Are You An Emotional Spender?
We Can All Be Emotional With Our Money
If you are not quite sure what an emotional spender is, you are not alone, many people who are emotional spenders are completely unaware of the fact that they are.
The simplest example of an emotional spender is a consumer who buys on wants vs needs. There is nothing wrong with shopping that way if you have an endless supply of money. However, if you are like most consumers today, you don’t have endless supplies of money.
Are You Irrational?
This would imply that you may at times be irrational with how you spend your money, yes, that’s exactly what it implies. As consumers we are influenced by many outside events or stimuli; some we control, some we don’t. Advertisers tug at our emotions all the time, but that does not mean we have to buy what they’re selling.
The Effect Of Emotional Spending
If you buy on emotions the tendency is to over spend, and that’s where emotional spending can get you into trouble.
We all know the effects of over spending and they aren’t good. In addition to buying items you don’t need or even use, you could also rack up large amounts of debt.
Debt To An Emotional Spender
So you over spend and carry credit card balances, what’s wrong with that? When your emotions control your spending, you do not care about the consequences, such as adding to your credit card debt; all you know at the time of purchase is that you want the item in question.
How To Reverse Emotional Spending
Before you can correct your spending habits, you must firsts recognize what type of spending habits you have and why you have them. Then you must acknowledge the damage your spending may be causing to your finances. If you carry large credit card debt and other debt you could have bad credit scores. The negative effect of bad credit scores is that you will pay much more for goods and services.
If you determine that you are an emotional spender and really want to curb your spending go back to financial basics: 1) Stop spending, cut up your credit card 2) Create a budget and only spend according to that budget, no cheating 3) Always take a list with you when you go grocery shopping 4) Take someone with you when you go shopping, someone who will not let their emotions sway their purchases.
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