The 2-minute rule I use before buying anything over $20
I used to buy things I didn’t need with money I hadn’t planned to spend. Not big purchases. Small ones. A gadget here, a course there. It added up fast.
Then I started using a rule that changed how I spend.
What the rule actually is
Before buying anything over $20, I wait two minutes. That’s it.
I set a timer, step away from the screen, and ask myself one question: “Will I care about this in 30 days?”
Most of the time, the answer is no. The urge fades. I close the tab and move on.
Why two minutes works when willpower doesn’t
Most impulse purchases happen in a window of excitement. You see something. You want it. You buy it before your brain catches up.
I once bought a $99 Skillshare subscription — just imagine! lol :)
Anyway, two minutes is just enough time to interrupt that loop. It introduces friction. Not a lot of friction, but enough.
You’re not saying no forever. You’re just saying not right now. That small shift changes the outcome more often than you’d think.
The question that does most of the work
“Will I care about this in 30 days?” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in those two minutes.
It forces you to think past the moment. It strips away the novelty. And it makes you picture your future self, who almost always has different priorities than your current self.
I started asking a second question too: “Am I buying this because I need it, or because I’m bored, stressed, or avoiding something?”
That second question is uncomfortable. That’s the point.
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What I noticed after a few months
My cart abandonment rate went up. My regret rate went down.
I stopped buying courses I never finished. I stopped replacing things that worked fine. I started spending on things I had actually thought about.
The rule didn’t make me a minimalist. It just made me more deliberate.
Where this gets harder
Sales make this rule feel like it’s working against you.
The two-minute rule matters most when someone else is trying to rush you. That’s usually when your judgment is most compromised.
Slow down on purpose when the pressure picks up.
Applying this beyond random purchases
The same logic works for subscriptions, apps, and digital tools. These feel cheaper because they’re recurring and billed quietly. But a $12 subscription you forget about costs $144 a year.
If you want to find where your money is quietly leaking, I put together a guide that walks through the exact categories most people never audit.
It’s a fast read and most people find at least five things they can cut immediately.
The uncomfortable truth about impulse spending
Most impulse purchases are not about the product. They’re about a feeling you’re trying to create or escape.
Buying something new feels like progress. It feels like a reward. It feels like solving a problem.
Two minutes gives you enough space to ask whether the feeling is real or just a reflex.
Sometimes the purchase still makes sense. Good. Buy it with confidence.
Most of the time, it doesn’t. And two minutes was all it took to figure that out.
