Shopping Tips for Families

So, you want to learn about shopping tips? That must mean you want to be a better shopper, but what does it mean to become a better shopper? How much work will it take to find shopping tips which will prevent you from wasting time and money while shopping for your family? Becoming a better shopper can help everyone not waste time and money, but this is especially true for parents. Saving time and money are critical to keep a busy family running well. Your children deserve the best from you with your limited time and budget. It’s easy to understand why you want to use your family resources wisely. 

Shopping Tip: What do you need?

Taking care of a family is hard work. It takes commitment. It takes patience. It takes time and money. Taking care of a family may be hard work, but there’s nothing better than feeling the love of your family and the self-satisfaction of being a good mother or father. So, what does this have anything to do about shopping tips? Well, raising a family means you must shop for things to power your family’s needs … food, clothing, furniture, toys, cars, etc … and shopping is how you provide these things. Learning how to optimize your limited family budget helps you not just make a home, but make a happy home. Shopping tips help you overcome the challenges of smart shopping in a time of technology disruption.

Shopping Tip: Caution! Danger Ahead

One of the first things to consider is how to stay safe while shopping.  It’s important to be alert to the dangers of mild deception through misleading advertising to outright theft with fraud and scams. Typical sources of danger are …

1. Deceptive Advertising & Dark Patterns
2. Privacy & Surveillance
3. Scams & Fraud

Deceptive Advertising & Dark Patterns

Advertisers tempt you with all sorts of wants and desires, but do they really care about your life balance or your family budget? They want to grab your attention and make a sale no matter what the cost is to you and your family. If a brand wants your attention, it should be worthy of it. It should help you meet the needs of you and your family. 

A “Dark Pattern” is a user interface design on a technology device to trick you into doing something that you don’t want to do, buy something you don’t need or sign you up for a subscription that you cannot unsubscribe from. Technology designers take advantage of your unconscious biases to manipulate you into doing something. 

The best way for you to protect yourself is to be suspicious and speak out when you find reputable stores using these disreputable sales techniques.

Privacy & Surveillance

It’s easy to dismiss the concerns about privacy and surveillance in the fast paced digital world where it’s more important to quickly satisfy our desires than understand how we are being watched and manipulated into buying more. It’s true that the Internet is changing what privacy means, but it’s untrue that we have to abandon our desire for privacy while shopping online or offline. The first step to better privacy is for you to become aware of how the modern shopping experience is designed to spy on your every move. The next step is to make the shopping experience more transparent and for us to not accept business practices that treat us as crops to be harvested. 

Scams & Fraud

It’s not just advertisers who are trying to influence you. Scam artists and fraudsters offer no value at all, but still want your money. Living in an online world has opened up opportunities for scam artists around the world to attack you.

Frustration: Finding Basic Shopping Information

Even when you get past the consideration of deception and safety, even getting access to basic information to do your shopping can be challenging. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an easy way to digest basic information like: price, availability, best shopping techniques, etc.? In today’s retail environment you can expect store owners will have fewer employees to help you find basic shopping information that you need to get the best value for your hard earned money. You’re on your own.

Overwhelmed: Too much choice?

So, even if you’re aware of your emotions/biases and you’re ready to defend against the attacks of deceptive marketing, you still have to get past the problem of choosing from so many things to buy! It’s nice to have this problem, but you may become overwhelmed and make poor choices if you’re not careful. Of course, this problem can be a great opportunity for anyone who wants to discover new products and has time to explore the bountiful riches of shopping land. So many choices! So many different styles of shopping! One thing is for sure, we may all have different goals and ways to shop, but it’s pretty certain that we all have limited time and budgets too. Building good shopping habits and having fun exploring what you can find while shopping is the best way to balance your sanity while navigating the waters of shopping for your family’s needs. 

Pursuit of … More, More, More!

It’s easy to get caught up in all the marketing hype. It’s no secret. Advertising is designed to do that on purpose.  Unfortunately, if you’re not careful, the pursuit of buying things to help your family can become the pursuit of more, more, more! We risk losing our happiness while grasping for things that are beyond our means. If we listen to the advertising we will never be satisfied with our lives. If you’re not aware of your emotions and your budget while shopping, then you’re vulnerable to being caught in a trap laid by marketing machines who don’t care about your happiness. 

