Reduce Costco Impulse Buys By Taking A ‘Smart Loop’

Reduce Costco Impulse Buys By Taking A ‘Smart Loop’

When you walk into a well-stocked warehouse store like Costco, it’s easy to start grabbing every deal on food that you see. You can reduce those impulse bulk buys by doing a loop around the store and reducing your hunger with some tasty free samples.

Photo by Sarah Murray

On Costco runs, you need to be sure that what you’re picking up is food that you’ll actually eat. It can be easy to waste food when you buy in bulk. To avoid that problem, Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar suggests taking a “smart loop”:

We’ll go shopping there during the peak sample periods, but before buying a thing, we’ll walk through the whole store trying the various samples without putting anything in our carts… it fills us up a little so that we’re not making impulse food buys. If you shop for food while you’re hungry, you’re much more likely to buy something impulsively that you wouldn’t otherwise stick in your cart.

You may not even be interested in buying what you’re sampling, but the point is to curb your hunger. Being hungry makes us do stupid things, so grab some free food and shop smart. We’d still advise eating before you head out, but adding some extras makes it less likely you’ll waste money.

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