These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 3: Pocket – Your Personal Economy

Week 40: In the Mall

The mall and the markets in general are primarily places to buy and not for wandering and entertainment. If you just feel upset and do not want to buy any items, it is better to go somewhere else for a walk or to relax.

• Don’t let the exhibits write your shopping list. Get the list done before you head out to the mall.

• Try to get done not only your shopping list but even your shops list as much as you can before you head out to the market.

• Keep your shopping list accurate, and stick to it. But it’s important to remember to take into account a safety margin for additional expenditures against any surprises, such as an unexpected increase in the price of an item, having to replace an unavailable item with a more expensive one, or even any emergency addition to the list.

• After preparing your shopping list and going to the market, if you were surprised by an item that you could not resist or discovered that you needed it very much and it was not available before but it is exceeding all your current budget preparations, work seriously to delete the least needed items or what you can postpone in your shopping list.

• There is no single store or even one mall that is the best in everything, whether in terms of the quality and variety of goods offered or their prices. The market is large, and the shops are changing and being renewed; therefore, carefully select your stores list and continuously update it to suit your renewed needs and the changes that occur to the market itself.

• Sale season is only a good opportunity to buy the discounted items that you’ve been wanting to buy. Beware of rushing to buy items, no matter how tempting the discount is, unless you really need them. Don’t let sale season dictate what to buy just because items become more affordable.

• You don’t have to pay more for an item just because of the exorbitant rent of the shop. You might be able to buy the same item from a simple shop in a modest place.

• In the world of shopping, there is no such concept as “loyalty” in the traditional sense. Give your shopping loyalty to the stores that give you the best privileges, not necessarily to the ones that offer you a clever shopping trick called “the loyalty card.”

• Remember that the privileges are not just limited to the low prices but also include other essential needs related to purchasing, such as after-sales service and long-term store’s reliability.

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