I was in the supermarket the other day using my gas coupon – I get two cents off for every litre of gas I buy – and redeeming my PC points (my $64.00 bill cost me pennies). The woman bagging in front of me said, “It’s good to see you practice what you preach.”  I laughed. I can’t go anywhere these days without people watching to see what I’m buying, how I’m paying, or asking, “Is that in your budget?”

But back to the coupon thing. One of the phenomena I found most interesting as I’ve worked with people and their money is the extent to which they will go to “save.”  I put “save” in quotes, because often these people use the “savings” they derive from their couponing or sale shopping to justify the mad shopping they love to do. If I had a coupon for every time I heard, “But Gail, I saved…”

Of late, perhaps because of the economy, people seem to be even more coupon crazy than ever. But there are smart ways to shop with coupons, and not-so-smart ways to shop, like the chick who can’t say what she’s done with her coupon “savings” or the dude who shopped with a coupon, put the purchase on a credit card, and then carried a balance. Oy!

If you haven’t shopped with coupons, the biggest hint from professional coupon shoppers is to buy something on sale and then use a coupon to pump up the discount. Know that coupon shopping probably means you can’t be married to a particular brand. If you’re willing to try a new kind of laundry soap or a different flavour of toothpaste, you’ll be more successful shopping with coupons.

The biggest savings tend to be on non-food items. I just got a coupon for a bathroom cleaner that gives me a free second cleaner that I use in the kitchen. I stuck it on my fridge for my next trip to the store.

Avoid being tempted into buying something you’re not likely to use just because the savings seem terrific. If your kids only eat smooth peanut butter, buying crunchy at half the price is still a waste of money.  So make your shopping list first and then flip through your coupons to see what you have that’ll save you some money.

Resist the urge to over-buy with coupons. People sometimes go overboard stocking up on savings. My girlfriend Pammie and I were talking about this the other day. She knows a woman who compulsively stocks food that often expires before she has a chance to use it. No savings there.

Coupon swapping is another way to get your hands on more of what you like. If you have friends that also coupon, set up an afternoon cuppa tea coupon swap where you put the coupons you don’t need in the middle of the table and everyone takes what they want. Course, once you become a serious coupon shopper, you’ll need to keep those suckers organized. And be patient. You’ll no doubt slap yourself on the forehead a couple of times because you “forgot” your coupons. This isn’t supposed to be an exercise in frustration. Give yourself a break. You’ll get better at couponing over time, particularly if you track your savings and use them for something that’s really important to you.

Your turn. Where do you find coupons and how do you use them? What was your best coupon deal?

Ten years ago, before the avalanche of reality TV hit the airwaves, the Joneses were the people next door. Now people are feeling the push to keep up with the likes of movie stars and TV personalities who make gobs of money airing their lives to the nation and shopping as a hobby.

JD Roth, of getrichslowly.org fame and author of Your Money: the Missing Manual, recently wrote about walking home past the gorgeous homes he has always wished he could afford to buy, consumed by envy and the desire to have what the Richy Riches have.  He subsequently notes that he and his wife are very happy with their home, but just looking at those mansions made his mouth water.

And that’s exactly the problem with watching Carrie Bradshaw strut across the screen in $600 shoes or Kim Kardashian head off for a day of sun-bathing in Sassi swimwear, Prada sunglasses and a hat that cost as much as some people’s mortgage payments. What these girls, real and not so real, are spending on clothes and beauty is equivalent to what regular folks earn in a year (or six). So trying to spend like they do, trying to keep up with the New Joneses, is putting a lot of people into a big pile of poop.

We’re in a shopping frenzy. As stores have moved from places you go to buy the things you need, to being nestled in malls that act as communities of their own, we’ve moved from needing a new pair of jeans to wanting Genius Jeans.  When Miley Cyrus struts her 7 For All Mankind Jeans, it’s not surprising that all the Miley wannabes are prepared to shell out over 200 bucks (U.S.) for a pair of jeans.  And retailers know it. Loads of space is given to which stars are wearing what labels as inducement to young fashionistas.

According to April Benson in her book To Buy or Not to Buy, “Compulsive shopping crosses every social and political boundary.”  Popular culture makes fun of our shopping addictions with bumper stickers that declare, “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” Advertisers poke fun with a reference to “shopping” as an after-school activity. And overshoppers have come to think about their lives in terms of what they must buy next and how jealous they can make their friends.

Benson claims that chronic over-shopping is almost always associated with low self-esteem and insecurity. That makes some sense. After all, if you know who you are and have your own style, you don’t feel the need to imitate the Katy Perrys of the world. But if you aren’t sure exactly what makes you happy, you can be tricked into believing that the acquisition of yet one more new thang will do it for ya.

There’s no question that our affluenza is a culturally induced affliction. Having 7000 version of jeans with price tags that range into the thousands means that $200 for a pair of Hudsons looks like peanuts. But if you’re making $15 an hour and having to pay rent, buy food and pay for transportation, you might only have a disposable income of about $2 an hour, and those jeans would represent 100 hours of work… That 13 days… almost 2 and a half weeks of work… just to buy a pair of jeans. Or you could stick ‘em on your credit card and pay interest too.

You might want to try this at home too. If there is something that you think you can’t live without, pile a mess of it into a knapsack and carry it around with you for about a week. Doesn’t all that stuff get heavy? Better yet, if you have debt, carry a representational amount of it around. So if you owe $30,000, make 1 pound of weight equal $1,000 and carry around 30 pounds of your stuff (or weights). Will you get the message fast.

