If you have not taken my online Money Personality Test you should do it. The test quickly helps show you what your money personality is and gives you a better understanding of how you look at money, credit, and debt. People feel guilty when they don’t manage their money like people say they should. But … Read more
A bunch of really smart people who can collect data and calculate cool looking math formulas have again told us why people are driven by unconscious motivations that lead them into debt. Debt is never the problem but the symptom of the underlying issues that caused the debt. Debt is the scat of previous money … Read more
As someone who has helped people with debt and money troubles since 1994 I’ve seen thousands and thousands of consumer situations when dealing with all sorts of debt. From mortgages, credit cards, car loans, bank loans, personal loans and students loans; I’ve seen it all. I’ve worked with people with gambling problems, shopping addiction, overspending, … Read more
Here we are in the middle of 2016, and technology has never been at a greater height, nor has it ever been used in the manner it is being used for. To my mind the greatest use of technology these days is our mobile phones. They are little computers and do everything. Our mobiles make … Read more
We’ve seen the situation a hundred times while standing in line to checkout at a store, the person in front of you is asked if they want to apply for a store credit card and get a fabulous discount on their purchase. And you know what happens next, you are going to be asked as … Read more
One of the first experiments to test the hypothesis that teaching economics is debasing people’s morality was conducted by Gerald Marwell and Ruth E. Ames. They designed a game where participants were given an allotment of tokens to divide between a private account and a public fund. If every player invested all of their tokens … Read more
He spends, she spends! When it comes to gender and money, there’s no shortage of stats on how the sexes stack up. But while you’re probably used to hearing those differences dissected in discussions of salaries and pay inequality, it turns out there’s a bit more to it; gender plays a role in a whole range … Read more
Dan Ariely, a world recognized behavioral economist and I had an opportunity recently to sit down and talk about a number of issues and underlying unconscious choices that lead people in debt to make good or bad decisions in dealing with debt. Dan talks about the mistakes the financial services industry makes and the best … Read more
The other day I was sitting in the office of Dan Ariely at Duke University and we were chatting about behavioral economics from the point of view of getting out of debt. During the conversation the comment was made that if people became aware of the connection between spending and the “high” or good feelings … Read more
I’m giving your reading muscles a break today and instead of writing you an article here’s a video based on a study put out by Cornell University in 2009 about the “Effects of Menu-price Formats on Restaurant Checks“. The study suggested that people were more inclined to purchase and spend more if the dollar sign … Read more
I was doing some research on Dan Ariely, a fabulous behavioral economist who I’m hoping to interview. In my research I came across the video below. So before you watch it. Who do you think cheats more, New York bankers or Washington politicians?
I wish I could remember who I was having the conversation with a year ago about consumers will have learned a fundamental lesson about how to manage money as a result of this economic downturn we’ve faced in 2007-2010. My point was that any trend downwards in credit card spending is temporary and if consumers … Read more
I’ve written a lot about how shopping malls, and stores are deigned to intentional trigger your subconscious impulses to get you to spend money. And then when people do, they are cursed by their creditors for being irresponsible. Granted all spending is not beyond our control, but some formulas to make you buy are very … Read more