a hoard of expensive clutter. All because someone, somewhere that you never met, tricked you into thinking you were not enough on your own.
Beware the absence of discipline and compulsory consumerism. Beware the impulse purchases.
Author’s note: At some stage, I intend to follow this essay up with thoughts on compound interest with purchases. Not just how long they last for a cheap price. But those items that are expensive, costing you time, money and energy to maintain. Stay tuned.