Our obsession with stuff is unhealthy. If you are shopping to make yourself feel better, to fill a void, or to prove to other people that you’ve made it, you’re shopping for all the wrong reasons. And if every time you see something new, something shinier, you HAVE to have it, you’ve really got it bad. Stuff does nothing to fill our lives with meaning. But it can lead to Debt Hell. If you’re obsessed with needing bigger houses so have the space you need to hold all your stuff, you’re playing a dangerous game.

Shopping to stave off the Screaming Blue Miseries means you’re not dealing with what’s making you unhappy. And doing it on credit is only going to add to your pile of woe. Buying beautifully things for other people to show how much you loooove them is not really saying “love” as much as telling them would, or doing something for them that would truly bring them joy. Simple things like cooking them dinner on a night when they’re at their busiest, or heading over and cutting their lawn and weeding their garden on a weekend when they’re away. Or offering the take the kids overnight so they can have a romantic evening to themselves. There are so many ways to show people you love them that shopping is really the easy way out. And if you’re doing it on credit, you’re not even using your money!

Some people think they have to drop a wad just to have some friends: if they aren’t clubbing or eating out in a restaurant, it can’t be as much fun. Really? In my parents’ day, the basket-party was the thing. Everyone would get all dressed up (no fancy, just fun) fill a basket with their contribution to the eats, and bring along some great music. And they’d have a heap of fun. How did that get replaced with limos and bottle service for a way to hang with friends?

People also get remarkably attached to their stuff. You can take away their right to choose and they’ll let you. You can take away their ability to shop, and they’ll let you. But try to separate them from their stuff and they’ll panic. I’ve seen it over and over. It’s like the stuff has some sort of stranglehold on their psyches.

As you move away from your addiction to stuff you may find yourself reluctant to give something up, even if you don’t really use it. Ask yourself why. What’s holding you back from getting rid of this particular possession? Does the item have an emotional connection?

While we were on vacation last March, I lost a ring that I’d recently bought while swimming in the Caribbean. “Oh” I gasped when I realized it. “I’ve lost my ring.”

“Were you attached to it yet?” asked Alex.

“No” I said.

“Good” said she.

We tend to get emotionally attached to our stuff.  Sometimes we say we “love” our stuff. Really? Love? Sometimes it is because we have lovely memories attached to that stuff. But memories are of the mind; they’re not physical. So why marry the stuff?

Life, not stuff, is what matters. Think about things that you’ve lost, that have been stolen or that have broken. At first you thought you couldn’t live without them. But you got over it. That connection was all in your head. But your life… well, know, that’s a series of moments that is streaming through your consciousness and how you use those moments can create joy, serenity, contentment. Or you can use them to put yourself in an ugly place by measuring them in stuff.

You know the old saying, “You can’t take it with you.” When you sit back and look over your life right now, what do you think about? I’ll bet dogs to donuts that it’s not the stuff. It’s the people and the places, the experiences, the joys and the sorrows, the feelings. What you fill your life with is what truly matters, not the stuff.

How do you deal with the stuff that you’ve become attached to? How much of a hold does your stuff have on you?

Whether you’re shopping for tires for your car, cereal for you kids, or paint for you walls, the options available have become so numerous that you can become paralyzed with indecision. Or worse, you make a choice and then spend loads of time beating yourself up because you made the wrong choice. Life was so much simpler when you had to pick between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, wasn’t it?

What cable package should you get? What cell phone plan will work best for you? While we love having choices (remember when Ma Bell was the only telephone option available?), the number of choices we now have may be making our lives far more complicated than necessary. We really need 97 versions of a nail? 67 flavours of tea? 102 versions of shampoo?

Sure, choice is good, within reason. But if all the alternatives available constantly leave us second-guessing our buying decisions, can we ever by happy with the choice we make? And with innovation piling on the choices, can we ever know that the thing we are buying will meet our needs long enough to justify the price we’re paying?

Ever walked into the store to find the product you love discontinued? Or worse, the supplies for the product you love, which still works fine by the way, discontinued? Oy! Manufacturers seem to relish taking away the products we grow attached to so that we  have to once again swim in the eddy of choice.

If more choice made us happy, we’d be blissful with all the options we have. But more choice seems to leave us confused and depressed, suffering buyer’s remorse about everything from eggs to electronics. In economic terms it’s called “opportunity cost” and it refers to what you may miss out on when you make one choice over another. In it’s strictest terms, opportunity cost applies only to the next best choice. But in our multiple choice reality, each option available comes with it’s own unique features, which could make it the best option depending on the criteria we’re using to rank those options. Consumers end up feeling a sense of loss not only about the second choice they didn’t take, but all the choices they could have chosen that they took a pass on. The greater the number of options we have, the higher our opportunity cost.

So what’s a shopper to do? How do you get what you need and what you want when you go shopping without twisting yourself into knots about whether you got the best quality and the best deal?

The key is to clearly define what you REALLY want, decide what you’re prepared to give up to get what you want, and then focus your energies on the outcome you’re trying to achieve.

When I was moving into my new place I had to buy new appliances. I needed a stove. I wanted a flat-surface, a self-cleaning oven, and convection as my three top criteria. I was prepared to give up a snappy finish and a whole bunch of other great features. I was entranced by the steam cleaning option, which has turned out to be a pretty worthless feature.. And I’m less than happy with the digital clock because it’s cumbersome to use. But, overall,  I’m very happy with the fact that I got the three features I really wanted.

