What is Slow Shopping & 5 Simple Slow Shopping Tips to Save Money

Ashwin Honawar

Slow shopping stands in stark contrast to our era of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet, space travel, and nuclear weapons—all created to deliver swift results. This desire for speed has even influenced how we shop, with instant deliveries becoming the norm.

Hence, we have online sellers that provide grocery or food and medicine deliveries within a few minutes. Understandably, all this speed doesn’t come free: someone has to pay for people and equipment that makes our life incredibly fast. Invariably, it’s we the consumers that pay the price for enjoying speedy travel or quick deliveries.

However, it’s worth knowing that buying quickly doesn’t entail expenses only on modes of delivery. Instead, when we shop for something quickly, the price often gets ignored. Worse, we end up with a lot of clutter at homes or offices, when the stuff gets delivered.

Rapid shopping usually occurs during sales such as Black Friday or the year end festivals including Christmas and New Year. I use the word rapid because we shop mindless of the prices and utility of stuff.

This is where slow shopping comes in. 

Understandably, you might be wondering what slow shopping is. As a matter of fact, slow shopping could actually help you save a lot of money.

So, what’s exactly slow shopping and how does it help save money? Continue reading as I explain slow shopping in detail. Trust me, it could help save you a lot of money.

Understanding Slow Shopping

Since 1983, there’re various informal yet highly popular movements that are going around the world to date. One of these is the minimalist movement where millions of people around the world simplify their lives, reduce stress, and focus on what truly matters.

This involves living with only those things that’re genuinely necessary and cutting out any frills. You could call it a living light. This helps them unclutter their personal life and stop spending on things that really don’t matter. However, such persons do enjoy their life to the fullest, without giving up on any comforts or indulgences.

Also, a series of movements such as ‘slow food’ and ‘slow fashion.’ These movements encourage us to slow down, appreciate the finer things in life, and make conscious choices that benefit both ourselves and the planet.

Both Slow Food and Slow Fashion are part of a broader cultural shift towards more mindful and sustainable living. While Slow Food is organized and calls for consuming local, home cooked foods over fast food, Slow Fashion is all about encouraging consumers to buy fewer, higher-quality items and to consider the environmental and social impact of their clothing choices.

While “Slow Shopping” hasn't evolved as a formal, organized movement like “Slow Food” or “Slow Fashion,” it's definitely gaining traction as a mindful consumerism approach. It's more of a mindset shift than a structured movement, influencing individuals to make conscious choices about their purchases. 

As a matter of fact, Slow Shopping is gaining rapid pace due to considerations such as economic downturns, environmental concerns, influencers, and personal finance issues calling to save more and spend less. Hence, it’s helping folks to save money too.

Therefore, if you’re planning to save money and wish to engage in Slow Shopping, continue reading. I will now explain some simple tips and tweaks to do Slow Shopping.

Tips and Tweaks for Slow Shopping

A study conducted by Affirm, a Buy-Now-Pay-Later service provider in the USA proves that 73 percent of all Americans now resort to Slow Shopping. The study conducted in 2024 covered 2,000 adult Americans, where the majority of all respondents in the study declared they would be ‘slow shopping’ this year and beyond, especially during sales and holiday seasons.

And here’re how they do slow shopping. You too could use their tips and tweaks to save a lot of money now and in the future, for sales and festivals or for routine shopping for the household.

Pause Before Purchase

1st tip to of acing slow shopping is think and pause before purchase.


When you decide to buy something, never rush to the store or make an online purchase. Instead, defer the decision-making process and buy it in at least 24 hours. This period or pause before purchase provides a window of opportunity for you to reflect on whether or not you truly need the stuff.

And if needed, to what extent would you use it? Unless you’re going to use something fully and get the full value for money, it’s probably not worth buying. Also consider whether a used or preowned product, where possible, would meet your needs instead of pricey new ones.

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The Need- Want List

2nd tip to ace slow shopping is to prepare needs n wants list.


Another action to take for Slow Shopping is to create a Need-Want list. To prepare such a list, write two heads- Need and Want. Now we’re all aware of what we and our households genuinely need. Plan on buying only that stuff. Wants are usually something we wish to have though they may or may not have enough use.

Avoid shopping for things on your wants list unless it would make a significant and positive change to your lifestyle or those of your family members. At the same time, be mindful enough to avoid buying anything that doesn’t fit your list of needs. Buying smaller quantities of everything such as food usually helps save money since wastage is minimized.

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Embrace Mindful Shopping

3rd tip to ace slow shopping is to embrace mindful shopping.


Mindful shopping simply means planning your trips both to online stores and offline shops and supermarkets. Most of us have this nasty habit of wasting time on storefronts, brooding over things to buy. Some of us browse online stores including Amazon and Walmart, to name a few, for attractive stuff, regardless of whether or not we require such things and our affordability.

Such browsing or brooding can create artificial needs that culminate as purchases translating into extra expenses. Therefore, never shop online or offline unless it has a specific purpose and only when you really require those things. Mindless shopping is the greatest culprit that causes money wastage and dwindling of our financial resources through Annual Purchase Rates (APR) on credit cards.

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Use Budgeting Apps

4th tip of acing slow shopping use budgeting apps.


Nowadays, we can easily download both free and paid budgeting apps on our mobile phones. In this genre, You Need a Budget or the YNAB app is the best, in my experience though it comes for a small price. If you’re looking for free apps, try Axio which comes from India but yet provides superb budgeting and expense tracking service for free.

By allocating budgets under various heads such as food, groceries, entertainment, shopping, healthcare, insurance, education, and utilities to name a few, you can check the amount you’re spending and get alerted whenever you’re crossing a set limit. These apps also connect to your cards and bank accounts to track expenses and alert you immediately.

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Use Artificial Intelligence Resources

5th tip off acing slow shopping is to Use Artificial Intelligence Resources


Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, we can use various AI-based resources to find the best deals prevailing in the market while shopping. Understandably, researching for the best possible deals and comparing prices between two or more vendors does take some time. Yet, it could save you a lot of money by finding cheaper deals for the same stuff or cheaper yet better alternatives and generics.

For example, Generic Toilet Paper could cost $10 to $20 per pack of 12 to 24 rolls. In contrast, you would pay between $15 and $30 for a pack of 12 to 24 branded toilet paper rolls of the same quality. Both would obviously serve the same purpose.

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Wrap Up

There’re other smaller steps to take for Slow Shopping such as blocking marketing emails that make tempting offers and flash deals at lower prices, availing discount coupons and codes to slice away some portion of the price, and expending loyalty points on credit and debit cards before they expire.

As you can see, Slow Shopping isn’t about living miserly or frugally and letting go of all enjoyment in life. Instead, it’s more about being mindful of where the money goes and discerning between necessary and frivolous expenses.

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