Don't you feel like that sometimes when you are shopping?
But money is scarce and so you have to choose carefully. Sometimes, bad decisions are made. How many times have you bought an item only to regret it later? Or worse, splurge on something you can ill afford and have to stint on everything else until your next pay cheque arrives?
Dr Seshan Ramaswami, associate professor of marketing at Singapore Management University,believes that the key to avoiding such unhappy shopping experiences is to know what you want.
Independence of mind is something that should be cultivated from a young age.
"A lot of the consumer research on adult decision-makingshows that people make bad or irrational choices when they do not have a very good sense of their own underlying preferences," he explains.
"Teaching children from as young an age as possible to form their own preferences about what they like is probably the best way to teach them to become smart consumers later."
Starting young is also the credo of psychiatrist Brian Yeo when it comes to raising a child to become a disciplined shopper.
According to the consultant Elizabeth Medical Centre,children are naturally impulsive and it is up to parents to rein them in when it comes to shopping.
Budgeting, delayed gratification and opportunity cost are all concepts that need to be taught, and the earlier this is done, the better.
"If you have always been giving in to them when they were younger, and suddenly in secondary school, you want to curtail what they buy, it is going to be difficult. You will sound like a scrooge or control freak to them,"he says.
Getting teenagers to curb their desires is particularly difficult because that is the age when they most want to fit in.
"They must have certain items,otherwise they feel out of the crowd. But if you have been teaching them from preschool or early primary, even if they are interested in that $200 Bathing Ape T-shirt now, they will think about the consequences and opportunity costs."
Mrs B.H. Tay, a 49-year-old manager, has tried to impart good consumer values over the years to her two sons, now aged 17 and 18,whenever they shopped together.
"They know that I don't necessarily buy expensive things," she says. "It's not the brand, but how you wear your clothes and carry yourself."
Hitting the malls together as a family is a good way for children to pick up shopping skills from their parents. Dr Ramaswami suggests starting with window-shopping trips, on which the kids can first learn about what is available and the prices of different things.
For trips where a purchase is to be made, Dr Ramaswami recommends that some decisions be made at home first.
"The child can see what he already has and what would be a nice complement before going to the store."
In Dr Yeo's opinion, one of the most essential shopping lessons parents should instil is the importance of sticking to a budget.
"They can buy non-essential things so long as they keep to their budget. If they make an impulsive high-end purchase, they cannot buy other items, and that's how they learn," he says.
When it comes to lessons on decision-making, parents can start as early as when the kids are first able to communicate.
Dr Ramaswami cites a few examples of decisions which the young ones can be exposed to: "You're hungry - would you like some juice or a biscuit?"
"You have a party today- which dress would you like to wear?"
"Your friend is coming over to play - what would you like to do when he is here?"
He says: "Training a child to be mindful of his everyday choices even at home - to think about what he really likes to do even before being exposed to the specific alternatives, and to think through the consequences of choosing each option - can help develop the child into a thoughtful and mindful consumer as an adult."