Shopping for my stove was relatively easy. I walked into the store and said what I wanted, and pretty well ignored everything that didn’t fit my criteria. So I didn’t let the salesperson show me anything that was less than what I wanted, and that might distract me from the three things… like a shiny stainless steel finish, or a whiz-bang new cooking feature that might be appealing in the short-term but would confuse the issue when it came time to make the decision.

The overabundance of choice affects more than our decision making when we’re shopping. It seems it is affecting our ability to make a commitment in a whole bunch of areas of our lives. According to Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice:

“What could create larger opportunity costs than choosing one mate and losing the chance to enjoy all the attractive features of other potential spouses? People also stay in their jobs less than half as long, on average, as they did a generation ago. Whereas delaying marriage and avoiding commitment to a particular job would seem to promote self-discovery, this freedom and self-exploration seems to leave many people feeling more lost than found.”

Yup, more choices don’t make us happier. Choices confuse us and leave us unwilling to commit in our attempt to avoid making the wrong choice. In the mean time, we live our lives anticipating regret and unable to enjoy what we do have because maybe we could have done better.

As Alex and I were heading into the mall one day shopping for back-to-school- and TV-shoes, I was talking about how we’ve replaced wooly mammoths with other stuff. Once upon a time human beings spent their days hunting and gathering to stay alive. We’ve taken that natural instinct to its destructive end when we head out to hunt up the latest bargain and acquire yet one more sweater for our already over-stuffed cupboard. Credit has made it easy to keep hunting even when we’ve bagged enough prey to last a good long while. And whether because of our natural drive or our total lack of self-control, we’ve lost the ability to stop shopping.

The hunter-gatherer imperative shows up in all sorts of places.  While having comfortable footwear is a must, having more shoes than you can wear in a month of Sundays is taking it to the extreme. Ditto changing your car every couple of years. Since new cars depreciate between 20 – 30% in their first two years, every time you trade-in quickly you lose big-time. And as for people who need to drive ridiculously expensive cars they can’t afford, their need to prove to the tribe that they’re head-honcho material has huge costs.

The Wow Factor has become part of the hunt. The bigger the prey you could bag the more people in your tribe you could feed and the bigger a hero you became. And it continues.  It’s not enough to have a TV, we have to have TVs so big we almost have to knock down walls to get ‘em in our houses. This so that our friends and family will say, “Wow!” And it isn’t enough to have a cell phone so our kids’ school can reach us in an emergency or so that we can call ahead if we’re running late on a appointment, we have to have the latest and greatest new cell phone so our co-workers and contemporaries will say, “Wow!”

While we used to complain about built-in obsolescence because it meant stuff didn’t last long enough, now we’ve embraced obsolescence because it means we’ll get to buy newer, hipper, flasher stuff faster.  Sure, we whine a little. “Damn, that broke so fast.” But secretly we’re happy because we have a good excuse to head out on the hunt again, hopefully to bag a new and much admired new whatever our fellow tribe members can gush over.

There’s a certain cache attached to having the newest toy first. So much so that there’s even a name in marketing parlance for these folks: early adopters. They set the trends. And they must be first into the pool. Witness all the people who lined up for days to acquire the iphone when it first came out. Hunters have to be incredibly patient, lying in the bushes completely still four hours or even days on end waiting for the prey to fall into the trap.

Wait a minute, isn’t shopping in a store more like “gathering” than “hunting?” Hey, in today’s no-risk world, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to creating the hunting experience. And so the bargain shopper is born, hunting down the best deal, the best price, the best value. When magazines and websites exist simply to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to shopping, you know we have too many choices and there’s too much stuff.

Stereotypes exist about how men and women shop differently and research has even been done into the hunter-gatherer nature of male and female shopping. But I’ve seen enough men and women to know that we’re more alike than different. Sure, we may shop for different things.  But the fact that we are determined to spend every penny we make acquiring stuff we don’t need and may not even want speaks more to the imperative to hunt and gather than to gender.

Now, if we can learn how to manage those “instincts”, maybe we can make some progress on figuring out exactly how much “enough” is.

The average Canadian family spends $7,305 on food a year, which works out to about $140 a week. The average American family spend $6,133 a year or $118 a week.

When I asked the question on in my poll (you have seen the new polls on the front of the blog, right?) “How much do you spend on groceries a month?” here’s what I got. Of the 537 people who answered

• 21% spend less than $300 a month
• 54% spend $300-600 a month
• 18% spend $600-900 a month
• 6% spend $900-1200 a month
• 1% spend more than $1200 a month

Of course, you won’t get out of a specialty grocery store with that small a grocery receipt, so if you do all your shopping in a high-end store you’re probably paying way more. I have a few Princesses that can’t imagine giving up their high-end grocery stores despite not having a cent saved in an emergency fund and no retirement plan. The mere mention of having to trim their veggies or deal with a bruised fruit sends them into spasms.

These chicks also don’t shop with a list, which is the number one way to keep your grocery shopping in check. I never go into the store without a list, and I don’t often shop off-list, although a particularly good sale can see me stocking up. Many people also prep for their shopping with menu plans and some even know when certain items go on sale at the grocery store. My girlfriend Linda is a squeeze-your-own-juice girl and like the discounted fruit section for her juicer.

Sometimes the biggest savings can be found on your receipts. Often scanner errors mean you end up paying more than you should for items. It’s been estimated that in the U.S. scanner errors cost consumers between $1 and $3 billion (yup!) a year. I know I’ve caught a number of errors including fruit codes that have been entered incorrectly.