Shopping Tip: Take Action

The goal of any smart shopper is to quickly find good deals, good value, and build good shopping habits. Anyone can do this. It starts by understanding why you’re shopping and creating goals. But the truth is you need to do more than just recognize your shopping goals. Smart shoppers must be ready to turn goals into action. Smart shoppers must …

• Fight the marketing that shapes your desires
• Fight the attention grabbing advertising that tries to sell you things you don’t need
• Take control of your household budget
• Build good shopping habits and maximize what you get for your money when you shop

Luckily, you’ve already started that journey by looking for the best shopping tools and tips to make you a better shopper.

There are many reasons to put the effort into becoming a better shopper. Who likes wasting money? Who wants value for their money? Who likes finding great deals? Wasting precious time and money in a busy family is not good. Becoming a better shopper helps your family get the most from a limited budget. The pursuit of happiness can be the pursuit of getting the most for your family and enjoying the rewards of a good shopping trip with your children, even if they aren’t aware of your effort.  Only you can choose what makes you and your family happy. Only you have the power to make the best decisions about your own life. 

Shopping Tip: Take Control

Don’t expect anyone to give you power over your life. You have to take it yourself. One way to empower yourself is to learn how to be a better shopper. Being a better shopper means you know how to quickly find relevant & truthful information about what you’re buying. It also means you have awareness of your unconscious biases which make you vulnerable to being manipulated. It’s important to be self aware in order for you to make better shopping decisions. 

So, what’s the best way to get more value for your money when shopping? How do you become a better shopper? Advertisers say it’s easy! Just accept the promises made in commercials that are blasted at you. If you buy our product, “you and your family will instantly be happy!” Unfortunately, that’s just not how life works. Building good habits, having the discipline to live within your means and having good judgement on when to splurge, and when to save, are good long term strategies on how to become and stay happy. It’s funny, because these are also the things that we want to teach our children to help them be happy and successful in their lives too. 

Shopping Tip: Do Your Homework

The best shopping tips involve a bit of work. You don’t need to do everything at once, but these are things you should consider doing …

• Budget & Planning 
• Search for value by watching for Sales/Deals
• Shop at stores that price matching
• Save and use Coupons 
• Use technology to help you find deals faster and talk with other shoppers like you 

Try not to be overwhelmed and do everything at once. Take one step at a time. Make it a habit to keep learning smart shopping techniques over time. Don’t do it alone. Talk to friends, family and other shoppers to find out their best techniques and tricks. Learn from them. Always be on the lookout for new tools, techniques and information sources that can help you achieve your shopping goals. 

In the end, it’s really a matter of habit. Start out slowly and build your shopping skills over time. Don’t forget to have a bit of fun along the way. 

Modshopr Shopping Tips

Wouldn’t it be great to have a place where you can share ideas about great shopping tips and talk with others who have the same shopping goals as you? Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to fight the big marketing machines alone? Modshopr is working on building a world of shopping tips and tools to help you turn your goals into reality.

Find information on Modshor to help you optimize your shopping and take control of your shopping experience for yourself. Use Modshopr to find value for your family and skip the over-hyped deals that don’t improve your life. Modshopr Shopping Tips can help you cut through the marketing spin that manipulates your emotions.  Modshopr Shopping Tips is not here to give you advice or tell you what to do with your life. Modshopr is here to help you find answers that you can’t find with a simple Google Search. Modshopr wants to help you solve your shopping problems and make a meaningful improvement in your shopping habits. Use Modshopr Shopping Tips to navigate the wonderful world of shopping.

Modshopr continues to change and improve. The latest Modshopr release creates a new space called Modshopr Shopping Tips. You can use Modshopr Shopping Tips to find answers for your toughest shopping questions. It won’t take long for you to learn how to be a smarter shopper. Modshopr Shopping Tips works with Modshopr Shopping Partner tools and Modshopr Shopper Community to give you more power to take care of your family’s shopping needs!

As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated. Modshopr is here to help you become a smarter, more informed shopper. There’s lots of work to be done building the Modshopr site. Please let us know what else we can do to help you save time and save money with your shopping.

Let’s get started …

 

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More Shopping Tips:

US Federal Trade Commission – Consumer Information – Shopping Tips
Canada’s Food Guide
Guide for residents returning to Canada