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If we have a choice of companionship when it’s time to go shopping, we often choose friends with a like-minded attitude if we’re not with family. Women are encouraged to shop together for good reason – they’re unstoppable. Women take pride in carefully selecting goods and comparing. It can be a social occasion and emotional… Continue reading Save Money – Choose Your Shopping Buddy Wisely

In this new evolved world with women and men working, traditional ‘home’ duties are shared with both partners. Men have learned to express themselves through cooking, which is great for all of us who never quite enjoyed the chore. But should they do the grocery shopping for the household? Not if you want to manage… Continue reading Should You Let Men Grocery Shop?

We often have sayings, biases, and assumptions that are built and reinforced over time. For example, we often assume that a higher price means higher quality. We also assume that most people are sensible and will figure out a cheap scam so if a product is priced incorrectly, it won’t last long. But is this… Continue reading Higher Prices Mean Higher Quality – Or Do They?

Even if you just buy company stock or mutual funds in your 401(k), you are still considered an investor, and this blog is for you. In our last blog, we talked about the “feeling” brain and the “thinking” brain. We run on our Feeling brain most of the day until we kick in our Thinking… Continue reading How Your Feeling Brain Buys the Wrong Investments –Part 2

Jason Zweig does a great job of explaining the two sides of our brain in Your Money & Your Brain. We have the “thinking” or Reflective side; and we have the “feeling” or Reflexive side. Our Reflexive side is used more often daily – it is our automatic pilot, or intuition. The reflexive, feeling brain… Continue reading How Your Feeling Brain Blows Your Budget – Part 1

Yes, believe it or not. Our brains get more excited about the money we expect to get – from a bonus, a lottery, a promotion – than when we actually receive it. How many times do you spend that expected reward in your head? A little goes here, a little goes there, some goes in… Continue reading Expecting Money is better than Receiving Money

These tips are taken from “To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Over Shop and How to Stop” by April Lane Benson, PhD (2008) as published in Adrian Furnham’s most recent book “The New Psychology of Money”. The trick to changing a behavior is to understand why you are doing it, notice when you… Continue reading 6 Questions to Stop a Shopaholic Part 5

This is Part 4 of Fighting the Shopaholic in You. Eventually, regardless of our reason for shopping ‘til we drop time and time again, we are forced to face the clean up. The emotional aftermath. The financial mess. Call it what you will. Here are some examples of situations that eventually catch up with a… Continue reading The Shopaholic and The Fallout Part 4

In Parts 1 & 2 we covered some obvious signs of shopaholism, as well as some of the basic reasons. In this blog we dive a bit deeper into the key drivers of the behavior. Find out if one of the triggers outlined below is driving you to shop ‘til you drop! Triggers are an… Continue reading Obvious signs of shopaholism

In Part 1 of this blog series, we identified some key warning signs for Shopaholism. Now we examine the different emotions that drive compulsive buying, as well as the biology and genetics that may drive us to the extreme. Impulse disorders such as gambling, alcoholism, and binge eating have a genetic component. Compulsive buying is… Continue reading The Shopaholic – Do You Shop for Need or Desire? Part 2