<prompt> Human: Years ago, as I was first starting on my journey to financial stability, I had a problem with impulsive buying. Not expensive things, but they would add up. So I came up with a rule for myself: I need to want it for more than three months before I would buy it.This worked well, and I have since changed my behavior so much that I dont even need to follow the rule anymore. I can instantly sense when its an impulsive buy, and when its something I really believe would improve my life satisfaction.So, after reading this sub for a while now, Im curious if you have some similar rules of thumb for yourself. Not necessarily for impulsive buys, but perhaps for other venues of personal finance management. Something we could all learn from?If so, please share.---EDIT: wow, so many different responses, I cant keep track anymore. thank you for all your feedback. So far Ive gotten a lot of good comments.In a nutshell, these are the best ideas I could find in the feed:- for every 100 dollars spent do that amount of hours to do the research 100 dollars 1 hour- walk around the store with the item before you buy it, called walking the item - this was the funniest one- use wishlists to defer decision to a later time- spending in terms of days of retirement would i rather buy 100 item or retire two days early?- thinking in terms of hours worked I need to work for x amount of hours to buy this. is it worth it?- a variation on the above one, where you first deduct your living expenses, what remains you calculate into hourly wage that you really have at your disposal and only then consider how many hours you need to work for it- buying only after running x number of miles works both for impulse buys and getting yourself in shape- the old if you cant afford two of those, you cant afford one was very common and very popular a variation on this with a 3x approach- a lot of jokes how you cant do this with food teasing me about the three month thing- and other that said they do that for food as well obviously not in terms of not eating, but rather in terms of eating certain junk foods they like- buy memories, not things- practicing artificial scarcity. This one is a bit trickier to explain so Ill let the original comment speak for itself- think about the dollar per use ratio. So if its something you wont use often, how expensive is it? Is it worth it?- take a picture of the item you want while shopping. at home look at the pictures and do the research. usually you realize you didnt really want it by thenI hoped I would get more that werent for impulse buys, like I stated above... Other personal finance life hacks, but Im sure these rules of thumb can be used by others.Also, my mailbox is full, sorry I cant respond to all of you. I really tried :---EDIT2: Ive never had a reddit post reach 6k. Im strangely proud haha. I dont need much :  <response>: Each pay day I pay out half of my bills. I then send money to savings accounts and etc. Whatever I have left is my money. If its high due to overtime, I add more to savings.Our simple rule of thumb to stop impulse purchases is how long did it take me to earn that money and will I enjoy that object at least that long. It stopped a lot of really light weight spending when we didnt make as much. Realization that a drink costs an hour of labor was ugly. It is harder to apply now but still helps with eating lunch out and buying things wastefully.When buying expensive or luxury food items I divide how many meals I will get from it. My favorite Japanese steakhouse is normally a 100 meal for the two of us. But I bring back so much in left overs I have dinner or lunch for the next 3 days. That turns my 50 meal into 3 16 meals.I get a very nice cut of steak from Costco. 4 steaks are around 60. However, with reasonable portions those steaks are easily turned into 8 portions or 4 meals between the two of us. Now that 60 becomes 15 a meal for really good steak for two people.I try to give cravings a week. If I still want it in a week, Ill get it say an ice cream Sunday.I give expensive purchases more time. 3-6 months and during that time I save up the money. I did that for my Surface Pro 4. I spent months researching it, saved up the cash to hit a black Friday sale, and when that time came to press the buy button I was excited. After six months of research I was still excited. I had picked the right object and Im very pleased with it. 