Wish List

Oh, wish lists! Is it recall of childhood when you wrote letters to Santa or fashion page in a bullet journal? Somebody advises to make the wish lists to send a signal to the Universe that you want something, and the wishes magically come true…

Well, I don’t believe in magic, I believe in hard work. And for me Wish List is a very effective financial instrument. Let me explain why.

I wrote previously about impulsive buying, and though it is definitely a habit, it is being formed by our consumerism economics. Speaking easier words, for companies producing mass products it’s absolutely necessary that we buy fast.

Needs vs. wishes

Our grate-grandparents had the luxury to save to the same car for decades (Ford Model T has been produced from 1908 to 1927 with almost no modifications), now we are introduced 2 modifications of the same car model within a year (my Ford Explorer bough in spring 2019 became outdated in fall 2019 when they issue “all new Ford Explorer”). The same happens with clothes, consumer goods, computers… The turnover is speeding up.

Currently, companies produce many more products than an average person needs. And here comes the genius substitution: why not to convince people to buy what they want rather than what they need? All advertisement market (evaluated in the US in 2019 at $220 Billion) is working to institutionalize the substitution. And it comes without additional explanation that over-consumption is harmful to the whole planet in the long run.

But what can we practically do in order to fight the over-consumption on the household level?

What the retail industry is trying to do, is to eliminate any time between “want” and “have”. Making something “in walking distance”, “one click away”, “available on subscription” is all about speed to market. In other words, how much time you would think before you issue your money (yeah, notice also all these easy ways to pay).

Wish List Concept

The logical push back is to insert more time between the moment you want something and the moment you make a purchase. And Wish List is an awesome instrument for that!

The concept is simple: you just write down all your wishes into your list, and let them age for a while. With this, you get rid of emotional (in most cases subconscious) behavior and let yourself to think before you act. As a result you either:

• Make the purchase with some financial planning (alternative investigating, budgeting, good financial options, etc.)
• Or decide to refuse the purchase at all (nice!)

[Though I don’t believe in magic] the wish list really helps to fulfill wishes faster (I can only speculate why).

My Wish List: practical tips

I like to keep my Wish List nice and beautiful, so I enjoy being back to it often.

I usually enter the following info:

• When this ingenious idea wish visited my head
• What I want
• How much it costs (sometimes I need to research, as I have no or very little idea in the beginning)
• When I fulfilled my wish (not necessary, I guess, but I love to track it)

I simply strike though wishes which are gone: I don’t want this stuff anymore.

For big wishes, I take time to research to make good financial decisions, and when I’m ready I just go for it (and note in my list when my wish comes true).

Some practical tips:

• Distinguish your needs and your wishes. Don’t enter your needs in your wish list: mixing them up doesn’t work in the long term, it discourages.
• Have a single wish list. Multiple lists don’t work (believe me, validated).
• Keep it nice, it should bring good emotions and stimulate for often reference.
• Make the unbreakable rule for all big (define “big” for yourself) purchases: buy big only though Wish List.
• Make any wish to sit in your list for at least a week (remember, they are wishes, not necessities, you will not die).

It’s completely OK to fulfill your wishes (not only your needs). So don’t feel guilty when you do it, enjoy and make good financial decisions!