Comparison shopping is another great way to save money. I grab the fliers and do a read through to see who has what I want at the best price. The flyers also alert me to things that I might want to stock up on for a future cook-fest.

One of the best ways to save money is not to over-buy. I’ve recently implemented the just-in-time shopping system, so my fridge is far less full but I’m also throwing away much less produce. Since I’m at the grocery store a couple of times a week (driving Alex to work), it’s easy to pick up what I need though the week as opposed to doing one big shop and then watch the uneaten cauliflower develop mold.

How much time you have to shop also has an impact on how you shop. Too much time and you wander the aisles, browsing and tossing stuff into your cart. Too little time and you’re all stressed out and less likely to miss best-by dates. And, of course, everyone knows not to go to the store hungry.

We don’t buy a lot of pre-prepared food. Veggie pizzas when they are on sale. And chocolate lava cakes that come in single serves. Pretty well everything else we make from scratch. The other day I bought Malcolm one of those birthday cakes as a treat and he was quite put out. He loves making his own cake, it turns out. The cake was dry so I took it back and used the refund to buy his ingredients, saving about 2/3 of the money I’d initially spent.

Watch the bigger-is-cheaper mindset that accompanies no-name brands and oversized offerings. Check the unit price to be sure you’re getting a deal, particularly on cleaning agents, which can be very expensive. And if you’re using a coupon, applying it against a smaller, lower cost items results in bigger percentage savings.

If you’re lucky enough to live in an area where there are lower cost stores – discount stores, local markets or ethnic supermarkets for example – you might want to hit those first. Also be adventurous about shopping off-brand labels. Share your info with friends and family and encourage them to share their great finds with you. Start an email club with local friends to keep each other abreast of special deals or coupons that will help you cut your grocery bills down and leave more money for other stuff.

At no time do our grocery bills go up more than during the holiday season when we’re spending more money on treats and meals to entertain family and friends. If we’re not careful, the family feast can throw the budget completely out of whack. I’ve been saving up my PC points so that I can get through the holidays with all the extra stuff without overly straining my budget. What have you been doing to prep for the hit your budget will take?

Seems the answer lies in a psychological response call the halo effect.  In a classic paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology thirty years ago, R. E. Nisbett and T.D. Wilson found that global evaluations about a person (is she likeable?) affect our judgements about their specific traits (is she smart?).

Nisbett and Wilson examined the way students made judgements about a lecturer. The students were divided into two groups who watched two different videos of the same lecturer. One group watched a lecturer answer questions in a warm and friendly way while the other group saw the same person answer the questions in a cold and distant way. Each group of students was asked to rate the lecturer on physical appearance, mannerisms and even his (Belgian) accent.

Students who saw the ‘warm’ lecturer rated him more attractive, his mannerisms more likeable and even is accent as more appealing. The big surprise was that students had no idea why they gave one lecturer higher ratings, even after it was suggested to them that how much they liked the lecturer might have affected their evaluations. Students were convinced they had made their judgement about the lecturer’s physical appearance, mannerisms and accent without considering how likeable he was.

Halo effect explains a lot about why people embrace certain brands as they seek to emulate their favorite stars. When a well known personality is perceived to be attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, and display good judgement. Some of us, it seems, want to BE them. And we’ll go to extreme measures to take on their halo.

Marketers know this and they use it to sell more at a higher price. In his book, Reputation Marketing, John Marconi talks about how books that have ‘Harvard Classics’ written on the front demand double the price of the exact same book without the endorsement.

That’s exactly what happens in the fashion industry: Add a well loved and respected designer’s name to a pair of shoes, handbag or jeans, and watch the prices skyrocket.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the halo effect is that even when we know it exists, we are defenseless against it. In fact, we’ll even deny it’s operating as we plunk down our money.

The next time you go shopping and are tempted by a name-brand anything, ask yourself this question: Are you really evaluating the characteristics of the product or has the halo effect got you by the short and curlies?

Gail, I have a bone to pick with you. How come you’re always picking on girls who like to buy shoes? On the one hand you say you don’t care what people spend their money on as long as they’re not using credit. And then you keep referring to people who spend a lot of their money on shoes as if this is the dumbest thing you can imagine. What’s up with that?

It was signed “Carrie”, which I imagine is the pseudonym this chick chose because of Carrie Bradshaw’s  (of Sex in the City fame) love affair with shoes.

Hey, you’re right “Carrie”, I don’t much care what people spend their money on as long as it is their money and if it seems like I pick on shoe shoppers it’s because they are such easy targets.

Let me quote Carrie Bradshaw from the show: “I’ve spent $40,000 on shoes, and I have no place to live. I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes!”

It’s a funny line. What’s not so funny is that this is the reality for a lot of dolls out there.  While I’ve been a big shoe pig myself from time to time, I have never, ever spent money on shoes like these:

• Burberry pumps $475
• Burberry flats $425
• Pierre Hardy heels $725
• Gucci heels $665
• Gucci runners $565
• Louboutin pumps $590
• Giuseppe Zanotti $698
• Sigerson Morrison pumps $495
• Roger Vivier pumps $975
• Prada Sport boots $835
• Loefler Randall booties $550
• Dior flats $455

This is a partial shoe list of someone I’ve met. And she’s not the only person I know who has dropped thousands and thousands of dollars to clad her feet in name-brand shoes.

