Money Saving Expert (MSE), founded by Martin Lewis, is encouraging shoppers to carry a free wallet-sized card designed to help them make better purchasing decisions. The Money Mantras card, available free from the money-saving site, aims to reduce spending regrets and save money.
How the Money Mantras card works
The card has two sides - one for when you are short of money and one for when you are not. Shoppers print it off, keep it in a purse or wallet, and flip it to match their financial situation before making a purchase. Each side lists questions to ask before buying.
For those who are skint, the card prompts: do you need it, and can you afford it? If the answer to both is 'no', put it back on the shelf. For those who are not skint, the questions are: will you use it, and is it worth it? If the answer is 'no', remove it from your basket.
Martin Lewis on avoiding impulse purchases
Lewis admitted that the hardest question to self-assess is 'will I use it?', which he linked to what economists call Opportunity Cost. He posed the example of a £300 dress used once versus spending the same money on items used more often.
Directing people to an MSE blog he wrote in 2010, Lewis explained that early in his career he was asked to devise a 'Martin's Money Mantra' for a television programme. After failing to create one simple spending panacea, he ended up with two sets of questions because different scenarios require different approaches.
Practical tip and how to get the card
Lewis recalled a shopping trip with a friend who couldn't decide between two pairs of leather boots - one at £40 and the other at £110. He held £70 in cash next to the cheaper pair to show the real difference, though his friend still chose the more expensive boots. He joked, "you can't win 'em all".
The free card can be printed in colour or black-and-white and cut to the size of a credit card so it fits in a wallet or purse.
