Clothes swapping bonanza

News just in:

The UK’s first ever National Clothes Swapping Week (organised by www.Bigwardrobe.com, the Internet’s biggest clothes swapping website) started last Friday - to coincide with London Fashion Week. Fashion fans everywhere are being urged to dig out their unwanted items and list them on Bigwardrobe.com for the busiest and most successful week of clothes swapping in history! The founders of Bigwardrobe.com hope to show people that you don’t have to travel to a fashion capital like London or Paris or Milan - or even spend a single penny - to be 100% on-trend. Happy swapping xxxhttp://www.bigwardrobe.com

Clothes swapping is a great concept -- good for the environment and great for the purse, it offers fashionistas the novelty we crave when we buy something new without the price tag. If you'd like to know more about clothes swapping in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, please go to the Clothing Exchange website.

The Inspired eBayer

The world may be divided into two types of people – those who use and love eBay, and those who don’t. Many of my friends and family swear by eBay. It’s fun to sift through the many categories, never knowing what treasure you might unearth. But it is an online auction and auctions can be addictive, because of the high you get just from bidding on an item and the even greater high if you’re successful. Here are a few tips to help you get the most from online auctions like eBay and avoid overspending:

Use a debit card rather than a credit card to purchase goods. If you must use a credit card, use one that has a very low limit, for example $500. Alternatively, if you're concerned about buying too many goods on eBay that aren't on your Priority List, create an eBay ‘fund’, only using money you make selling your unwanted goods on eBay to buy any eBay items that aren't on your List.

It may sound obvious to some, but it's important before you start bidding to gauge the suitability of items you're planning to buy. For example, a three-seater couch in club lounge style could be much longer than the couch that you would like it to replace, even if your couch is also a three-seater. You therefore need to get as much information as you can from the seller, including detailed measurements and any other specifications that will help you decide. Writing out a list of your questions in advance helps you avoid sending multiple emails! And to help you decide on how the colour of a decor or furniture item will look in the relevant room, try to find a big piece of material in a similar colour and drape it around the room.

Given that you can’t see and touch the goods you buy on eBay (unless you’re able to inspect the item beforehand), your intuition is more vital than ever when deciding whether to purchase something, and how much you’re willing to pay. Setting a limit in advance on the amount you’re willing to pay for an item you’re interested in will help you avoid being swayed by other bidders’ agendas and the excitement of the bidding process – a technique for doing this is given below. If you’d rather be spontaneous, stay aware of how your intuition is responding in the bidding process.

Remember that a bargain is only a bargain if it’s something you truly want and need. Sociologist Sharon Zukin (Point of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American Culture, 2004, Routledge), suggests that much of the excitement we get from searching for goods on eBay is the feeling that we’re on ‘a heroic quest’, searching for hidden treasure and asserting our individuality – the more amateurish the presentation of the item listing, the more we feel we’ve found something authentic. She suggests that, in our minds, the objects we find ‘have histories and are therefore no longer just commodities’ (p. 245–6). We need to be careful about our assumptions when searching for such ‘treasure’, ensuring that our excitement doesn’t override our awareness of what is right for us.

Be a trustworthy eBayer. The feedback system, which is a hallmark of eBay, certainly has its drawbacks, but it does encourage people to be on their best behaviour, and it’s amazing how easily problems can be ironed out when both parties are committed to finding a solution. Make the most of this aspect of eBay – be reasonably accommodating and chances are the other person will be too. And don’t be afraid to jump in first to provide positive feedback if you think the situation warrants it. Of course you may run into more serious problems with the buyer or the seller, and the discussion boards can provide helpful advice in this case.

Don’t overlook other auction websites. For Australians, sites like OZtion are growing in popularity, and their fees are cheaper than those of eBay.

Setting your limit
The amount you’re willing to spend on any listed item on an auction site represents a combination of what you think the item is worth and what you’re able and willing to pay – if the item ends up being overpriced, you may be better off trying to find a similar item somewhere else. Here’s my suggestion for working out your limit:

Firstly, get an idea of how much the item is worth – to you, and more generally. Ask yourself how much you want the item, but also how rare it is and how likely you are to find something similar, at a cheaper price, in a reasonable time period. Next, look at your budget if you’ve developed one and get a rough idea of how much you can afford. If you don’t have a budget, you should still have a rough idea of your economic situation, including other spending commitments.

Then, on a blank piece of paper, slowly write down a list of numbers representing dollar values. When writing make the numerals as big as possible, as this will make it easier for your unconscious. The numbers need to increase in increments, eg 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 … or 50, 75, 100 … Do this quite slowly, staying aware of how you’re feeling. Experiment with stopping the list at particular points that ‘feel right’. Is $100 all you’re willing to pay for that interesting walnut art deco bedhead? Is $80 your absolute limit for those rare Honda Prelude taillights?

This may be the end of the exercise if you feel you’ve made your decision. If not, keep going with the numbers, reaching an amount that’s a bit higher than you’d expect to have to pay, and draw square tick boxes to the left-hand side of them. Now, take your time ticking the box that you feel most comfortable with. Let the pen hover for a while. Which box do you feel drawn to? And how does it feel when you tick that box? If it doesn’t feel right, tick another, and so on, until you’ve settled on an amount.

There may well be a discrepancy at this point between what you’re willing and able to pay – your limit – and what you think the seller will obtain. In my experience, this is okay. Being outbidded is not the end of the world. The important thing is to be fairly confident early on that you’re comfortable with your limit.

This is a suggestion only, and you may well find your limit goes ‘up’ as you bid. If you prefer to decide 'on the fly' the final amount you’re willing to spend , simply take note of your intuition and respond accordingly as you type the amount in and before you hit the ‘Confirm Bid’ button. But be aware that it may be harder to know whether this decision is based on intuition or panic when, for example, you only have five minutes left to bid. Taking your time at the outset to find out what your true limit is could help you decide when to let go gracefully.

Do you have any tips on staying centred, and/or using intuition, while shopping on eBay? If so, I'd love to hear from you!

Impulse buying and the search for a bargain

Today I thought I'd look at two important aspects of shopping from an Inspired Shopping perspective -- the impulse buy, and the urge to hunt for bargains (of course, the two can sometimes combine!).

Synchronicity, intuition and the ‘impulse buy’
The impulse buy is an institution in our shopping culture. ‘I just bought it on impulse’, we say, or ‘I was just passing and I saw it and I had to have it’. An impulse buy is basically an unplanned purchase.

The difference between an impulse buy and something you buy intuitively is not that straightforward. In fact, they may well be the same thing in some instances. It depends on what is meant by impulse, and what fuelled the purchase. Often when we buy things suddenly, we’ve actually been planning the purchase for a long time, maybe months, but haven’t got around to it, or found the right item. My brother-in-law Robert bought a puppy for his two daughters ‘on impulse’ – but he’d been toying with the idea for over a year, and he knew his daughters badly wanted a dog. On the other hand, feeling depressed and buying that bright new tie in the rack at the front of the accessories store because it seems to jump out at you and you want a quick pick-me-up, even though you’ve got far too many ties already, is far less likely to be an intuitive act.

Having a priority list and budget can help you avoid the ‘bad’ impulse buys, and take advantage of the ‘good’ ones (although some leeway with your priority list is OK if the energy of intuition takes you by surprise). It gives you a structure that can help you decide whether you actually want to purchase the kind of item that’s screaming for your attention. The item may well be an example of synchronicity, and if so, and it fits in with your budget, then you probably should buy it. Going through the intuitive steps will also help you decide which course to take.