So what’s wrong with this? Nothing, if the money you’re spending represents a reasonable percentage of your income. After all, if you’re Katy Perry or Gwyneth Paltrow and you’re pulling down five or six million a year, dropping $1,200 on a pair of Louboutins is no biggie. But if you’re making  $100,000, $50,000 or $35,000 a year, and you’ve got a mortgage to pay, retirement to save for, and a couple of kids to educate, what the hell are you thinking blowing that kind of money on something as insignificant as a pair of shoes?

Carrie Bradshaw may be a fictional character, but she’s reflected in thousands of people who put the thrill of a big purchase ahead of the satisfaction of a slow but steady commitment to building financial stability.

Blowing money on stuff that has no real value beyond the impression it may create, assuming you hang around with dopes who are that easily impressed, likely means you don’t have the good sense God gave a goose. Nothing I say is likely to change your mind. And, like Carrie, it may occasionally occur to you that your behaviour has long term consequences. But like Carrie you’ll probably blow off such a deep thought and head on out to the stores for some more shopping. Happy hunting!

But I’ve also written quite a lot about how to Shop Smart, about Conspicuous Consumption and about Thoil. Some of my friends like to make fun of the fact that I don’t know one type of make-up or shoe label from another. Some people tease me about my cluelessness when it comes to fashion. And some wonder if I ever just blow a bundle.

Once upon a time I was a fashionista. I had a hat and a pair of FM pumps for every $800 suit I owned. I drove a really expensive sports car. I had my hair and my nails done every few weeks. I was a doll, and I dressed myself up and turned myself out. I wanted to leave people with an impression. And I did. I was very successful as a consultant, and my “image” went a long way in convincing others I was very confident. (Ha!)

Then I grew up. When I had my children, everything about me fundamentally changed. Time became more important than money (extra money to buy stuff, that is), and I swapped my fancy-fancy for plain ol’ plain ol’. I learned that I was really smart – so I didn’t have to convince anyone anymore – and I didn’t give a rat’s butt what people thought of my “behaviour.” I howl (like a wolf) when I’m happy. I cry when I’m sad. I spit when I’m pissed.

Thoil became my word of the day. Could I reasonably justify spending that money on whatever it was I was looking at? I moved from defining myself by the stuff I had to figuring out what I really enjoyed, buying that, and keeping the rest of my money where I could use it for good or pleasure later.

Some people call me cheap. Some people think I’m frugal. I think I’m just plain ol’ sensible. It’s dumb to waste money. And it’s dumber to do it because of the “impression” you want people to have of you. If you’re shopping up a storm – whether it’s a big-screen TV or a $1200 handbag – so people will say, “Wow!” you should wonder why they’re not saying “Wow!” just because you’re YOU!

I don’t care what people spend their money on. Really I don’t. If it floats your boat to have a different set of glasses for each outfit you wear, and you’ve paid for them all without using credit, you should have a great time with them. But if you have a different set of glasses because you’re defining yourself by how you look in those glasses, you should ask yourself what else you could be doing with your life (other than shopping) to define who you are.

So often we fall into the trap of not really knowing who we are or what we want. We’re like refugees from an episode of Sex In The City. Gawd. How pathetic. While it may not be as glamorous to live a contented and peaceful life, it’s far more satisfying than aching for all the things we feel we should have, but simply can’t afford. Or worse, refusing to deny ourselves, and racking up thousands of dollars in debt for stupid stuff.

My ex-husband used to quote me a poem:

contentment is for
babies and for cows.
to live life vibrantly is
to dangle securely from
the end of a
frayed string.

Nope, not for me.  I value my peace of mind too much. I’ve experienced contentment and it’s a sweet spot.  I don’t care who calls me cheap or frugal or whatever else is going. I’m sensible. And I’m happy.

How many of you know someone dangling from a frayed string?

Once upon a time all retailers had to do was pile it high and sell it cheap. If they could convince us that we were getting a good deal, we bought. And bought. Retailing has come a long way since.

Now grocery stores know that having the aroma of freshly-baked bread wafting through the store will make shoppers feel hungry; you know what happens when you go grocery shopping and you’re hungry? Some retailing experts even put the smell of coconut into travel agencies since many suntan lotions smell of coconut and the scent can remind people of past holidays.

Since we’re a lazy bunch of fools, we often default to buying whatever is at eye level on a shelf. Retailers respond by stacking products with the highest margins – the difference between their cost and their selling price – within our line of sight.  Or they sell those spots to manufacturers, charging them “slotting fees” for the privilege of having the prime spot on the self.

Do you know that retailers can even predict (and set up their stores to take advantage of) the direction you’re likely to head in when you walk into a store? Think about your favorite store. Close your eyes. You’re walking into the store. What direction do you go in: left, straight ahead, or right?

The more time you spend in a store, the more likely you are to buy. That’s why grocery stores have gotten into the business of selling merchandise… stuff you’ll enjoy browsing. They’ve set up magazine and book racks because these are “rest spots” that let shoppers slow down and recoup. They know the longer they keep you in the store, the more profitable you’ll be. And they put all they stuff they know you’ve come to buy – butter, milk, eggs – right at the back of the store so you’ll have to walk buy all the other stuff to get there.

Speaking of browsing, if you incorporate sampling into your walk-around, you’re done for. As you’re wheeling around the store, avoid sampling. It’s a ruse designed to get you to spend more money. Sampling extends to picking stuff up and handling it. The more we touch, smell, examine a product, the more likely we are to buy it, which is one very good reason why we should NOT try on clothes, shoes, handbags we don’t intend to purchase.

And then there’s the “sale” – the bargain that makes us pick up a couple or six of something the retailer knows we like to buy. Having just saved $12 on tomato sauce (we are such good shoppers!), we can justify dropping $6 on that decadent cheesecake.

