I will be the first to admit that I love online shopping. It’s easier to point and click rather than get into my car and drive to the nearest shopping center. It’s also easier to spend more money shopping online than any other thing you could do. It doesn’t matter what you buy, either. Typing in your 16 digit card number and three digit security code is like second nature to us now.
The last time I bought anything online was last week. I bought a pair of all-weather boots, just in time for the snow and rain.
It took me an hour to finally settle on a pair and color, then all of four minutes to type in my information.
Computers now even save your shipping and billing information to the hard drive of your computer and with a couple of clicks you don’t even have to type that information in each time you buy something new. It’s somewhat terrifying that it’s so easy to buy things online.
I’ve always been good with money. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent more than I should in one shopping trip, but I don’t do that often. Sales are where stores get your money. You think you’re saving SO much because those shoes are 10 dollars cheaper now than they were last week. The problem with that is you make up for the money saved by over spending at another store on another sale. The more money you think you’re saving, the more items you end up buying from them.
We’ve all done it. Trust me, I’ve definitely done it. We all buy things just because they’re on sale. “I’d never pay 50 dollars for a pair of jeans, but since it’s marked down to 30, I’ll go ahead and buy them now.”
Then you mosey your way over to the next store and use the same rationalization over and over until you’re broke and your back seat is full of bags. Yeah, you’ll be excited that you have all this new stuff, but what happens when you need that money for an emergency? The exact same goes for online shopping. It’s addictive. When I got my new boots in the mail this Friday, I was ecstatic. It was like Christmas in January. We all love opening gifts and the UPS man is like Santa for adults.
Crazy as it may sound, it’s the truth. As soon as I ordered the boots, however, I looked at my bank account online and wondered if I should have spent that money on them or if I could have found something more useful than a new pair of boots when I didn’t really need them.
Buying things online is exhilarating, but it’s nerve wracking too, and dangerous. Money is much easier to spend than it is to earn, so a lot of the time your bank account gets sucked dry pretty quickly. It would have taken me seven hours of working minimum wage to buy these $50 boots, but it only took me 10 minutes to buy them. What happens when you don’t get what you ordered?
My friend, and fellow editor, EJ Dowling bought TOMS for $13 on eBay. “I got a fake gold coin from China, not the TOMS I thought I was buying. I definitely can’t wear that on my feet,” she said. She never thought she wouldn’t get her TOMS and she wasn’t happy.
People aren’t always honest. I know that’s a shocking realization for some people, but it’s true. People aren’t always what they seem, and you never know, especially with sites like eBay, if the product you’re buying is what they say it is. There’s also the issue of credit card numbers being stolen online and all that jazz. No bueno, kiddos. Nobody wants their identity stolen or their money stolen. You earned it, so be careful with it.
Don’t just give your credit card information out to sites you aren’t totally comfortable with. Online shopping is very addictive, just like drugs. Just say no. Well, with online shopping, you can say yes sometimes, but always say no to drugs.