My son and I love going to stores. I love just looking and he feels we need to buy everything me and him like. I could just not take him to the stores but we love it so much plus is good to be out doing things and not be at home being on electronics all the time. We do love going to the park and stuff but there are times when it is too cold or too hot to be outside for long. Our favorite store right now is At Home and the bookstore. We browse every section of the store especially the clearance sections. We could spend hours in there, especially looking at the holiday decorations.
I am working with him on wanting and needing things. Yes, I like a lot of stuff there but I don’t need it. I love looking at things for inspiration plus it helps with my mental health. I don’t like being at home all the time. Our favorite time to go is usually in the evening after dinner usually they have less shoppers around. The lesson I am trying to teach him is that it is ok to walk a store for hours and not feel like you have to buy everything. Sometimes we do buy something if we can justify that we will actually use the item. That is why I call it browsing because I am not a shopper. I do not like spending money on things that I don’t need. Shopping implies you have to buy something and the purpose of the trip is to buy something while browsing just means you are just getting out of the house. If you like going to stores, can you just browse for hours and not buy anything?
What my son has yet to learn is our consumerism and hoarding of things is what leads people to high credit card debt, storage units for stuff you can’t fit in the house and other unnecessary expenses which kills your household budget. Just because you like something, doesn’t mean you have to own it. It is hard even for elder adults who overindulge in Amazon orders.