The inoculation that works best against the retailing ploys designed to separate us from our money is The Shopping List. Shopping with cash helps too. When we use a credit card, we are much less likely to overspend because it’s easy to forget that we’re using real money. Credit cards let us feel all the pleasure of buying something new without experiencing any of the pain of having just spent the rent money.

Of course, the single best way to avoid spending money is… (drumroll please…) don’t go shopping. How many days can you go without stepping into a store to get the high of having spent money? Do you have a buy-nothing day? 

Oh, by the way, when you went into that store, I bet you turned right!

Your turn: Let’s hear your story of how you ended up buying something you never intented to buy.

It’s hard to live in today’s world and not want stuff. Every time you turn around, there’s a new and improved something. Even the laundry detergent aisle is full of new and improved. Com’on. Really? New? Improved? Or just another purchasing choice designed to make us want to buy more, more, more.

There are products that go through genuine improvement as companies learn more about what customers want. All you have to do is look at the computer world to see how much better today’s laptop is than the one you may have purchased four years ago. Four years, in computer-land is an eon. But if the laptop you bought four years ago still serves you well, would you lay out more money for a new one just because it’s new and improved?

Perhaps the place where people have been most indiscriminate in their shopping is in the housing market. Once upon a time, people saved for 10 or 16 years to come up with the downpayment for a home. They lived there until they died. That’s what the word “mortgage” means: “mort” death; “gage” commitment; so a mortgage was a commitment until death.

Now-a-days we want to move homes every five years, upgrading as we go, taking on more debt, and figuring we need more space, more features, more, more, more. And since we’re springing for a new home, we should also pony up for new furniture, new appliances, new electronics. The list becomes one that never ends; we simply buy everything we need, and then find a way to need more so we can go shopping again.

While some people want to blame external forces – the world of advertising takes a big hit – for our want-i-tis, the fact that we are never satisfied with what we have speaks more to what we feel is missing than it does to the pretty pictures and snappy slogans. After all, do you really think that smothering your face with $200 worth of cream will make you look like the 16-year-old they used for the advertisement?

What’s so wrong with wanting what we have, with being satisfied with what we’ve already accumulated, with focusing on saying “thank you” instead of “gimmie?”

I’m a big believe in “enough”… in looking at what you have and being satisfied. The house doesn’t need to be “improved”, the wardrobe doesn’t need to be “updated”, the face doesn’t need to be “unlined”. The fact that you’ve got stuff enough to live, to thrive, and to be happy should be the signal to stop buying more.

‘Course, if what you’re doing is shopping to fill The Void, then there will never be enough. So the first step in figuring out if you have enough is to answer the simple question, “What makes me happy?’

Happiness isn’t just about the things you need to survive. You must also grow. I love to read. If I don’t have stories to enjoy, my life is less rich. So I need to be immersed in stories to thrive. That’s one of my things. What are your things?

And Happiness isn’t about Just Enough to Keep Body and Soul Together. Some people do fine living a minimalist life. Me, I’ve got to have a pantry full of food to feel safe and secure. (I was never a starving child, so I have no idea where this comes from.) You need to gage your own level of “enough”; no one can set it for you.

Once you’ve taken care of your thrive needs, and satisfied your sense of comfort, the hard question becomes, “Why am I buying this?” If you already have 10 pairs of black shoes, will one more pair actually improve your life? If you’ve got 30 cute tops, what do you need the next cute top for? And if you’ve just upgraded to the latest ipod, why does the launch of the new, brighter, better ipod fill you with frustration?

Perhaps this is the toughest question of all: If I wasn’t working to buy more stuff, would I be able to work less, and what else could I do that would make me happy?

This is the really big question since most people have absolutely no idea what makes them happy. They just keep doing what they’re doing, surviving on the small spurts of pleasure they derive when they go shopping and their brains release the pleasure drugs associated with buying stuff. They settle for little shocks of happiness because they can’t figure out what makes them truly happy.

If you’ve got a shopping problem, figure out why you shop and whether you’re suffering from The Void. It’ll save you a bag of money in the future. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

With jobs going buh-bye and the economy in the tank (yes, it’s official), this is the year to try perhaps NOT to blow your brains out on the holidays. While I’ve always been a Holiday Whore, this year’s gonna be a bit different. A divorce, a new home purchase and a big move (I’ve been packing for weeks) have conspired to put the kybosh on spending.

Taking a more sensible approach to the holidays doesn’t have to mean trolling your closets for things to re-gift. After all, if you don’t want it, why would your sister?  But since many of us are done with clutter, we’ve woken up to the reality that we don’t need more STUFF. So what are you going to do differently this year that doesn’t involve simply walking the mall and ticking names off your list?

Getting through the holidays on a budget probably means you have to think hard about what you’ll give. The idea is to come up with realistic ways of getting to January without a wicked credit hangover.

One of my shooter boys told us at lunch that his family is planning to pool their money and make a charitable gift. His words, “We’ve all got all the stuff we want, so this is better.” Go Adam.

You could make your gift. No, I don’t mean something hokey; how about something your recipient would love? Like a coupon book for free babysitting, pet-sitting, house-cleaning, whatever it is you can do well that someone else would love. This is the old “gift coupon book” idea and it’s one of my favs.

Some families have already initiated the “gifts just for the little kids” approach to the holidays. The spirit of Christmas is to be together and celebrate. No one says those celebrations have to centre on the exchanging gifts. For those for whom pressies are still a big part of the experience, you could choose names. Then each person only has one gift responsibility. Fams often also set a price limit for the gifts.

