About

The Impulsive Buy is dedicated to providing quasi-reviews about various consumer goods. Each review goes off on some tangent, but almost always comes back to complete the review. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be a quasi-review website. Instead we would be some quasi-babbling website. TIB has been named a Yahoo! Site of the Day and has been mentioned in Marie Claire and Buffalo Spree magazine. It was also named one of the Top 100 Undiscovered Websites of 2008 by PC Magazine and one of their Favorite Blogs of 2008. And since 2008, it hasn’t accomplished anything else.

The staff of The Impulsive Buy are not experts, but they do like to try anything that has any of the following words on the product: new, improved, new and improved, better tasting, reconditioned, less fat, fat-free, best-selling, less calories, reduced for quick sale, limited edition, free toy, 50% off, or now with Olestra.

The Impulsive Buy is not affiliated with any company.

Current Contributors

Brandon

When he’s not eating junk-food and writing about it for Internet laughs (well, and money), Brandon is a cybersecurity professional who hopes to someday figure out what, exactly, that actually means. He lives in Kansas City, Mo. with several people of varying ages, shapes, and genders, and three cats. He has been writing for The Impulsive Buy since 2016 which amounts to a whole lot of weird soda and questionable chips; he regrets nothing. Additionally, he has covered sports, television, independent film, parenting, and retro television on various websites for almost two decades — you can Google it if you don’t believe him.

Brandon’s Reviews

Erin

By day, Erin walk dogs in her favorite city in America: Chicago. By rest of the day, she’s a lifelong snack food enthusiast following her true passion – wandering grocery stores, convenient marts, and fast food places for new arrivals and changes in package art. She has strong opinions on pretzels, hoards Arby’s sauce even though it’s sold in stores now, can’t resist chicken nuggets in the shape of things, and takes great pride in making sandwiches.

Erin’s Reviews

Heather

Heather is a former journalist-turned corporate marketer who lives in the Midwest with her husband, two children and lots of coffee. Her forte is writing about all the new drinks and goodies Starbucks has to offer, and she’s been a proud Starbucks Gold Card Member since 2016. When the caffeine subsides, Heather loves all things Disney, reading, running and going on adventures with her family.

Heather’s Reviews

Jenna

Jenna is a junk food junkie living in New York City, where she enjoys the occasional stuffed crust pie from Pizza Hut just as much as her city’s iconic dollar slice. Her favorite fixes include white chocolate candies, limited edition soda flavors, coffees that are actually mostly sugar and whipped cream, and anything that’s filled or covered with cheese. When she’s not writing reviews for all things delicious and unhealthy, she can be found taking long walks, playing board games and video games, and reading anything she can get her hands on, including the backs of cereal boxes.

Jenna’s Reviews

Julie

Julie is an online course designer from Pennsylvania who thrives in little treat culture. Her favorite activities include baking, sampling novelty candies, and enduring a never-ending quest to find the perfect chai latte. Her ultimate junk food ambition is to bring back the Reese’s Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Cup. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, thrifting, and volunteering at cat shelters. She has been described as a social gadfly and eccentric feline enthusiast. Most claims against her cannot be proven.

Julie’s Reviews

Karen

When not obsessing over all the newest snacks, sweet or savory, Karen teaches incoming college freshmen how to write essays at a small university in New York. Karen enjoys cooking (mostly) healthy meals for her family, taking her daughter out on little adventures, watching anime, and burning the midnight oil reading on her much-beloved Kindle. Karen also writes novels– you can find more information about her books at karenlmead.com.

Karen’s Reviews

Mark

Mark is a professional editor and cultural historian who loves anything related to holidays: music, clothing, decorations, and, of course, candy. Consequently, his reviews on The Impulsive Buy tend to be seasonal: pumpkin, peppermint, Peeps. In fact, to reserve his calorie intake for these special limited-edition treats, he rarely consumes sweets that are not seasonal. Finding and reviewing new products for TIB is a fun diversion from his day job, which is with a scholarly journal about Utah history. He also enjoys running on the trails near his house and cuddling with his cat.

Mark’s Reviews

Sean

Sean E. Sullivan Is a writer, musician, and coffee enthusiast from San Francisco, CA. Between writing for The Impulsive Buy since 2016 and dabbling in his own blog and Instagram reviews as Sean’s Skillet, he sporadically finds time to release music under the moniker SESPOOL. He studied Creative Writing at San Francisco State University and has turned most of that academic learning into flowery reviews of the latest Oreo. Favorite flavor profile is sweet and salty, with a big soft spot for ice cream, but currently he is in his chip era. Other interests include NBA basketball, horror movies, heavy riffs, and pop girlies.

Sean’s Reviews

Tiffany

…is never not thinking about food. In no particular order, her favorite things in life are:

  1. daydreaming about her next meal or snack while eating her current one
  2. ordering the entire menu – yep, she’s THAT friend.
  3. hunting for new products like it’s an Olympic sport.

She’s a California native, but now lives in Michigan – where the midwestern superstores have the longest aisles she’s ever seen. It’s a dream!
When she’s not eating, she’s writing about it here or on Yelp (thug.yelp.com)

Tiffany’s Reviews

Bios for other current contributors will be added in the future.