Snagging a bargain
The satisfaction of finding a bargain is a major reason why many people shop. As Jim Pooler, author of Why We Shop, explains, centres that house huge numbers of shops selling seconds are more popular than ever before. In Melbourne, which already had a number of such centres as well as the famous Bridge Road shopping strip in Richmond, a new one opened in 2006 on the site of a major city station. Centres like these are popular because shoppers know they won’t be paying full price for most of the items. Sales are another instance where shoppers go in search of cut-price items. Boxing Day sales seem to get more chaotic each year as people clamour to get the bargains.

But Pooler claims that many of us will be tempted to buy bargains – things we know are genuinely cheap – even though we don’t actually need them. This is consistent with the link between finding a bargain and the production of dopamine made by researcher Gregory Berns. And, especially if you’re on a strict budget, finding a bargain can swell your self-esteem, giving you a sense of power and affirming that you’re a skilled shopper.

I’ve been tempted by cheap prices many times, of course, and sometimes I’ve given in. But what I’ve learned is that a bargain is only a bargain if you really want and need it, and would consider buying it, or something in the same category, anyway. If you don’t, and wouldn’t, it’s a waste of your precious money. Exceptions to my definition of a bargain are if you want to on-sell the item or give it as a present to someone.

This sounds simpler than it is – only you can decide, but your intuition will guide you. I had been playing with the idea of buying something new to wear on Christmas Day – it’s something of a tradition in my fashion-conscious, all-girl family to turn up to Christmas lunch in a new ‘Christmas outfit’. I’d also been reasonably disciplined about not buying new clothes for a while and was feeling a bit clothes-deprived. Browsing through a quirky clothes and accessories store on my way to a relaxing walk along a suburban beach, I found a dress marked down from $155 to $20. I tried it on and not only was it a perfect fit, but it screamed ‘party dress’. I checked in with my intuition and it was clearly in favour of buying the dress. Now, there is no way that I would have bought that dress at full price, although I might have bought something else that was cheaper. At the heavily marked-down price it made my half-formed goal of ‘a new dress for Christmas’ more than feasible, and easily achievable within my budget.

Genuine bargains can last for years. I once bought a top for less than $20 from a factory outlet, and wore it over three fashion seasons – I always felt good in it.

Exercise – ‘bargains’ galore
Think back to a time when you bought something because it was cheap, but hardly used or wore it. What can you remember about how you felt when you saw it? Write down any memories you have of making the purchase. How might you have felt at the time if you had let it go? What could you have bought or done with the money instead?

A dose of gratitude

I've been thinking a bit about gratitude lately. I learned about it first in the twelve-step program I was formerly involved in, and now apply it to my shopping life. Saying a silent 'thankyou' to the universe after a purchase certainly helps to keep in mind that all my material goods are a kind of gift, and that all the gifts I receive come from a divine source. Also, the synchronicity that I often experience when shopping keeps me aware that there is a larger order beyond the material world -- a kind of dance that I'm an integral part of. And that if there are goods I don't have at the moment, well, that's actually OK.

But gratitude extends way beyond shopping. Being grateful can help produce a state of grace -- a radical acceptance of the moment, as it is rather than as we might wish it to be. I realised the other night that when I feel grateful, I'm actually more in the moment than at other times.

Gratitude is very simple. It involves saying thank you to, or simply mentally acknowedging, the entity that some of us call God and others call a Higher Power, the universe or any number of other names. But the decision to practise gratitude is not always easy.

I have sometimes feared that practising gratitude would put me in a state of deludedness about the world. I live in one of Melbourne's most affluent suburbs, and I'm surrounded by people, not to mention immediate and extended family members, who are far more affluent than me. Most of my friends are also more financially secure than I am. I also live in a country that has many entrenched inequities. Would being grateful blind me to the realities of life and politics? Would it put me in a fantasy world in which I did not need to strive? Would it stop me from dealing with the often harsh realities of daily life?

In fact, I have found the opposite -- that gratefulness brings me into a radical relationship with the world as it is right now.

I'll give one small example. There is a housing crisis in Australia at the moment. Both mortgagees and renters are in strife -- homebuyers struggle with rising interest rates, and both first home buyers and renters are priced out of the market due to government policies that favour investors over those buying somewhere to live. There are reports of people going without food to pay the rent or the mortgage.

I'm not immune to this, but at the moment my housing is secure. I realise that this could change at any time, and I'll accept that challenge if and when it arises. But being grateful for the security I have now helps me come to terms with the fact that I don't have control over the future. What I have today, I have today. And that is enough.

That doesn't mean, of course, that I don't strive to improve my situation, or be aware of future options. I'm not in 'la-la' land. I'm alive to the suffering of others and I'm under no illusion that the situation may affect me in the future. It's just that, when I'm practising gratitude, I'm able, to use the worn-out cliche, to see the glass as being half full instead of half empty.

The word grace comes from the Latin gratius and from gratus (pleasing). There seems, then, to be a clear link between the origins of the words 'grace' and 'gratitude' respectively. In my experience, gratitude leads to grace. When I experience grace as a result of gratitude, I feel a sense of peace with my current circumstances -- a sense of security that goes beyond the material.

How to practise gratitude

'Doing' gratitude is simple. One of the tools of twelve-step programs is preparing a 'gratitude list' -- a list of things to be grateful for. You can do this as often as you like, and many people write such a list every day.

As I've noted above, you can also say 'thank you' to whatever spiritual source you believe in for the material and non-material gifts you've been given.

Have you had experiences of gratitude or grace? And what tools do you use to help yourself to adopt a stance of gratitude?

(I'm very grateful for the above pic, which comes from http://www.freeimages.co.uk/)

Musings at the mall

I can't believe how much I learn from a visit to the mall sometimes. About people, shopping and me.

Here's a list of some of the things I learned or that happened when I went to my local mall recently.

First, the reason I was there. A cousin of mine has recently become engaged (congratulations C!) and was holding a celebratory 'garden party'. Having bought my fill of summer clothes, I'd decided I was going to do some compacting. I had a perfectly good dress I'd worn to my sister's wedding in October, a gorgeous grey jersey dress with very wide, short sleeves, a high gathered waist and above-the-knee pencil style skirt. I'd wear the dress again, I thought, with a newish long-sleeved black top underneath -- only a tiny fraction of the people there would have seen me in it.

But I was defeated by the bureau of meteorology. It was going to be a sultry 29 degrees. The dress's material would be all wrong, and it just doesn't look right without something long-sleeved underneath. So, despite being an Inspired Shopper, I did a last minute rush out to the mall the day before, hunting, as usual, for a bargain.

My shopping was much more dispiriting than usual -- trying on dresses that looked awful or that I had trouble even getting into. But eventually I found my bargain -- a $40 Witchery dress down from $130. It was black, peasant-style and casual, so I planned to dress it up with a bright necklace. And as my sisters assured me, I'd 'get a lot of wear out of it'.

This experience made me think about compacting. As well as the initial aim, it requires planning -- much more than I'd been prepared to do. I'd also forgotten about the perils of last minute shopping -- although it was fun to finally hunt down my 'prey', I wondered at the time whether I'd still be running around the following morning looking for something.