Course, if you set a price limit for gifts you have to stick to it. There’s always some fool who while espousing the benefits of a toned- down holiday, then tries to show off.  If you’re determined to stay on budget, be clear with your family: “People, money is tight this year, so we’re scaling back, focusing on the fun, okay?” If your family chooses not to cooperate, you should stick to your guns and not feel guilty. (Guilt is a wasted emotion.)

While I’ve never been a last-minute shopper, people assure me this is a great way to save. I met a guy the other day that told me that he and his buddies make an event of shopping on Christmas Eve. They meet for breakfast, hit the mall and shop ‘til they’re done. Since the projections for this Christmas season’s sales are waaaay down, there may be some wickedly deep discounts as Santa’s sleigh draws closer.

One way to fund Christmas is to sell stuff you no longer have a use for and use that money to go shopping.  Since the money won’t be coming out of cash flow or going on your credit card, you won’t have to give anything up in order to give pressies. Make sure you limit your Christmas budget to the funds you raise.

Okay, it’s your turn. How are you dealing the pressure to give?

Gift cards have become incredibly popular. A whopping $1.2 billion in gift cards are sold every year. Since it is tacky to hand someone a twenty and say, “Buy yourself something nice,” a whole new culture of giving has sprung up around plastic that acts like a credit card (you can shop without touching any money) and looks like a credit card (kinda), but doesn’t wrack up debt.  And it’s been a boon people who just don’t know what to buy as a gift because everyone already seems to have EVERYTHING!

Personally I don’t like gift cards. First, they’re bad for the environment. Second, they distance us from our money (yet again) so we put less thought into our purchases. Third, they’re hard to use. Redemption always seems like such a chore for the check-out person. And fourth, they’re a rip off!

I don’t think I need elaborate on my first point. They’re plastic. They’re often one-use. And they’re multiplying by the millions. And where do they all go when they’re redeemed?

If you have a $20 bill that you could spend on anything, you’re more likely to do a better job of shopping than if you have a $20 gift card that you can only spend in a particular retail environment. Yah, those soaps are nice, I guess, and I have a gift card, so I might as well. Hmmm.

I recently redeemed a bunch of shopping points for gift cards, and that’s opened my eyes to the monsters these little pieces of plastic really are. If you try to use more than one card (and this goes for coupons too) at a time, it’s like you’re committing some major shopping faux pax. The line gets longer as your cashier rolls her eyes at you, and you wonder, “Why am I doing this?” That may be one of the reasons why up to $180 million is lost from people failing to use their gift cards.

In 2006, Best Buy revealed that a boon of $43 million existed on the books from gift cards that would likely not be redeemed. Wow! That’s $43 million dollars in MONEY for NOTHING but a piece of plastic.

Now we come to my 4th point: what a rip-off they are. So, I go into a drugstore to use their gift card and I’m told they can only give up to $2 in change from the card. So while the card is “as good as money”, you can’t convert it back to money, not even in the form of change. You can keep a balance on the card. And up until recently, you had to use the card before it expired or you’d lose that balance. Retailers were even subtracting money from the amount on the card if the card sat dormant for a length of time. Really!

Happily, some provinces are bringing in legislation that says NO MORE EXPIRY DATES or other fees that erode the value of the card. But no legislation will protect you from a company that issues a gift card and then goes bust, leaving you holding the plastic. When U.S. retailer Sharper Image went into bankruptcy, it refused to accept it’s own gift cards.

U.S. credit card companies are getting into the gift card business in a big way. These cards can be used just about anywhere, but usually come with significant fees and restriction. Card issuers also give themselves the right to change the rules however they want, whenever they want. The terms and conditions for the American Express Gift Card indicates they don’t even have to give you notice of changes.

As far as I’m concerned, gift cards should go the way of the dinosaurs. If someone wants to give me a gift, I want some thought to go into it. If there’s not a lot of money available, I don’t care. I truly do believe it’s the thought that counts. So the only gift cards or coupons I’m willing to accept are those drawn with crayons or markers and liberally sprinkled with glitter!

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Despite the way I dress on TV, I’m not a clothes horse, and some people’s obsession with handbags, shoes, shirts, skirts, blouses, jackets, watches… well, I could go on forever… seems weird to me. I’ve been in homes where there are hundreds of pairs of shoes, dozens and dozens of pairs of jeans, and cupboards and drawers full of clothes, along with loads of debt. I scratch my head. What drives us to collect all this STUFF when a) we’re in debt and b) we just can’t afford it?

According to the Stats Man, in 2002 Canadians spent $21.5 billion dollars on clothing and accessories. Women’s clothing made up about half of that spending, men’s made up about 29% and the rest was on kids’ clothing.

So, just how many pairs of shoes can we wear? Do you really need 40 T-shirts? And how can a handbag priced at $600 ever be a good idea, particularly if you’ve got ANY debt?

Clothing, it seems, has a lot to do with how we see ourselves and others. Many people use clothing as an opportunity to express themselves, and just as many use it as a means of judging others. If you’ve caught yourself looking at some fatty walking along in a too-tight t-shirt and cringing, or wondering why that woman would pair that lovely plaid skirt with that horrible polka-dotted ruffled blouse, you’re guilty.

Men and women are so weird about their clothing obsessions that they actually lie to each other about what they’ve paid. Sometimes they lie UP to impress. Sometimes they lie DOWN to appease. But the very fact that you feel you have to lie about what you spent on an item should indicate how twisted this all is.

