How counting to five can save you big money… and big regrets later.

Funny.

Until last weekend, the only five second rule I knew about was the food one – the rule that says it’s OK to eat a dropped hamburger just so long as you pick it up from that e.coli-covered floor within five seconds.

It’s the socially acceptable time limit that gives you license to still indulge without looking like an unhygienic scumbag that has a tendency to eat off dirty floors.

But this weekend, I learnt another.

I had a mate stay with me from Dubai. He’s normally a shocker with his money. No discipline whatsoever – always paying off credit card debt for stuff he can’t even remember purchasing. This visit, however, he acted like a true Tight Arts Master.

Like me, he loves his golf.  And due to an irrational golf psyche, we both admit to believing that having the latest gear will mean we’ll hit the ball better.

So when it comes to purchasing anything that offers a slight possibility of improving our game, even knitted vests with deer patterns, it’s hard not to be impulsive.

On Sunday we finished a round and made our way to the clubhouse. To get entry you have to walk through the Pro shop – the lolly shop for golfers.

Golf isn’t a cheap game. You’re looking at over $100 for even the most modest of purchases. So when you walk in there you really have to have your wits about you.

In these sorts of environments my mate would normally whack a whole bunch of stuff on the counter..and then onto his credit card. Even with three sets of clubs at home, he’d still be able to justify another stick or two.

I’m not as bad as that but I do find it hard to resist game-improving purchases. I persuade myself that if I just buy one pair of those $40 Nike Dri fit performance socks with the ‘super-stabilise’ cushioning my stance is bound to improve.

But this time, my mate surprised me. He looked at stuff for a bit  - I could see he was tempted – but then he just went “Nahhh” and walked out of the shop empty handed.

I was shocked.

Keen to understand this liberating break from normal debt-causing behaviour I quizzed him over a beer.

“Man, how did you say no to those golf shoes you were looking at?”

That’s when he spilled out his new money-saving tactic called the five second delay rule.

He’s been using this rule for a good six months, prompted by a big, bad credit card debt that wasn’t going away…and a big, bad talking to from his girlfriend.

He swears by it.

It works like this: any time you’re about to spend money, you count to five slowly. Use that time to ask yourself if you REALLY need what you’re about to buy.

Pretty simple. But I was amazed at the power it gave him.

He explained that even when he’s at a cafe and he grabs a bottle of water that costs $3.50 he thinks about it for five seconds now. The internal dialogue goes something like this…

”Do I really need this water when I could ask for a glass of tap water that would cost me nothing…I could even run back to the car and grab my own?”

Impulse buying is a thing of the past for him. Something so simple has completely transformed his very bad spending habits.

Count to five. Think about it. Do you REALLY need it?

I bet you most times you’ll put whatever you’re looking at back on the shelf and walk out a richer person with no post-purchase regrets.

I was so impressed with the simplicity of this rule I wanted to celebrate.

But I needed another beer.

So I thought about it for five seconds.

Thankfully, my internal dialogue concluded that it was truly needed on this fine occasion.

Cheers!

Greg Ellis