Other things I learned:

I rarely go 'late night shopping' on Friday nights any more -- but this was one of the fun things in my childhood. When the then much smaller 'Chaddy' -- now 'the largest mall in the southern hemisphere'(by sales volume rather than size) -- first introduced late night shopping, my family and I would often wander round the centre on a Friday night, ending with a visit to the doughnut shop, my sisters eating them in the car on the way home. The only trouble was, I hated (still do!) doughnuts. Parking my car I had a sudden memory of those Friday evenings.

I still experienced a bit of Inspired Shopping magic. A book I'd been thinking about getting from the library -- The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers -- 'appeared' in a bookshop for $3, complete with accompanying short stories. Synchronicity at its best.

Last but not least, the toilets at Chadstone shopping centre have automatic flushing. Melbourne is in the midst of a drought and I was appalled by the waste of water! The toilet actually flushed twice while I was in the cubicle -- I tried not to take it personally. I was gobsmacked at the hypocrisy -- Chadstone has recently announced its efforts to be more environmentally friendly.

But this weird state of affairs also sent me off into a meditation about the kind of society that needs self-flushing toilets. Supposedly we are more selfish than ever before, and we're also encouraged to be more self-reliant. However, this has led to a state where we're losing our sense of social rules and customs to keep the public, communal sphere in order -- we don't have time, it seems, to create reciprocal communities where people know the social expectations and carry them out.

Yet, while we're encouraged to be selfish, it's selflessness that is required to teach tomorrow's citizens basic skills -- like how to keep public toilets clean! (Of course, not flushing 'number ones' for environmental reasons is perfectly OK, an aim that these self-flushing toilets also defeat.) Selflessness still exists of course, but it's highly unfashionable. I'm not blaming working parents here, but the relentless march of materialism and the changes wrought by 'economic rationalism'.

All that from a visit to the mall on Friday evening!

In search of better sound

Yesterday a good friend rang me for some advice. He was thinking of taking the plunge and buying a new CD player. There was nothing technically wrong with the one he had, so he wanted to make sure he was making the right decision.

My friend -- let's call him Simon -- is a music and film buff. His entire system, including television screen, cost him more than $40,000. But he doesn't spend for status reasons: he wants the best in screen and music quality so that he can enjoy his CDs, which range from classical to rock, some in superaudio, and his extensive DVD collection. Whenever I'm over at his place, I can see the joy he receives from superb colour on his screen and a clear, true sound.

Simon's been unhappy with the sound of his CDs for a while and, an electronics engineer by profession, recently made some changes to the set-up to improve the sound. But he still felt it wasn't right. So he started checking out other CD players, and found one on the Internet for $1700 that according to some reviewers was the best available for under $3000. It also had many features that really appealed to him. I have no doubt at all about his ability to do effective research on this issue! So why had he rung me?

For a start, he wanted a sounding board. It's a great idea to discuss a potential large purchase with someone you know well. Even talking about it can give you clarity about where you are in the decision-making process, and the issues that may be holding things up.

As well, many music buffs constantly chase the holy grail of perfect sound quality, spending ever-larger sums to obtain just the right sound. Someone with a $3000 player might soon begin to crave one worth $5000, but the owner of a $5000 one might, after a while, wish he or she had splurged on the $10 000 one (these increments represent what buyers have to pay to get an appreciable difference in quality). Simon wanted to avoid this trap.

The other problem Simon had was that before buying, he wouldn't be able to tell for sure if a new player would configure well on his existing system. The only way of knowing was to get the thing home and set it up. He really would have liked to borrow his favoured model from a store, set it up at home and then return it if it wasn't right.

I listened to what he had to say and after a while told him that I thought he had already made up his mind -- that he was just about ready to buy. I also know him well enough to know that, as he'd been unhappy with his cheaper CD player for a while, he probably wasn't going to be happy until he'd bought this new one. But I was worried that he was chasing the holy grail and would soon be craving a $5000 player -- so I initially found myself suggesting he go for the $5000 one upfront, skipping a stage in his consumer craving, despite all my Inspired Shopping principles. But he assured me that he would be happy if the sound was 'right' -- for him, it wasn't about chasing absolute perfection.

Finally, I gave him some advice. 'You have all the necessary information. There's nothing more your rational mind can do. Intuition is great when there are unknowns that you can't be sure of. It can help you work out if you're making a good decision.'

I suggested that he write down two things on a piece of paper: 'Buy x brand CD player' on the top of the page, and underneath it 'Don't buy new player -- get used to existing one'. I suggested that he put tick boxes next to these two alternatives. He could then tick each box, one at a time, each time noting how it made him feel by tapping into his body and its reactions. I also suggested that he then close his eyes and do a short meditation to see if any ideas or intimations came up.

I rang Simon the next day and he had already ordered the new player! I asked him how he felt about his decision. He said that he felt great about it, but was now hanging out for the new player to arrive.

What do you think about Simon's decision? Have you confronted a similar dilemma, and if so, how did you solve it?

Photo kindly supplied by http://www.freeimages.co.uk/

Dealing with shopping ‘mistakes’

Occasionally, despite being a determined Inspired Shopper, you will come home with something that you’re convinced just isn’t right for you, although the product isn’t actually faulty. What’s gone wrong?

There are a few possibilities. If we've used our intuition in buying the item, sometimes it is so ahead of the game that we may not know yet why we need the item. We may have to wait a few days or even longer to decide whether or not we have made a mistake. Would that outdoor umbrella make an ideal Christmas present for Aunty Sarah, who’s normally so hard to buy for? Have we overlooked the fact that our new V-neck acqua top goes with the pair of white pants that nothing else matches?

Alternatively we may be imposing standards that are too high. Like us, the products we buy aren’t supposed to be perfect. When we have a shopping want and need, the force that I call ‘the universe’ takes our entire situation into account, including our budget, and comes up with the best ‘solution’. However, that solution won’t be perfect – it will, however, overwhelmingly work for us on a practical level and feel right. If we’re being particularly picky, a perfectly good item may appear to be flawed.

Other times, our shopping mistakes are teaching us about ourselves and others. We are all here to learn. The universe is constantly presenting us with experiences that help us do just that. As we practise more conscious shopping, we’re learning how to listen to and respond to our deeper stirrings, and we’ll inevitably have setbacks. At other times our intuition seems to go quiet, and even allow us to do dumb things, because we need to do the thing in order to learn the lesson.

For example, some of us may need to learn more about our preferences, and the preferences of those close to us, before we can make clearer and better buying decisions. I have a friend who adores music and has a huge CD collection. I decided to buy a CD as a birthday present for him, figuring I couldn’t go wrong. In choosing a CD I used my intuition, picking one I was sure he would love and buying it from a store that would allow a refund on the item if need be.

He was very grateful to receive the present, but already had that particular CD! I obtained a refund, and was then back at square one. I realised that trying to buy a CD for him was an easy way out as he had more than enough anyway. I needed to put more thought into my present. I did eventually find the perfect present – a book about a subject he is passionate about – and he loved it.

I’ve also had the experience of buying a crappy product for a cheap price at a place that I couldn’t easily return the item to when it broke down soon after purchase. This is a common occurrence but whether it presents a problem or not will depend on your budget. If you are trying to be careful with money, then an experience like this could be a signal to be more careful about where and who you buy from – it certainly was in my case!

