Before you start

This is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit. You're tired or flat or fed up, you start looking at things to buy, and you buy one. For an hour or so you feel better. A few days later the thing arrives, and not long after that it's one more object in the house.

I'm going to argue three things. The first is that the lift you get from buying is real. Researchers have measured it, and I won't pretend it's imaginary. The second is that the lift sits in the wanting, the choosing and the waiting, and hardly any of it sits in the thing. It's mostly over by the time the box is open. So you're paying the full price of an object to get a feeling that the object doesn't supply. The third is practical. One question, asked before you pay, sorts most purchases into the right pile, and there are cheaper ways to get what the evening was short of. Chapters 14 and 15 cover both.

A few things this book isn't. It isn't a case for owning less, living plainly or feeling guilty about nice things. You need to buy things, and some of what you buy will give you years of pleasure. Chapter 12 is about those purchases. It isn't a budgeting book either. There are no spreadsheets here.

Four cautions.

If you're missing payments, borrowing to cover food or rent, or afraid to open your statements, don't wait until the end of a book. Free debt advice exists for this. In the UK the NHS points people to Citizens Advice, StepChange, National Debtline and MoneyHelper. Ring one of them this week.

If your buying feels out of your control, takes up hours of most days, or is something you hide, chapter 16 describes what doctors call compulsive buying and where to get help. A book on its own may not be enough, and that isn't a failing in you.

If your spending comes in bursts, along with feeling unusually high, confident and full of energy and needing very little sleep, please talk to a GP. The NHS lists being extravagant with money among the signs of mania in bipolar disorder. That needs a doctor. A book about shopping won't touch it.

And if your trouble is that there isn't enough money for the things you need, this book isn't aimed at you. It's about buying things you didn't need for a feeling that didn't last. Going without is a different problem.

The notes at the back give the studies I've relied on and their limits. Where I'm giving my own reasoning and not a finding, I'll say so.