I’ve listened and watched people almost get into battles over the question of whether to by cheap-and-often or quality-that-lasts. People get all uppity about their brands. And there are dopes who believe that dropping $400 on a pair of shoes, handbag, new jacket, is something they HAVE to do. There are people who’ve told me they HAD to buy it because they were “saving so much.” And there are people who, despite having several versions of an item already, have to acquire the next one anyway.

Now that the prices of food and gas are going through the stratosphere, it’ll be interesting to see if people are willing to cut back on their STUFF so they can keep eating. I’m not willing to take a bet on it since this aberrant shopping behaviour is totally unpredictable.

If you find that you’re guilty of having too much stuff, but you just don’t know where to start, it may be time to take inventory and make some choices. After all, you can’t possibly wear it all, and there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing.”

Empty your drawers, putting everything on your bed in a pile. If you have seasonal clothes, separate the seasons, and put the clothes you’re not wearing this season aside.

Of this season’s clothes, choose those you really love and actually wear on a regular basis.

If you have special occasion clothes, pick out the ones that are your favs.

Put the clothes you love back in your drawers leaving space around the clothes so you can get them out easily. If you’re stuffing your drawers, you still have too much stuff.

Now, do the same thing with your off-season clothes, putting the ones you’re planning to keep in a bin for the swap-over, and setting aside the stuff that’s just accumulated that you NEVER wear.

Ditto handbags, shoes, jewelry, hats, scarves, undies, PJs, and whatever else you’re hoarding. And, of course, there are all the clothes hanging in your closet. Yup. Them too.

You can do this exercise for your linen closet, your towels, your dishes, glasses, cups and mugs, DVDs, CDs, books.

Now, make yourself a promise that you’ll never impulse buy anything again. If there’s something you need, you’ll put it on a list. You’ll price it out, and write a target price beside it. Then you’ll buy it when you have the money to pay for it, and it has hit your target price. If you want to keep simplicity front and centre, add that you’ll get rid of something you no longer use every time your bring something new into your space.

As for what to do with the stuff you’re divesting: charities abound. If you have women’s and children’s clothes, consider your friends and family, then a women’s shelter. If it has value, sell it on Craig’s List. Put whatever you earn toward your debt. If you don’t have any – YEAH! – put it towards your next experiences.

It’s experiences that make us happy, not STUFF. Commit to having a great experience with a friend, your partner, your kids, and then give yourself something to look forward to that you can use to battle off the STUFF MONSTER the next time it rears its ugly mugg.

There’s nothing like a great back-to-school sale to get a person’s juices flowing. Shopaholic or not, the new school season brings out the crazed consumer in most. Clearly there are smart and not-so-smart ways to arm our kids with all the stuff they’ll need to face a new school term, but the distinction is not always clear. So here are some guidelines:

DO shop the sales. You can make your dollar go a lot further by gathering up the flyers and doing a little prep work. I buy my kids’ next season’s clothes at the end of the current season, usually at fifty to seventy percent off. Add up the cost of a snowsuit, boots, and the next-size school wardrobe and the savings are huge.

DON’T buy things you don’t really need no matter what a great price they’re going for. Going out of business sales and retail closures can tempt even the savviest shopper. Make a list before you go and stick to it. 

DO involve your kids in the experience. Giving them a budget to work with for school supplies or at least part of their clothing purchases will initiate them in the budgeting process. Help them to set priorities and to determine quality.

DON’T be unilateral, as in “You can’t buy that. It’s stupid.” Once you give your child the money you also have to ante up the responsibility or she won’t learn a thing. If she’s determined to make a bad purchase (in your opinion), let her. The consequences will teach the lesson. Just don’t stick your hand back in your wallet to rectify the situation when she sees the error of her ways. With responsibility should come accountability. Let her earn the money to rectify her problem.

DO hold off on shopping until you’ve done a complete inventory of what your child has and what he needs. If last year’s jacket still fits, that’s one less expense. And if you wait until he’s back in school to do the school-supplies run, you’ll end up getting what he needs, not what he thinks he needs.

DON’T forget about extra-curricular expenses such as sports equipment, music books, uniforms and the like. You’ll likely have to come up with extra money during those first few weeks of school to cover all sorts of activities, so hold some back when you’re off shopping.

DO stick to your guns about what you can afford to spend on your child’s clothes. Even if she has to have that jacket, you can say “No.” She won’t break. You could, of course, allow her to upgrade using her own money to make up the difference between what you’re prepared to spend and the brand she absolutely has to have

DON’T miss the opportunity to guide your kids. This is your job. Remember to keep talking about the cost in terms of what else that money could buy, as in “Sam, I know you really want those jeans, but you also wanted to save for your ski lessons. Which one’s more important to you in the long run?”

DO show your children your budget so they have realistic expectations. Many parents hate to talk about money with their kids. And they’re dead set against disclosing the realities of their financial circumstances. Then they get ticked when their children don’t show sufficient appreciation for how hard they have had to work to provide those no-name jeans. Well, if you don’t tell ‘em, how are they supposed to know? Being smart about money isn’t intuitive. It’s learned. And you are your children’s most influential teachers… of both good habits and bad.

DON’T burden your kids with the horrors of your financial mistakes. If this seems to be a contradiction of what I just said, it’s because there’s a fine line between being up-front and truthful with children, and burying them in reality. Kids deserve to feel safe. Telling them you haven’t got the money to buy groceries doesn’t add to their sense of security. What you want is to create a sense of reality for your children, not to worry them to death.