In some instances a bad buy can tell you it’s time to go to another retail ‘level’ on a particular type of item – either up or down. Perhaps you’ve bought a cheap shirt or pair of pants that have fallen apart almost immediately, and the universe is prompting you to do some investment dressing. Perhaps you’ve been buying skin care products from the same overpriced brand for years and its latest moisturiser just isn’t very good, leading you to the discovery that cheaper brands may offer better value for money. Again, this is a highly individual thing and sometimes age-dependent; I’ve certainly noticed that there are some things I’m more discriminating about than I used to be, and some things I take less care over the buying of than I used to.

Alternatively, the 'retail' move you make could be one to more ethically aware and sustainable shopping.

If you decide that you have made a mistake, don’t panic. Assuming that there’s nothing wrong with the item, and depending on what it is, it may be worth trying to return it for a refund or an exchange. In Australia at least, in this case the store has no legal obligation to provide a refund. However, if it’s still in saleable condition, many retailers will provide a refund, in the interests of maintaining the goodwill of their customers – it’s always worth asking.

If the store won’t do that, it may agree to issue you with a credit note or exchange the goods for something else that costs as much or more as the item you’re returning (and you pay the difference). This is less likely with items you bought on sale, though. Of course, you could also give your bad buy away to someone who will appreciate it – you’ll be surprised who among your family and friends might like it. Finally, there’s always your local op shop, or eBay!

It’s important to let go of your ‘mistake’ and the money it may have cost you. Don’t compound the mistake by clinging to the item because of the cost – for example, keeping that horribly expensive belt, which you’ve only worn once, in the drawer just because it cost you an arm and a leg. Researchers tell us that it’s human nature to mourn the money and time we’ve invested in a failed project, including a bad buy. They call this the ‘sunk cost fallacy’ – the belief that we need to keep emotionally investing in our mistakes because of the cost we’ve already incurred (Douglas and Jones 2007, ‘How to make better choices’, New Scientist, May). This is indeed a fallacy – in fact we don’t need to hold on to bad buys at all. Shakti Gawain has a great saying for mistakes that cost money – she calls them ‘paying our tuition in the school of life’ (Gawain 1997, Creating True Prosperity, New World Library, p. 45).

Again, it’s not a case of being perfect – our less-than-satisfactory shopping experiences are helping us to become more skilled shoppers. All we need do is look over those experiences with a calm eye and think about how we might have strayed from the path of using intuition, and we’ll be less likely to next time.

Exercise – reviewing ‘mistakes’
Think back to the last time you made a purchase that you decided afterwards was a mistake – it might have been something major, or perhaps it was a piece of clothing that you never wore.
Think or write about the experience, focusing on the following questions:
• What was the item? (Give a description)
• How were you feeling when you looked at it? When you bought it?
• What do you think motivated you to buy it?
• What other options did you have? (For example, buying another similar item at a different price, waiting until the right item came up, going to another store)
• Did you try to return the item, and if so, what happened?
• What would you do differently next time?

My experience: buying the wrong heater – twice!
Winter was coming and I desperately needed a new electric heater for the flat I’d moved into. I went to the appliance store that was closest to where I was living and looked at their range. This was before I became an Inspired Shopper and I hadn’t done any other form of research. I did have an upper limit I was prepared to spend, but that was about it.

I saw a Dimplex-style heater at a nice low price. The young salesman said that it was a good space heater, but didn’t provide a blast of heat. Despite the fact that I ‘feel the cold’, I brushed away my concerns and decided to buy it.

That night, shivering in my loungeroom, the heater barely making a dint in the chilled air, I had to admit I’d made a mistake. I determined to take the heater back the next day.

So I fronted up to the store and asked if I could exchange the heater for another one from the store’s range. The answer was yes. This time I went in the other direction. I chose a huge, rectangular heater on wheels, with a powerful fan. It cost a little more than I’d expected to pay but surely I couldn’t go wrong this time? I got it home somehow and parked it in the lounge. It seemed to have doubled in size and took up half the space. There was no place for it in my small loungeroom. It was also ugly and the heat was actually too powerful.

So I slunk back to the store a third time. And this time I didn’t even ask for an exchange. I asked for a refund, which I miraculously received, and got the hell out of there.

Eventually, after doing a bit more research, thinking about what my heating needs were and using my intuition, I found the right heater – I still have it, and it still works fine!

Do you have any experiences with shopping 'mistakes' that have had positive outcomes or at least helped you become a better shopper?

Staying mindful at sale time

I love sales, I'm not ashamed to admit. And I rarely come home emptyhanded when I go to one (although I'm always prepared to -- see my earlier post on Letting go). But sales have certain dangers, and this was beautifully illustrated in an article (aptly titled 'War'!) published recently in The Age newspaper by fashion writer Janice Breen Burns.

Breen alerted readers to a major trap that can beset the bargain hunter. On a shopping trip with her daughter, she bought her a pair of jeans that she assumed were $50 off the original price. After she'd checked her credit slip and gone back to the store to correct the 'mistake' she thought the sales assistant had made, she was told that the pile from which her daughter had selected the jeans weren't on sale -- although they were next to a series of piles of jeans that were all $50 off. Sneaky to say the least. A similar thing happened when she made a bulk purchase of her favourite undies, lured by a red 'Sale' sign that seemed to indicate they were less than half-price. You guessed it -- not a cent off.

There are a couple of lessons here. Sometimes when we're at a busy mall or a shopping strip full of stores having sales, we go into a kind of fog of consumer delight. Indeed, that's what the stores want us to do -- the store window displays, layouts, smell, fittings and signage are all designed to encourage us to spend. The red sale signs are particularly powerful, and I think there's something very primeval about bargain hunting.

But there are two things that can help us avoid disaster. The first is not letting the fog swallow us up - staying aware of what's going on for us, even if it's just acknowledging that we're salivating at the thought of that shiny black sleeveless top that has a whole $20 slashed of it, and choosing to slow down a bit in our decision making. This is mindfulness.

The second is listening to that 'still small voice' -- our intuition. Mindfulness can help us go slowly enough to do that. Have you ever been about to race into a changing room or to a counter with your booty, yet you felt something wasn't quite right? You felt uncomfortable and you couldn't identify why. It may have been that the clothes item (or whatever else you were purchasing) just wasn't right for you. It may have been that the store's price signs were misleading and you were about to be duped. Or it may have been even more straightforward than that - you simply couldn't afford to buy the item. Listen to that inner voice -- it may be irritating but believe me, it's your friend!

Exercise – combining mindfulness and intuition
Spend an hour or so just browsing around your favourite shopping centre. Tell yourself that today you’re not going to buy anything, just look. Practice mindfulness, staying aware of the sights, sounds and smells around you, and of your own emotions and perceptions.

Notice the parts of the centre or shopping strip you’re drawn to, and try to confine yourself to those areas. Now notice the particular stores you feel drawn to, and go to some of them. (If you feel compelled to go into some stores anyway – because, for example, your mother’s birthday is coming up and you know she wants towels – notice the feeling you get when you walk into those stores.)

Browse around one of the shops you’re drawn to. Note what parts of the store you’re drawn to and go there. Now note the items you’re drawn to, the things you think you might like to buy. Don’t just look at these items – touch them, inspect them, evaluate them, staying aware of the different sensory impressions you receive from them – but whatever you do, don’t buy anything! Practise telling any sales assistants who approach you that you’re ‘just looking’. When you walk away from items that seem to ‘call’ to you in some way, note how you feel.

