Smart Amazon Shopping Tips That Help Save You Money

Amazon can completely wreck our budgets. It is so easy to get on our phones and add things to our carts. You just tap a button, and it magically appears. If you're a spender, you don't even care. You don't even feel the weight of the purchase until the end of the month when you realize you’re out of money.

You can decide in your head that you have a certain amount you can spend on Amazon, but it's too easy to justify going over your budget. Especially when you're not using cash, it doesn’t feel like you’re even spending. Creating a budget is a fantastic idea that I highly recommend doing.

Amazon has a feature to add a budget to your Amazon account. You can add money from your debit card, giving yourself a balance of money that you can spend. This way you have a designated amount of money that you can spend on Amazon for that month.

You can automate this so that every month it adds the money to your balance or you can add it manually. This is something that I did at the beginning of budgeting because I thought that was the best plan. As soon as the balance turned to zero, I didn't have any money there to spend.

It became a game for me. If I didn't spend so much money, then I could save it for the next month to buy something bigger and better. That worked for a while, but I have since then stopped.

I no longer add money to a balance on Amazon. Instead, throughout the month I will add things I want to my cart. At the end of the month, I will make a one-time purchase. Even though I can add whatever I want to my cart all month, I only make one Amazon purchase a month.

I am on Amazon throughout the month, but I'm not purchasing. I just add stuff to my cart. Oftentimes, at the end of the month when I’m ready to make my purchase I delete half the stuff because I realize I don't need it. Sometimes I let things sit in my cart for months before deciding.

The best part about once-a-month Amazon shopping is I have no guilt over what I purchased. I never feel guilty about my purchases because they're budgeted for. I have allowed my mind to sit on that item and decide if it’s really worth buying. I'm more aware of my purchases because I’m shopping mindfully.

Now I want to tell you about some of my favorite most recent purchases. I needed a new pair of gardening gloves. I had been buying the dollar tree gardening gloves, and they're terrible of course because they're so cheap. I just wanted a high-quality gardening glove because I'm in my garden so much in the spring and summer.

My new gloves from Amazon are amazing. They have touchscreen finger pads. I always want to film or take pictures of my garden. When I have my gloves on, I have to take them off to use my phone every few minutes to take pictures or answer the phone if somebody calls me. Because of the touch screen finger pads, now I don't have to bother taking the gloves off at all.

In January I purchased a cast iron skillet from Amazon. I love my cast iron skillet, but I struggled a little bit with cleaning it. I went ahead and purchased this chain scrubber. This gets my cast iron skillet nice and clean.

I am really happy with these non-disposable makeup pad removers. They are made of soft cotton and absorb really well. Another thing I love about these ones is the bag.

They have so many of these little bags with drawstrings to choose from but I wanted a good laundry bag with a zipper. This one has a zipper. It was $15, and you get ten of these reusable pads. 

After I use a few I'll just put them in the bag, zip it up and throw it in my washer with my one load of laundry that I do every single day anyway. I have been very happy with this purchase. I was tired of always buying the little cotton swabs. I just felt like I was throwing my money away.

Next, I bought these reusable gloves that came with two microfiber cleaning pads. I purchased these gloves because they’re long. When I am cleaning toilets and I reach behind and underneath the toilet my clothes touch the toilet.

I wanted a long pair of gloves for cleaning and another pair for my kitchen, so this two-pack was worth the $10. I sat on this purchase for two months.

I also bought this flip-cap lid, handle, and spout mason jar and I love it. We make a lot of lemonade and orange juice. I love how sturdy this is. It was very inexpensive. 

I also bought a face exfoliator, and I used to have one of these. I used to have one of these in my early teenage years. I couldn’t find my old one so I bought a new one. I want to deep clean my pores like they do when you get a facial. 

Amazon shopping tips

Amazon is a great shopping resource, but it’s easy to lose track and overspend. Setting a budget for yourself will help, but there’s always more you can do. Restricting yourself to once-a-month purchasing will help you decide what’s worth buying and prevent you from spending impulsively.