We often spend to potentially achieve happiness, but studies have actually found that the acquisition of stuff is not what makes us happy.
We often justify purchases with our current financial situation in mind. But what if your situation changed in an instant (which it can). If you lost your job tomorrow, would you still buy that $300 dress?
The people with whom we surround ourselves often influence our behaviors more than we know.
Some brands have propriety ingredients and formulas that you can only get from them. But in some cases, a product from one brand is not at all different from another. Only the sticker and packaging changes.
I remember thinking, when I was a bit overweight, “It’s just my luck that I’d gain weight at the same time I’m having money problems.” I thought it was an unlucky coincidence, but there was no coincidence about it.
Money is a funny thing. You can make tons of it, but if you’re bad with it, somehow wind up with little of it. Or you can make little, but if you’re great with money, save and save
The special speaker system. The thing that syncs up to all of your music apps. The system that syncs up to Apple Pay so you can buy apps and music just by speaking to your car. When you get these features, you pay for them—sometimes a lot. But, if you’re like many drivers, you never learn to use them at all, or even if you do, you don’t use them because A) it’s not really safe to use them while driving and B) you’re rarely in the car long enough to use them.
If you pay extra monthly to have the holistic benefits plan in your health insurance, then A) make use of those benefits and B) file the claim. If your plan covers, say, acupuncture, and you attend a $65 acupuncture session. You may feel too lazy to scan the receipt and upload it to the claims department. But you already paid for that acupuncture through your increased premium. Now you’re paying twice for it. File the claim.
If you pay close attention, most hand carwashes just send your car through the exact same type of drive-through car wash the gas station has, and then put a few men on it with towels to touch things up. Then you pay $50. Just go to a drive-through, spend $10, and bring your own towels to do touch-ups on your own. Many have a vacuum for the inside of your car that you can use for free.
All shopping really is is a distraction. It’s a form of procrastination. We don’t typically call other forms of procrastination like…turning our phones off and drinking a bottle of wine therapy. We call that good old-fashioned procrastination. Yet, somehow, shopping snuck its way out of the procrastination category and into the therapy one. Maybe because we do it soberly (eh, well, not always. Mimosas and shopping go well together).
When you’re young, you’ll start receiving offers from banks, promising to give you incredible returns on savings accounts. The catch is that, you typically need to keep a high balance—often $10,000 or up—in order to avoid fees. The moment your balance drops below that figure, you could face a fee that’s higher than any interest you earned that year. Unless you can put nearly triple the minimum balance in such an account, don’t do it. An emergency cost may put you in the red.