This is the official end of the exercise, but it would be silly to not buy something that you really need and that has called to you during the exercise! If you’ve found such an item, go back to the store in a few days, and if the item is still available and it still feels right, buy it.

Addicted to clutter

A survey recently released by an independent think tank has found that Australians are addicted to clutter -- and that it makes them unhappy.

The survey, Stuff Happens: Unused Things Cluttering up Our Homes, by Josh Fear, found that Australians were moving to bigger houses in order to store all their 'stuff', and that much of the clutter was in boxes that hadn't been unpacked years after moving.

It found that '88 per cent of homes have at least one cluttered room, and the average home has three or more cluttered rooms'. And this clutter is severely affecting our happiness: four out of ten Australians felt 'anxious, guilty or depressed about the clutter in their homes'.

Eighty-four per cent of the survey respondents had spent further money in order to deal with their excess goods. For example, roughly a quarter had bought vacuum storage bags, suggesting that they had no intention of using the items in the near future. And one in five had gone so far as to construct a garage or shed in which to store their clutter, while one in eight had even moved to a new home 'to accommodate their superfluous "stuff" ’.

Moverover, 29 per cent of the respondents reported that their clutter was stopping them 'enjoying their time at home' -- an astounding finding in an age where it's commonly reported that Australians have retreated to their homes, obsessed with renovating and homemaking, because they're overwhelmed by world events and the fear of terrorism.

Just over a quarter of the respondents said they had some boxes that they hadn't unpacked since their last move -- and this didn't include those who had moved house in the previous six months! And those people had an average of seven unpacked boxes in their homes.

Fear quotes another interesting study, carried out in 2004 by the same body, the Australia Institute. This 2004 study found that Australians spent an average of $1,226 each in that year on goods they didn't use! This added up to a whopping $10.5 billion for Australia as a whole, 'or more than Australian governments spent on universities and roads over the same period'.

According to the authors of the study, ‘cutting this wasteful consumption would be enough for the average mortgagee to protect themselves against a 0.75 per cent rise in interest rates’ (Hamilton et al. 2005, Wasteful Consumption in Australia, Discussion Paper 77, The Australia Institute, March, p. 6). Needless to say, that amount of money would also have been useful in improving our hospitals, schools and public transport, not to mention providing aid to developing countries. A similar woeful tale can be told about the amount of food we throw away each year.

However, Fear is careful to distinguish between the clinical disorders of hoarding and compulsive shopping respectively. Hoarding means buying and holding onto superfluous household items, including things like old documents, to an extent that interferes with proper functioning or causes high stress levels; compulsive shopping manifests in 'excessive, uncontrollable, time-consuming and repetitive' buying behaviour for a short-term emotional gain, which poses a threat to the sufferer's social and financial wellbeing (Frost et al. 2007, ‘Self-ambivalence and attachment to possessions’, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy 21(3), pp 232-43).

The type of clutter that was interfering with Australians' lives is also revealing. Fear placed it into four categories:

Emotional clutter – things with sentimental meaning but little financial value – including children’s toys or drawings, (unused or unwanted) gifts, school or university notes, and personal possessions of absent loved ones;

Bought clutter – impulse purchases, often acquired recently, that end up never being used, commonly including clothes, fashion accessories and books;

Just-in-case clutter – things with little or no sentimental value but that ‘might come in handy one day’ and that are therefore kept for some time, such as old bills or bank statements, tools and stationery;

Bargain clutter – free or very cheap things acquired at sales, from friends or family or ‘by the side of the road’ which are discarded only reluctantly because they were so cheap.

So what is the solution to this national problem -- a problem that Fear compares to the obesity crisis? He calls for a more 'conscious' approach to shopping,'one that is about purchasing what we really need and will use, rather than shopping impulsively or as a way of entertaining ourselves'. He also believes that we need to acquire 'a healthy scepticism towards commercial messages trying to convince us to buy things that we don’t really want or need'. While the study was confined to Australia, it no doubt has relevance to the USA and other wealthy Western countries.

How does this relate to Inspired Shopping? Fear hits the nail on the head when he calls for more conscious shopping. While hoarding is a problem that doesn't necessarily relate to shopping -- some people are simply unable to let go of old documents, for instance -- there is no doubt that we would have far less clutter if we considered potential purchases more carefully.

In my book The Inspired Shopper, I recommend that shoppers get in touch with their intuition when they're about to take the buying plunge. One useful way to do this is to develop your own 'intuition question'. If you ask the same question each time, after a while your unconscious should recognise it and respond with an answer that goes beyond the need for a temporary retail 'fix'. The question could be as simple as 'Do I really want this item?' or it could be something like 'What's my intuition telling me in this instance?' After asking the question, give yourself a bit of time to listen for the answer (moving away from shop assistants is useful here!).

Another very useful tool is one I call Relinquishing. This simply means getting into the mindset of being willing to let go of the item -- to leave it on the shelf or rack. You 'pretend' to yourself that you're not going to buy the item, then move away -- either to another part of the shop or out of the shop altogether. For major purchases and anything you're unsure of, Relinquishing can take the form of leaving the item for the day and coming back to buy it on a later occasion.

In some ways, as a friend has pointed out to me, Relinquishing is very similar to a simple 'cooling off period' -- a good idea even if you're not into Inspired Shopping. It goes a little further, however, in that it involves actually letting go of the item on an emotional level -- being willing to contemplate the idea that it might not be meant for you. Then you watch how your intuition - the deepest part of yourself -- responds to this. And you act accordingly!

Setting aside time to declutter, and sending stuff you don't use to the local op (thrift) shop is also a great idea. (You may have to be willing to also clear our some emotional 'clutter' to do this.)

Finally, getting clear on what is and isn't a bargain, and the rights and wrongs of impulse buying, can be a great help, and I'll write further about these in future posts.

Do you have any experiences with living with too much clutter, or trying to reduce it in your life? I'd love to hear from you!

The survey report can be found at www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/WP111.pdf. Picture supplied by http://www.bigfoto.com/

Fundamentals of Inspired Shopping: Letting go

This is the last in my series on the three major planks of Inspired Shopping -- this time I'm looking at letting go. Along with mindfulness and the use of one's intuition, letting go is an indispensable part of the Inspired Shopping process.

I first learned about letting go during my time in a twelve-step program. One of the many sayings heard commonly among program members was 'let go and let God'. We were also advised to 'hand things over' to our Higher Power.

People without addictions, or those who aren't spiritually inclined, might be turned off at this point. But I don't think you need to be either an ex-addict or a particularly spiritual person to be an Inspired Shopper! If you don't believe in a personal God, it may be useful to think of a universal force for good.

In this blog (and my book) I call this the universe, and I consider that it's both inside me and in the outer world. I also call the force of good within me my 'soul' or 'the deepest part of me'. The dynamic between the inner and outer 'forces of good', if you like, helps me to keep growing as a person. (If even 'the universe' is a bit too 'new-agey' for you, you could try a term like 'Providence'.)

In my twelve-step program I learned that letting go wasn't about doing nothing and hoping for the best. Before you handed a problem or issue over to your 'Higher Power', you needed first to be doing what you could to solve it -- what we called 'the footwork'. Then you handed it over. In handing it over, you let go of the outcome. You basically said something along the lines of: 'Here's my problem. It feels too big to deal with. I've done (or am doing) everything I can and now I'd like your help'. Or you might be handing it over in the hope of simply getting guidance on what best to do to deal with it.

