A simple tip that I came across while reading The Quiet Millionaire is to frame your spending in pre-tax dollars rather than after tax dollars. Assuming a 33% tax bracket(actual tax rate of about 25%), you need to earn $1.33 for...
Most of us intuitively know that when the first big heat wave hits our town, good prices in the air conditioning and fan aisles will be few and far between. The question remains though, when is the best time to buy...
“Does that headline grab your attention? Well, it’s true. Retailers spend millions figuring out how our minds operate so that they can become more effective. As consumers it helps to examine some of the ways in which retailers are using research...
10 days into the July Cash Experiment and we have seen our share of speed bumps. First was forgetting that Sunday the 1st was actually July. I hadn’t withdrawn any cash to start the month. My preparation wasn’t there and I...
Credit cards are cleverly designed so that we can comfortably spend more than we make. One of these design features is that we are allowed to make repeated small purchases, yet the purchase ‘pain’ is limited to a mere twelve times...
Duncan Simester created one of the first experiments that attempted to directly test how consumer’s ‘willingness to pay’ is affected by credit cards. In this experiment 1st year MBA students were instructed to provide a sealed envelope with the amount that...
I go to the vending machine maybe once a month. Each time it gets more and more painful knowing that the item is has such a huge markup(I still buy). I realize that am paying for my lack of planning and...