by First Rate Debt Solutions
2. March 2010 10:54
It’s no joke. There really is such a thing and it could be costing you a lot of money. Behavioral economists have studied the spending habits of Americans and come to the conclusion that many of us have a dissociative spending disorder.
Dissociative means a partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning. It is a process that severs the normal connection to a person’s thoughts or can disrupt normal cause and effect thinking.
I know that sounds pretty serious and in the case of some folks it can be if the spending disorder gets them into financial trouble.
How many times have to been tempted to buy something just because it was on sale? It didn’t matter that you didn’t need it because it was 50% off and that was too good of a deal to pass up, right? So you whip out your credit card and “save” a lot of money…
Not really because you just “spent” money on something you didn’t really need because your brain is focused on the “deal” you just got not the “money” you just spent. This is especially true if you purchase with credit. Using plastic money does not register in the brain as money out of your pocket the same way cash does. If you have $100 in your wallet and you spend $60 of it, you can see what is gone and how little you have left. When you use your credit card, you get the card right back and the money you spent is not tangible or real.
Merchants and advertisers have also figured this out and rely on you to impulse buy when they put up big signs that say “sale”.
You can out-smart them though with just a few small changes. Pay with cash whenever possible to avoid the credit card/plastic trap. Don’t buy things you don’t need no matter how good the deal is. Don’t buy anything expensive on an impulse. Take a day or two to analyze if you really need and can afford the purchase and how you are going to pay for it.
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