So how can this be translated into shopping?

Assuming we have enough money, if we're doing something regular and fairly mundane like supermarket shopping, it's very likely that if we have a list of things we want to buy, we'll come home with the majority of them.

But leisure shopping is a different kettle of fish. Leisure shopping isn't just about the things we want -- it may also be about things we need in a relatively wealthy society. We may need something new to wear for a special occasion, or a DVD player because our video is now getting close to obsolete, or a present for a friend's birthday. We may also have a number of things we want to buy to enhance our lives.

But unless our need for a particular item is extremely urgent, letting go of a specific outcome on a particular shopping trip can, strangely enough, be an effective way to obtain the items that we both want and need -- those items that won't impinge on our growth as people, and may even enhance it -- over time.

I mentioned that I call the good within me my soul. I believe that my intuition is, in fact, the way my soul manifests in the world. If I let it, it can guide me to the things (and experiences, of course) that I want and need on that deep level -- the things that will enhance my life journey.

That's why intuition is a vital part of the Inspired Shopping process. We can use our intuition to help us determine when and where we undertake our leisure shopping, and this helps us to actually find the things that the deepest part of ourselves -- not just our grasping, frightened selves -- really does want and need. (It goes without saying that we also need to do a bit of planning, because if every shopping trip's an emergency, last-minute affair, it's going to be a lot more difficult to use our intuition and let go of the outcome.)

We then use letting go to ensure that our wants and needs are aligned with our soul, and that they come to us at the right time. We cease trying to exert ultimate control over the circumstances in which the goods come our way, or whether they come our way at all.

This often leads to a sense of openness that helps us to stumble across the unexpected. Uncle Rob's birthday may still be weeks away, but because we obeyed our intuition when we decided where to shop, we happened to come across the perfect book about fly fishing in a bargain bin.

This doesn't mean that if we're the organised type we can't be Inspired Shoppers. Quite the contrary. We might choose to ask Uncle Rob for a list of possible items. If so, and he sends us off to a hardware store for a garden saw, we can still use our intuition about which store to go to, when, and which saw to buy. In other words, we still need to be open to what our intuition tells us, including about which item is the most suitable -- and we also need to entertain the possibility that we might not find what we're after on a particular trip.

Letting go and intuition, then, work together. And mindfulness helps us to remain aware of our emotions when shopping, so that they don't tempt us into buying things that are just going to clutter up our lives and impinge on our growth.

But all this raises the questions: How do we determine what we want? What if we don't get what we want? And isn't the universe supposed to give us what we want if we only ask?

These are complex questions, and I am neither a psychologist nor a spiritual adviser. But I've been interested in self-improvement for years, and have some thoughts on these issues that hopefully will be useful to some.

Many books and teachers tell us that if we affirm what we want and ask for it, we'll get it. However, it may depend on what part of us actually wants it.

We can treat the universe as if it was a benevolent parent who is going to indulge our every childish whim - this, I will venture to say, is what books like The Secret try encourage us to do. And indeed, to some extent the process works in an odd kind of way -- but it may, in fact, hinder our growth.

For example, there have been times in my life when I visualised a lot of money coming in. Then the phone would ring and some perfectly dreadful freelance job would be offered to me, and I'd quickly refuse it. At these times I would realise that I had made certain choices about the kind of work I wanted to do and the circumstances in which I was willing to do it, and that I wasn't prepared to sacrifice my wellbeing to do jobs that didn't fit the criteria. In other words, I had asked for something that wasn't consistent with my soul's deepest needs.

I began to realise that the progress of my soul had its own agenda, and was beyond my conscious idea of where my life should be heading. And I began to let go and allow that journey to unfold at its own pace.

If we let our souls choose what we want and need, they can and will do some of the work for us -- intuition can often act as a delightful shortcut, cutting to the chase and coming up with the best solution to a consumer need, both financially and otherwise.

But we still have to do what twelve-step programs call 'the footwork' -- and this will frequently involve researching particular items, learning more about our own tastes and priorities, or becoming more financially organised. Acting according to our intuition helps to insure that the footwork that we do is useful and purposeful.

Where to start
In my last post I suggested developing a Priority List that includes the consumer items or services you want and need, and offered advice on how to develop such a list. That can help with the planning process, and also act as a useful supplement to your budget. When you're preparing your list, really ask yourself if you do want those things, and gently observe your response as you write each item down.

Letting go also means that it may take a while before you find some of the items on your list. This could be a good thing -- what if you bought a beautifully upholstered burgundy ottoman, only to find that your intuition later led you to the perfect yellow lounge suite that clashed with the ottoman? Letting go means you're less likely to have these experiences.

'Progress, not perfection'
The above is another popular twelve-step saying. Please don't think I'm suggesting that you'll become a perfect shopper who never makes mistakes, or that I am! There will always be lessons to learn about ourselves and the world, and new directions to pursue. The process is not about being perfect, but about being open to learning and to becoming a more successful, efficent and less hassled shopper.

I'd love your feedback on the above thoughts, which I have articulated in this amount of detail for the first time, particularly any experiences you may have had with trying to 'manifest' the things you want through practices like affirmations.

The Priority List

In my last post I mentioned what I call my Priority List. I use this tool to help me stay sensible and focused in my shopping life.

A Priority List works beautifully with a budget. If you budget carefully you should have a good idea of the amount you have to spend on particular areas of your life -- clothes, entertainment and so on. But the Priority List enables you to work out what your priorities are in those areas so you're buying things you really want.

For example, you might have a clothes budget of $60 a week. But you might have a yen for great dresses, and find yourself buying whichever ones catch your eye, as long as they're within your budget, leaving no money for other clothes items. What's the point of having a budget if you end up with 10 formal dresses and no trousers, shirts or accessories?

A Priority List helps you establish what your spending priorities actually are.

My Priority List includes all the things I currently need or am about to run out of, whether they be toiletries, new furniture, books and CDs, or what I’m planning for my winter wardrobe. These are my priorities. When I’m out shopping and see something that I intuitively feel like buying, I mentally check as to whether it’s on my priority list. If it’s not, I’ll think carefully before buying it. If it is on my list and I can afford it, then I’m able to ‘reward’ myself and still stay true to my financial and material goals.

If it’s not on my Priority List, and I’m on a tight budget, I can always put it or something similar on my list. That way I know I have the intention of buying such an item in the future and can let it go.

The Priority List is an excellent way of avoiding a wasteful impulse buy. As well as helping you stick to a budget, it can help you avoid the negative feelings that can arise when you buy something you neither want nor need.

If prepared with care, a Priority List can act in a similar way to affirmations. Including an item on the list means you’re telling the universe that you want that item, so it’s important to be sure that you do want it.

How much you put on your Priority List, and how strict you are in sticking to it, depends on how much structure you need. For example, your budget might include $20–50 a week for small miscellaneous purchases – in that case, putting the types of small things on the list that you need from time to time may not be necessary, and you may enjoy the surprises that Inspired Shopping delivers. On the other hand, if you’re someone who has trouble reining in their spending, or are on a particularly tight budget, only buying what is on your Priority List can ensure that it’s a very useful supplement to your budget. It can also help you get more organised, as you can refer to it before your shopping trip. The exercise below tells you how to create a priority list.

