Do you suffer from buyer’s remorse? Here’s how to make it work for you

It all started for me with Ikea. The big yellow bags, the abnormally cavernous trolleys, the twists and turns around the showrooms, each new scene offering a wealth of exciting and affordable ways to transform your home and, therefore, your life.

I chuck things in my bag and trolley with both hands as I float almost magnetically from one room to another, each new scheme full of bargains that just can’t be passed up.

And then comes the market hall – a site to behold as we descend on the travelator, bursting at the seams with baskets, candles and candle holders, plants, kitchenware and garden things, rugs, cushions and towels – each one promising to take our bog-standard interior into a new realm of cosy and Scandinavian cool.

But as I reach the warehouse where the flat-pack items wait, and I look at the long list of ‘locations’ jotted down for all the life-changing purchases I decided on as I walked through the showrooms, I suffer from buyer’s remorse – I realise that there is little or no room left in the trolley, suggesting that there may also be little or no money left in the kitty.

And so I find myself pulling over to the side near the checkouts, doing what has now become a regular – in fact, essential – part of any trip to Ikea, or indeed any other large-scale store that promises to change my life with a few clever purchases: I empty the trolley, and the big yellow bag, and I only put back in what I really cannot bear to leave without.

So, that means at least three candle holders/oil burners and plant pots go back, as do the multiple picture frames, scatter cushions, kitchen gadgets and quirky plastic watering cans.

What qualifies to leave the shop and come home with us is anything that promises to take away the clutter rather than adding to it, anything with an immediate and definite use (like those clips for the freezer bags – who can live without those?), and anything that was on the list before we entered the shop – i.e. what we actually went for!

So when we finally make it to the conveyor belt, what had previously amounted to around the cost of a weekend away has been whittled down to something more in the region of lunch in a gastro-pub.

But the effects – somewhere to put the magazine pile, better toy storage and no more loose peas in the freezer – are still life-changing.