by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: November 04, 2009   Last Updated: January 16, 2012

Some people really enjoy shopping. They like walking around the shops, taking in the atmosphere, browsing through the items on display and hunting for bargains. For others, though, shopping is somewhat of a nightmare. There are crowds of people, long queues, and thousands of items to rifle through. If you're the kind of person who finds shopping to be an extremely negative, time-consuming and expensive process there are ways of getting around this.

First of all, the internet has made shopping a lot more tolerable because as long as you've got your credit card details to hand or an account already set up all you need to do is click on the item you want, put it in your 'basket' and go to the 'checkout'. There are no queues; you don't have to worry that they may not have the item you want; and you are able to search around for the best deal and find it within minutes. You don't have to traipse around every store aimlessly searching, having to negotiate your way through crowds of people and deal with pushy sales staff. The internet gives you the freedom to look for the item you want without being pressurised, although you can find yourself being tempted by the 'also recommended' category on various websites.

If you can't do your shopping online, or it just isn't practical, which for many it isn't when it comes to grocery shopping, it helps to have a list. If you know what you need to buy you won't constantly be trying to recall all the items you require and end up picking various items that are on special offer instead. When you go shopping you'll usually encounter lots of special offers which you think will save you money, but in fact just cost you more in the long run, so it's worth taking a calculator if you're not very good with figures so you don't get conned into spending more money than you need to.

It is also worth considering shopping later at night, since most shops are open till quite late at night; some are even open 24 hours, so you'll be able to avoid the crowds and the queues and you may well find yourself a bargain, with items being reduced for quick sale. If you know which stores you are going into you can also save yourself some time as you won't go into them and end up coming out with nothing.

Shopping is something everybody does, whether they like it or not, and so it makes sense, if you dislike doing it, to find the quickest and cheapest way of getting it done, which means knowing what you want and not letting yourself get distracted by what you don't.

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