The Common Shopping Habit That Could End Up Costing You Thousands of Dollars

As many prepare to get their finances in order for the new year, new research has revealed the one habit that will reveal whether you’re good or bad with money.

When shopping, the decision to go for quality or quantity says a lot about the state of your finances, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder.

If you tend to go for cheaper products and buy more of them, you’re more likely to spend more money in the moment and accumulate more debt in the long run.

“Buying more (stuff) makes it harder to track spending,” Rodrigo Dias, assistant professor of marketing and co-author of the study, told Money.com.

“This can lead to unintentional overspending, which adds up over time.”

Dias said the data collected in the study shows that a simple shopping habit can reveal a lot about a person’s financial situation.

This is largely because consumers tend to be very consistent with their purchasing habits, he explained.

For example, if you buy high-quality shoes but few pairs, that tends to be how you shop in other ways, like food and furniture.

The data, collected from 24,000 shoppers, also found that quantity-first shoppers spent more overall, accumulated more debt, and struggled to pay off that debt.

In a shopping simulation, quantity buyers selected $89 worth of products, compared to $79 for quality buyers.

According to the study, 26% of quantity-conscious shoppers saw an increase in their credit card debt over a one-year period.

While only 13% of quality-conscious buyers saw their debt increase over the same period.

Debt is also likely to stay longer for quantity-oriented buyers, as frequent purchases mean more of their income goes toward spending rather than paying off existing debt.

Several factors drive our purchasing habits, Dias explained.

These may include more expensive but better quality items, but also other cultural, psychological and economic factors.

High-volume buyers, for example, often struggle with compulsive buying or low self-control, Dias explained.

The study concluded that quantity buyers tend to have to reduce their overall financial well-being and that this in turn can push people to make quantity purchases.

“This discovery is particularly disturbing,” he says. “This highlights the possibility of a cycle of financial vulnerability, in which financial difficulties lead to purchasing habits that exacerbate those difficulties, creating a vicious feedback loop.”