Didn’t really need that sweater you bought this week? Have 3 of the same pairs of pants? Thought you’d fit into that skirt someday, but it’s not gonna happen? Take a look through your closet, collect the clothes you can’t or won’t wear again—and use them to shop. A wonderful alternative for the shopping-inclined, Swap-O-Rama-Rama… Continue reading Don’t Shop, Swap!
Category: Money Behaviors
Recommended Reading: Going Broke: Why Americans Can’t Hold Onto Their Money By Stuart Vyse (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Stuart Vyse’s Going Broke: Why Americans Can’t Hold On To Their Money brings an important historical perspective to a current crisis, approaching debt not primarily as an individual issue but as a far broader sociological one. Vyse views our present debting behavior in the context of historical economic influences, moral financial perspectives, the evolution of… Continue reading Recommended Reading: Going Broke: Why Americans Can’t Hold Onto Their Money By Stuart Vyse (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Results of an Open Clinical Trial of a 6-Day Experiential Therapy Program for Disordered Money Behaviors
A year ago in the newsletter (Vol 2, Number 3), we reported on The Healing Money Workshop, held at Onsite Workshops in Nashville, Tennessee—one of a very few programs that does intensive work with people who have serious money disorders. A combination of financial education and experiential therapy, the workshop focuses on bringing to awareness… Continue reading Results of an Open Clinical Trial of a 6-Day Experiential Therapy Program for Disordered Money Behaviors
Important New Test for Compulsive Buying Comes Out in December
After years of rigorous testing and research, a new test of compulsive buying tendencies is being published in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. Designed to identify consumers who “have a strong urge to buy, regularly spend a lot of money, and have difficulty resisting the impulse to buy,” the new test… Continue reading Important New Test for Compulsive Buying Comes Out in December
Stopping Overshopping Tips: When Happiness Seems Just a Mouse Click Away…
An article in The Williams Record discusses the dramatic rise in online overshopping among college students, but that rise isn’t limited to the collegiate population. Increasingly, other Americans are clicking their way to addicted shopping. They’re lured there by an endless virtual world of merchandise, by attractive pricing, and above all by the ease of… Continue reading Stopping Overshopping Tips: When Happiness Seems Just a Mouse Click Away…
Making Less, Spending More: What’s Wrong with this Picture?
In a Washington Post article earlier this year, Michael Fletcher pointed to some disturbing facts about the direction of the middle class economy. At the heart of the matter is a curious reversal: although the typical American family now earns less than it did seven years ago, its rate of consumption has increased significantly. Median… Continue reading Making Less, Spending More: What’s Wrong with this Picture?
Tip: Resisting the Shopping Channels
Recent research makes definite and demonstrable what we already suspected: that QVC and other such channels are enabling and encouraging compulsive shopping. For an overshopper, these channels are simply too seductive. Don’t go there. Stay away. These are not retail stores, where, at your leisure and with sales pressure you can limit, you are able… Continue reading Tip: Resisting the Shopping Channels
Recommended Reading: Mindfulness and Money: The Buddhist Path of Abundance
An overshopper who completed the Stopping Overshopping Program read Mindfulness and Money shortly after she’d finished the work of the program. She recommended it highly. We asked her if she’d consider writing a short review for the newsletter and she’s graciously accepted. Two years ago, I was deeply in debt and fighting the urge to… Continue reading Recommended Reading: Mindfulness and Money: The Buddhist Path of Abundance
Face the Facts About Your Credit Card Debt
Credit cards are the ultimate legal drug in a materialist culture, deceptively empowering and beautifully insulated from the feel of spending. They are designed for impulsiveness. And what comes with that impulsiveness is a set of extraordinarily harsh repayment terms. So for overshoppers, the first thing to know about credit cards is: put them away… Continue reading Face the Facts About Your Credit Card Debt
Does Money Make us Independent, Indifferent, or Stingy?
A recently published behavioral study ties together nine experiments, each one designed to test the effect of money consciousness on some aspect of social behavior. Using random samples of students and non-students at three universities in different parts of the country, the experimenters divided their subjects into two groups. One group was “money primed,” subtly… Continue reading Does Money Make us Independent, Indifferent, or Stingy?