Exercise – creating a Priority List
Find a piece of scrap paper and brainstorm a Priority List of things you want and/or intend to buy in the future. This could range from a new pair of eyebrow tweezers or an electric shaver to a beach shack! Some of the items can be quite general, for example ‘three new summer shirts’, ‘a good suit for job interviews’, ‘a new fiction book’. Do this part of the exercise freely without thinking too much about it.

When you’ve written as many items as you can think of and are ready to impose some order, create separate categories for the items, for example clothes, hobbies, homewares, holidays. Draw up columns for each category and fill each column in, choosing from your brainstormed items those things you really do want. Complete this part of the exercise more slowly. These are your material goals, so try to be sure you really desire each item you list. As you list each item, in particular the larger ones, ask yourself if you really want to earn and save the money needed to buy it. If you want to, include holidays as well as services that you may either currently use or are planning to, for example, a monthly massage or visit to a chiropractor, new veneers for your teeth.

You many want to give items in the different categories a ranking according to their order of importance, for example ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’. (This can help guide your energy when shopping, but be prepared to be flexible.) The extent of your prioritising, both in your planning and actual shopping, will depend on your budget.

Include any presents you have to buy throughout the year. I keep ‘sublists’ of my gift obligations, that is, a birthday present list, a Christmas present list and a miscellaneous present list. Like the rest of the priority list what you put on these sublists can be very general, for example ‘present for Carmel’ ‘Kris Kringle for work colleague’.

When you’re happy with your list, type it or write it out neatly. At this point you may want to create a file on the computer so that the list can be easily updated – the priority list is intended to be dynamic. Alternatively, write out the list on sheets of A4 paper, leaving plenty of space in each category for new items, and file it where it’s easily accessible. Add to your list whenever you need to. It will help you keep track of what you really want and need when you go shopping. If you have children, create separate lists for them.

You might like to cross off the items in your list when you’ve bought them – on the computer you can do this using strikethrough font – as this gives a sense of achievement. Create a new list every two months or so. Also, it may well happen that an item on your list becomes outdated before you end up buying it – this is a good thing, because it means that you’re refining your knowledge about the things you really want, without having to spend!

Remember, the Priority List is a tool to help you. It doesn't have to be as detailed as I've suggested. Feel free to experiment with different levels of detail and see what works for you.

If you're new to budgeting, I suggest creating a Priority List first, as it is a great basis for a budget.

A wait worth doing

One of the guidelines I recommend in improving your shopping life is to practise the virtue of waiting for something you want. You may want to save up for it -- perhaps put it on layby -- or leave off buying it for a bit to make sure you actually need it. Waiting means that you don't use your credit card so as to avoid the need to budget.

As a child I waited impatiently for Christmas, for the Easter bunny to arrive, and for my birthday with all the presents it would bring. I waited for all the big events of life -- finding out what my final school results were; waiting to get a partner; waiting for the opportunity to move out of home for the first time; saving up for a trip to Europe; and then applying all over Australia to get a job as a cadet journalist with a rural newspaper, and waiting for the responses to come in. I remember dancing to the clunky beat of one of the garage bands I used to support when I was about 20, as they sang a song that was all about the frustration of having to constantly wait for the good things of life to happen.

I used to wait in a fairly compulsive way, I think, living in the future rather than the present, convinced that I would be totally happy and fulfilled as soon as the anticipated events too place. But now I try to do waiting differently. Waiting forces me into the present, forces me to make do with what I have at the moment -- both materially and otherwise. Waiting has finally become a skill!

I received a nice Christmas bonus last Christmas and decided it was time to buy a whole new towel set. I realised that never in my life had I had every towel, hand towel, bathmat and facewasher in my bathroom actually match! (I think it's incipient middle age -- more and more I want things to be 'right'.) So I had to decide the right colour of towel for my bathroom, with its charming lemon-yellow-and-black retro tiles (1930s-40s) .

After a few false starts, which I may detail in a future post, I settled on a charcoal grey, almost black. It wouldn't clash with the yellow, would complement the black line of narrow black tiles above the towel rack, and would provide dramatic flair to an otherwise boring bathroom. I also knew that because there was't much of interest in my bathroom, texture was important. I even tested the colour first by hanging dark-grey clothes on the towel rack.

I finally hit on the perfect towels -- ribbed, dark grey towels at a homewares chain store (see photo above). But did I buy them straight away? No way! Towel ranges are constantly on sale in Australia, and, being January, I knew it would be a matter of time before this range, slightly overpriced as it was, went on sale.

Sure enough, the towels soon went on sale -- at 40 per cent off! I bought two towels, two handtowels and two bathmats -- all for less than $75. Needless to say they have transformed my boring bathroom.

Having found the perfect towels, I didn't exactly enjoy having to wait for them. But once I'd resigned myself to it, it was fine -- the decision was made.

Waiting is not always a good strategy. Sometimes you see an item and just know it's going to be popular. If you've got the money, the right strategy in this case may be to snap it up.

One important practice that keeps me on track in these instances is my Priority List. I'll write about that in my next post.

Tips for effective waiting
Try to see what you're waiting for as a reward -- for example, for saving up the money, working hard, or spending time researching the item that you need.

Use waiting time to decide whether you really DO need the item.

Do things for yourself that make you feel safe and secure. Sometimes we feel insecure and buy stuff in an attempt to feel safe, or worthy of love. Tell yourself that you're OK, and do self-nurturing things like soaking in a nice warm bath, reading a new book or phoning a friend who lives far away.


Remind yourself that you will never have everything you want, and that life would be boring if you did. We need goals to strive for, but we're not meant to have everything go our own way as challenges enable us to learn and grow. Our lives are always works in progress.

Regulate how long you wait for things by preparing a budget. Work out the things you really want and include them in your budget. Buy them only when they're within your budget.

Start noticing when sale items pop up in particular stores so that you get a sense of how long you might have to wait for a particular item to go down in price.

While you're waiting, write about the experience and the feelings it brings up for you.

Do you have any tips about the virtues of waiting and how to cope with its challenges? I'd love to hear from you!

How to become an inspired shopper

What are the first steps to becoming an Inspired Shopper? How do you change your shopping habits so as to come across more of the goods that inspire your soul and are consistent with your journey, fewer of the goods that clutter your life and make you feel guilty?

I don't see myself as any sort of shopping expert. I used to be a poor shopper, especially where clothes were concerned. Various circumstances led me to slowly and gradually change my shopping habits. I still make mistakes. It's just that I make fewer of them, and when I do they're often easier to remedy. And sometimes the mistakes turn out not to be mistakes at all. Plus, I'm evolving all the time, so even 'successful' purchases can indicate that I need to change direction, shopping-wise.

The key to becoming a better shopper, for me, was reading Shakti Gawain's Living in the Light, the first book she wrote about intuition. (I didn't read Gawain's later book on intuition, Developing Intuition: Practical Guidance for Daily Life, until I began researching The Inspired Shopper, but it's a very good, if short, addition.) This book is an excellent guide to getting in touch with your intuition -- the later book's a bit more down-to-earth, so it's well worth reading both of them. A summary of how to start using your intuition appears in one of my earlier posts.

A good start to becoming an Inspired Shopper, then, is to get in touch with your intuition -- in all areas of your life, not just shopping! Your intuition offers a wonderful 'shortcut' to finding what you want and need, both at the shops and away from them.

Another good way in (and you can do this at the same time!) is to practise mindfulness when you're out shopping (see my earlier post on this). The wonderful thing about mindfulness is that it is totally non-judgemental. If you're concerned that you spend too much time at the shops, for example, or that you buy too much crap, you might want to start by just gently observing your behaviour, as well as the feelings and perceptions that accompany it. What is going on for you when you make an impulse buy? What happens in the minutes before you use your credit card to buy something you don't really need? And what are the positive things about the way you shop? What was your perception before you bought that incredible pair of jeans that have remained fashionable and in reasonable shape over three seasons?

What I love about mindfulness is that it helps you to stay with both your positive and negative feelings whenever you shop. You can feel your feelings and still shop in a way that serves you, rather than just reacting to your emotions.

The last thing you can start doing to become an Inspired Shopper is practising letting go. I haven't, as yet, completed a separate post on this last plank of Inspired Shopping, but it's very important. I learned about the importance of letting go during my time in a twelve-step program, and I find this part of Inspired Shopping indispensable.

Letting go is very simple (although it can be difficult!). Except for genuine shopping emergencies (ten people coming for lunch in half an hour, for example), it's a good idea to let go of the outcome when you hit the shopping strip or mall. You may have a firm idea of what you want, but if you can entertain the distinct possibility that you might not get it, then it's easier for 'the universe' (or, if you prefer, God or your higher power) to give you what you do, in fact, want and need -- over time, and at the right time.

Letting go works beautifully with intuition, because when you use your intuition to decide when you're going to go shopping, which shops to go into, which parts of the shop to look at, and so on, you're more likely to come across wonderful shopping finds.

The lounge suite saga -- and the virtue of waiting

My so-far unsuccessful attempts to buy a lounge suite offer a great illustration of one of the guidelines I offer in my book The Inspired Shopper (yes, I'm changing the name!).

Let me give you the backstory. I have been looking for a lounge suite seriously, on and off, for about six months. This has involved one trip to a lounge suite shopping strip, which was enough to make me decide that a new lounge suite was out of the question. They were all outrageously expensive -- over $2000 for anything decent -- and some of them, though new, already looked cheap and tatty. A few sprawls on the couch with a book, a few minor food spills, and I would be wishing I had bought something in a sensible vinyl. No, it would definitely be vintage for me.

I already have a couch and two chairs, but the chairs are very old and shabby and the couch is simply annoying, because it has a cover over it that has to be straightened up, and the cushions re-assembled, every day. The chairs and the couch don't match, and I'm at a stage in life when I long for a proper lounge suite -- I want my lounge furniture to signify things like 'order', 'security' and 'home'.

I did a search on eBay and found a Jacobean lounge suite, feauturing beautifully carved wood and a decent upholstery job, that I checked out in person before bidding on. I was unsuccessful but the whole episode was a valuable learning experience.

So here am I still waiting for my perfect lounge suite. And I'm getting to that tetchy stage.

In my book The Inspired Shopper I recommend waiting as a strategy for buying well. The old-fashioned art of waiting and saving up used to be the standard means of buying big-ticket items. Now everyone wants to buy first and pay later, usually with a credit card. But many people fail to realise that waiting has advantages over and above only spending what you can afford.

For those who enjoy it, leisure shopping is a sensual experience, but above all an aesthetic one. We see any number of things we would love to take home with us. If we relied on aesthetics and emotions alone, we'd take home half the store every time we shopped. The beauty of waiting is that it allows us to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. When those momentary, impulsive attachments to items are gone, we're left with a better idea of the things that really take our fancy -- those that we genuinely want and need. (We may also need to use 'waiting time' to do further research on our own needs and desires.) And when we let ourselves go without for a while, we can use that energy to take us to the right item more quickly.

I'm not saying that waiting for however long it takes is always the right option. If I had no lounge furniture at all I'd probably go to my local op shop and buy some temporary furniture to tide me over rather than sit on the floor.

At the moment, I'm a little stuck in my search for a new lounge suite. I can decide on the colours I like, measure up my lounge room and get on eBay every day, but until I actually put said lounge suite, once irretrievably bought, into the room I won't really know for sure whether or not it's right for the room and the rest of my furniture -- so different from buying clothes, where a visit to the changeroom is usually mandatory.

What I really need to do, I think, is settle on the particular retro style that I want, rather than just be willing to take the first one that comes along at a good price. I may also need to cast my net more widely, and look in stores and suburbs I might not have considered. Despite my doubts, I know that when I find the right lounge suite my intuition will be evident, assuring me it is the right one.

So for now I'll adopt 'active waiting' rather than 'passive waiting'. And, at the risk of sounding too new-agey, I do trust that if I do the work, the universe will deliver a lounge suite that's right for me at just the right time!

Deprivation and the delights of mix 'n' match

Yesterday I went on another clothes shopping jaunt -- definitely my last for the summer. I went to my local Target, which almost literally throws out clothes at this time of year. Clothes were discounted up to 60 per cent, and dresses and other items from one of the designer lines were selling for as little as $19, down from over $100 in some cases.

Two things emerged out of my little trip.

More and more I'm coming to embrace, rather than just accept feelings of deprivation as part of the Inspired Shopping experience. When I'm choosing what to try on and, in the changeroom, what to buy, there will be some items that my emotions or rational mind tell me I should buy but my intuition doesn't.

The Yeojin Bae dresses for instance. One of them, a simple black shift with V-neck, short sleeves and made of a satin-like material, seemed too good not to buy. And at under $20, what did I have to lose? But I knew I wouldn't wear it more than once or twice, and I'm just not prepared to buy clothes that fit into that category (unless for a once-off super special occasion). Plus (and I'm afraid this is a secondary consideration, but it's still a valid one) there was no doubt someone would come along who would get a hell of a lot more wear out of it than I would -- in other words, it had someone else's name on it.

So, in making even my initial choices, I frequently feel a sense of loss. I don't want to minimise this. It's very difficult, when you're good at spotting bargains, to hold back when there are shoppers around you wielding carts and dumping multiples of cut-price clothes into them (some of the clothes, no doubt, destined for eBay). But these feelings are actually fine, because they tell me I'm working the process properly, and practising discrimination. Yesterday I ended up taking five items to the changeroom and buying only two of them, a short-sleeved emerald green cardigan for $15.50, and a drawstring cap sleeve casual top, in a royal blue that really suited me, for $6.50. Not a bad morning's work!

However, my sense of deprivation continued in the changeroom, when my intuition said no to a pair of $11 jeans. And there was the $10 jacket, down from about $80, with just a button missing and very cute, large lapels -- OK, so it was two sizes too big and I work from home so don't need such office wear, but again, hard to part with. 'Someone is really going to appreciate this find', I thought as I put it back on the hanger.

The fact is, I don't need to know why my intuition -- my deepest self -- sometimes 'rejects' the things that my conscious self thinks are OK. Often I can guess of course, but I'm happy just to trust the process.

The other thing I realised is that I definitely have enough clothes for the rest of summer. The urge for new things can sometimes be a refusal, on my part, to look at new ways to pair up the clothes I have. Sometimes I can wear something only a few times and find it's already lost its sense of newness. Then I know it's time to pair it with something I haven't tried it with before.

I'll be avoiding the sales for a little while, although I'll pop into my favourite fashion stores to look at the autumn ranges (I really enjoy this browsing aspect of shopping).